No one read the other Reuters article on this - it may have been criminal for NSA employees to participate in this, at the very least it was highly discouraged. If anything this is a good argument to pay IC employees on the GS payscale better so they're less likely to take jobs with other countries.
Large govt. contractors and sub companies run this and all the other programs like this. There is tacit approval for these ops. I'd even imagine there's a bit of intel being fed back to them from the new employees.
"The FBI is now investigating whether Raven’s American staff leaked classified U.S. surveillance techniques and if they illegally targeted American computer networks" [1]
It's still illegal to use US classified information for a program like this and it's still illegal to target American citizens or networks.
I didn't say it wasn't, I simply said all of it could be encompassed by the specific clause of "TTP's" that is common in anyones read on-off of information. The difficulty becomes in proving what was classified and what wasn't when it comes to techniques and procedures. If you were to use a liberal sense of the term, many of your "Security Professionals" deploying their skills around the US right now would be in violation. It's why there isn't a simple non-compete / non-authorization of future work within that field, it's just not going to stand up in court.
It's all as clear as mud and in this instance the government was more than aware of their former employees working there, many returned and went back to their prior careers.. think about that one for a second.
