http://blogs.fas.org/secrecy/2013/11/evaluation/On the one hand, I think this is appropriate. My smarmy bells go off
whenever I listen/watch Snowden talk. He just smacks of "insider
threat" to me. So, plans like this seem, in a knee-jerk kinda way, like
a good idea.
But I can't help but wonder what such a culture does/will engender? One
of the reasons I get the heebee jeebees around criminals is their
constant paranoia. Since I hung around many people who were or later
became criminals during my middle and high school days, I often think
that I could easily have become one of them... were it not for the
constant psychological overhead of having to validate every person and
every interaction. That sort of extra effort just to stay alive or out
of jail seems so exhausting... hell, I feel the same way about mundane
tasks like changing the oil in my various engines... there's no way I'm
vigilant enough to be a criminal.
Anyway, what type of person are we _grooming_ to be "clearance holding
personnel"? They certainly won't be risk-taking entrepreneurs who
constantly stand at the edge of bankruptcy. They won't be empathetic
parents of children who end up running in the wrong crowd. They won't
be happy-go-lucky vacationers who might want to backpack across Iran.
Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe the continuous evaluation and monitoring these
cleared people undergo will be sophisticated and will encourage the
evaluated and monitored to live full and satisfying lives. But I can't
help but think that the evaluation and monitoring will actually select
for tight-assed, self-repressed, little fascists who believe all 6 sigma
human behavior should be sliced off and tossed in the incinerator.
--
⇒⇐ glen
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