RE: HPSCI Seeks âContinuous Evaluationâ of Security-Cleared Employees
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RE: HPSCI Seeks âContinuous Evaluationâ of Security-Cleared Employees
 
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"But I can't help but wonder what such a culture does/will engender?"
[..] "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..." Hmm. That sounds like something a criminal would say! Does that answer your question? ;-) "They certainly won't be risk-taking entrepreneurs who constantly stand at the edge of bankruptcy." Whatever you might think about the leaked NSA programs, you've got to at least admit that they weren't being timid. And congressional leaders in-the-know must have realized the potential blowback.. Marcus -------------------------------------------------------------------- mail2web LIVE Free email based on Microsoft® Exchange technology - http://link.mail2web.com/LIVE ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com |
Re: HPSCI Seeks “Continuous Evaluation” of Security-Cleared Employees
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On 11/27/2013 02:17 PM, [hidden email] wrote:
> Hmm. That sounds like something a criminal would say! > Does that answer your question? ;-) Ha! Yes, of course. If I were a criminal, I'd be the lazy sort, say that walks along a row of parked cars trying every handle and only stealing the ones that had the keys in the visor. > Whatever you might think about the leaked NSA programs, you've got to at > least admit that they weren't being timid. And congressional leaders > in-the-know must have realized the potential blowback.. Yeah, that's a good point. Living inside a black operation like the NSA does allow a freedom of thought that is less available in more transparent (publicly traded) or more constrained (small/private) organizations. But it also diffuses accountability. If we had some surveillance tapes of the process so that we could identify the worker bees who executed the various NSA schemes, then get them fired and thrown in jail for doing that, I would guess future execution on such ideas would be dampened. We do that in the more transparent parts of the military, already. Only rarely is a member of the "brass" punished for signing off on some bad behavior. It's usually the soldier(s) who execute the plan that are held accountable. The continuous evaluation/monitoring seems to further encourage a multiple personality split in the person working in such an organization. First, as long as the organization "buys off" on whatever action, no matter how repugnant it may be in a normal context, then it's probably OK to do it. Hence, those invisible soldiers can act in ways we (and perhaps even they) would consider reprehensible were they out here in the normal world. And they can do it with a clear conscience because the organization signed off on it. But second, "vetting" the soldiers regarding financial, addiction, psychological problems with a continuous eval/monitoring program selects for people who are squeaky clean in their personal lives. The combination seems to optimize for multiple personality disorder. Someone who is able to completely fracture their self into "work" and "home", creating the ultimate "just following orders" excuses. All I can say is that I hope the health insurance plans for cleared employees includes full support for mental illness. -- ⇒⇐ glen ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com |
Re: HPSCI Seeks âContinuous Evaluationâ of Security-Cleared Employees
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In reply to this post by Marcus G. Daniels
``The combination seems to optimize for
multiple personality disorder. Someone who is able to completely fracture their self into "work" and "home", creating the ultimate "just following orders" excuses.'' Another point of view is that whatever box one lives in, that box has norms and a lot of them are more-or-less arbitrary and imposed. For example, there's no opt-in for where you grow-up. Having multiple boxes can be as much change of scenery as it is a source of stress. Familiarity breeds contempt. Marcus -------------------------------------------------------------------- mail2web LIVE Free email based on Microsoft® Exchange technology - http://link.mail2web.com/LIVE ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com |
Re: HPSCI Seeks “Continuous Evaluation” of Security-Cleared Employees
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On 11/27/2013 03:13 PM, [hidden email] wrote:
> Another point of view is that whatever box one lives in, that box has norms > and a lot of them are more-or-less arbitrary and imposed. For example, > there's no opt-in for where you grow-up. Having multiple boxes can be as > much change of scenery as it is a source of stress. Familiarity breeds > contempt. True. I guess that's an optimistic way of looking at it. If continuous evaluation/monitoring helps the intelligence overlords to judge people on current behavior rather than past or anticipated behavior, then it frees them and their subjects up a little. When you get the clearance, you're not claiming you've _never_ done questionable things or that you will never do them in the future. But you're committing to not doing them _while_ you have your clearance. 8^) It will be more believable once we invent the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuralyzer. -- ⇒⇐ glen e. p. ropella Love sacriface in my backyard ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com |
Re: HPSCI Seeks “Continuous Evaluation” of Security-Cleared Employees
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> On 11/27/2013 03:13 PM, [hidden email] wrote:
I wondered why they insisted on my taking my sunglasses off for the
>> Another point of view is that whatever box one lives in, that box has >> norms >> and a lot of them are more-or-less arbitrary and imposed. For example, >> there's no opt-in for where you grow-up. Having multiple boxes can >> be as >> much change of scenery as it is a source of stress. Familiarity breeds >> contempt. > > True. I guess that's an optimistic way of looking at it. If > continuous evaluation/monitoring helps the intelligence overlords to > judge people on current behavior rather than past or anticipated > behavior, then it frees them and their subjects up a little. When you > get the clearance, you're not claiming you've _never_ done > questionable things or that you will never do them in the future. But > you're committing to not doing them _while_ you have your clearance. 8^) > > It will be more believable once we invent the > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuralyzer. readout process when I gave up my clearances! All the talk about having my "memoirs" reviewed by them before submitting to publication was for show... distraction while they flashed that light in my eyes. Just a tiny point... nothing I ever saw in the clearance investigation or maintenance or training process was likely to be effective against "smarmy". While I do see a positive correlation between those who have been willing to break laws, to expose themselves to *obvious* blackmail risk, or to members of known terrorist or US-antagonistic groups and the possibility of breaching security, it does not really test for the full spectrum of character. I think there is a fundamental flaw in the model used for "secrets". I think that "technical secrets" such as the majority involved in DOE clearances are easier to commit to protecting before you even know what they are. But what if one of those "secrets" is also procedural and is counter to a sense of humanity. What if, for example (and I can deny this because if it has any more basis than in my own fiction, I have never learned of such a thing) that there were properties of the materials or processes used in nuclear weapons manufacture which were *much more dangerous* than anyone could ever have imagined... would *that* be a secret you would keep on oath, despite the presumed inhumanity of the fact and it's being held secret? I think this is roughly the situation the likes of Karen Silkwood was in (if you believe the stories). I think Wikileaks and Snowden's disclosures (their content, if not the process that lead to them) have been met with a significant amount of approval. Citizens of this country and the world have generally been appalled at what was being protected as "a state secret". Certainly there are "hawks" (and some here no doubt) who believe that A) uncleared citizens simply don't have enough context to know the import of seemingly innocent or even hurtful to the interests of their country factoids; and B) if there is a limit to what is acceptable for our executive branch/security apparatus should do to protect our interests, that threshold is much higher than the general doveish population could ever stomach and "needs to be protected" from their own squeamishness. "Waterboarding hell, let's pluck some fingernails, drill some teeth, irrigate some colons under high pressure, maybe flay some skin or eyeballs!" One thing I think conservatives and liberals alike agree on regarding many if not most of the leaks involved is "rule of law". To have a clearly stated law on the books about how our security apparatus (or diplomatic staff in the case of Manning/Wikileaks content) will behave and to find out said law is blatantly being disregarded is a huge deal to all. I am not an expert on Fascism, but I suspect that even the strongest forms of Fascism (formally) have these same checks and balances... their scariness (to most of us) is the extreme bias they put toward the power of the state over the individual, not an implicit rule that "anything goes" trumps the explicit rules. I will give those who want to vilify Manning and Snowden (two very different situations, but with vaguely similar results) the right to condemn their failure to uphold a critical trust. But I will give those who want to exalt them, at the same time, that oath and fealty do not come before honesty and loyalty. I find Snowden's affect and actions more righteous and sincere than I do smarmy... though I do see how one might see some of that in his affect and a few details of his execution of his plan. Once again, I'm just more generous I think. I also could condemn his specific motivations while being thankful for the results of his actions. While the police are held to a high standard of evidence gathering, there is good reason it does not extend to "whistleblowers" or "snitches" as the case may be. - Steve ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com |
Re: HPSCI Seeks “Continuous Evaluation” of Security-Cleared Employees
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On 11/29/2013 05:54 AM, Steve Smith wrote:
> I wondered why they insisted on my taking my sunglasses off for the > readout process when I gave up my clearances! All the talk about having > my "memoirs" reviewed by them before submitting to publication was for > show... distraction while they flashed that light in my eyes. I always figured they did it with an odorless gas... or maybe put something in the slice of cake they gave you at your going away party. It's interesting to compare the "red/blue pill" idea from the matrix to the neuralyzer. They're equally fantastic, I suppose, if we disregard the utter efficiency with which our stomach acids break things down. (Of course, one could argue that the red/blue pill trick relies on the simulant being ignorant of biology. But then again, the neuralyzer relies on being open to suggestion.) But the appeal of one idea over another seems to differ depending on the person. > Just a tiny point... nothing I ever saw in the clearance investigation > or maintenance or training process was likely to be effective against > "smarmy". Ha! Yes, of course. I've always intended to explore the behavior clues that "experts" claim to use for lie detection. But who am I kidding? I'd rather ignore my own biases and go with my gut... maybe I'm more like GW Bush than I like to admit? I can't even be bothered to take the time to watch a TV show about it: http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/4300722 But I am pretty sure the guy who interviewed me for my clearance was schooled in that sort of thing. When I first met him (at the first interview), I thought he was an intensely weird person. He put my own "reading" senses way out of whack. But when I met him casually for access to the vault or some bureaucratic nonsense, he seemed like a totally normal 50-something. However, when being interviewed for other people's clearances, I've gotten no sense of that sensor jamming from any of those people. Either they're more competent at hiding their methods or they don't bother with jamming in that sort of interview. > I will give those who want to vilify Manning and Snowden Just to be clear. I support both of them. I think their leaks have made the world a better place. My own comments about whether or not _I_ would trust Snowden should not detract from my support. I think his passport should be reinstated, the government should thank him for calling out the intelligence community, he should be prosecuted for the laws he broke, and we should modify both the surveillance and whistleblower laws with the lessons we've learned. -- ⇒⇐ glen e. p. ropella You should have have known she was a half-assed shifter ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com |
Re: HPSCI Seeks “Continuous Evaluation” of Security-Cleared Employees
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Glen -
I called mine a "good riddance party"... nobody seemed to get the joke... they just gave me blank stares like "what are you talking about?" ... or maybe they were silently thinking "we didn't think he knew!"I wondered why they insisted on my taking my sunglasses off for the This discussion is taking me back to a moment in 2007 ... the first post on this page is about the fate of one LANL whistleblower while the second is about the history/perspective of Polygraph as Deterrent. But who am I kidding? I'd rather ignore my own biases and go with my gut... maybe I'm more like GW Bush than I like to admit? I can't even be bothered to take the time to watch a TV show about it: http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/4300722I go with my gut every time, even though it has proven to be heavily biased (toward generosity and optimism). "Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice shame on me! Fool me thrice? Hell yes, it's apparently what I'm here for!" But I am pretty sure the guy who interviewed me for my clearance was schooled in that sort of thing. When I first met him (at the first interview), I thought he was an intensely weird person. He put my own "reading" senses way out of whack. But when I met him casually for access to the vault or some bureaucratic nonsense, he seemed like a totally normal 50-something. However, when being interviewed for other people's clearances, I've gotten no sense of that sensor jamming from any of those people. Either they're more competent at hiding their methods or they don't bother with jamming in that sort of interview.In my early thirties, I dated an investigator (for DOE Q/L clearances) and learned a lot about her methods/process just by osmosis. She was very professional and avoided discussing her cases beyond the most tangential, and I respected her ethic and came to appreciate the process a little more than I had as A) a subject of the process and B) a former PI. But it leaked out how much her diligent work was ignored in both directions. People she had found some pretty questionable dirt on were given clearances and people whose travesties were tiny in comparison and could be recognized as "circumstantial" and "mistakes" were hung out to dry. The former might have been about political/etc pull and the latter about quotas/get-tough policies to try to make up for the former examples they "let off". My last investigation (to re-up my SCI) was so offensive that it helped me to let it all go. The FBI-man was "smarmy" himself... as a guest-scientist with my own newly entreprenuerial business also very busy with the SF Complex, I tried very hard to set up a time/place to interview that saved us both time and hassle. He started out very professional but 15mins into it, he tried to ambush me with my "credit report" and later claimed that my offices did not exist as claimed (I had bills to prove if you didn't want to actually walk up one flight of steps above the Hot Rocks Cafe where the stairwell opened onto my office doors). <detailed aside on the specifics>I verbally indicated my intention to file a complaint against him, and against their findings. A week later I checked with my "supervisor" who said that he had talked to the FBI and that they were reversing their recommendation but that he should know that "I had been notably uncooperative and evasive and even if I was not a security risk, they did not recommend my continued 'employment' in a national security position." I didn't flip out, but I didn't smile either. At that moment I realized that I thought I was doing LANL and my sponsoring organization a "favor" with the time I was spending on free consulting to them... and apparently it really wasn't appreciated. I dropped my Q at the same time and withdrew my Guest Scientist status. I didn't bother to hold a second "good riddance" party... but I did have a drink by myself and the pretty bartender. I appreciate your distinction... It wasn't clear to me that you were making that distinction, it is subtle but critical. I suspect most don't make those distinctions.I will give those who want to vilify Manning and Snowden I think his passport should be reinstated, the government should thank him for calling out the intelligence community, he should be prosecuted for the laws he broke, and we should modify both the surveillance and whistleblower laws with the lessons we've learned.I agree with all the above. I think his asking Obama(?) for clemency was the right thing to do, and I think Obama (or a suitable underling) could have at least responded to that request with something other than a harsh/cold shoulder... they could have at least said: "we understand that there may have been mitigating circumstances to some of your disclosures and we agree to hold a full and impartial investigation into those matters and subsequently consider that in your prosecution and possible clemency for some or all of the findings that might be made against you". No promises except to take the circumstances into account... I can't believe that we didn't formally and overtly shut down *all* illegal or possibly illegal intelligence gathering on US Citizens immediately. I guess that would have been like admitting that it WAS illegal? Similar to responding to allegations that we were using *illegal by our own as well as international standards* torture techniques at Guantanamo by saying "we do not torture", while mumbling "however, we are quite proud of our 'enhanced interrogation techniques'". This is all way to Orwellian NewSpeak... - Steve PS. I'm not sure that I would recommend giving *me* a clearance... not because I am a bigger risk than most people of disclosing classified information, but because I have stated publicly that I could not in good honor "promise to preserve any and all declared secrets, no matter their nature". My slightly heightened sense of self-awareness on this topic probably makes me a *lower* risk regarding the actual protection of secrets, yet makes me a *higher* risk in terms of becoming a public spectacle if I I did have something totally unpalatable shoved in my face. ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com |
Re: HPSCI Seeks “Continuous Evaluation” of Security-Cleared Employees
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In reply to this post by glen ropella
On Nov 29, 2013, at 10:04 AM, glen <[hidden email]> wrote: >> I will give those who want to vilify Manning and Snowden > > Just to be clear. I support both of them. I think their leaks have made the world a better place. My own comments about whether or not _I_ would trust Snowden should not detract from my support. I think his passport should be reinstated, the government should thank him for calling out the intelligence community, he should be prosecuted for the laws he broke, […] I agree, except I believe he should be *tried* rather than *prosecuted* for the laws he (allegedly) broke. Tried by a jury of his peers (other whistleblowers? :-). I’m a firm believer in jury nullification. > and we should modify both the surveillance and whistleblower laws with the lessons we've learned. Gary ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com |
Re: HPSCI Seeks “Continuous Evaluation” of Security-Cleared Employees
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On 11/29/2013 10:04 AM, Gary Schiltz wrote:
> I agree, except I believe he should be *tried* rather than *prosecuted* for the laws he (allegedly) broke. Tried by a jury of his peers (other whistleblowers? :-). I’m a firm believer in jury nullification. Good point. I suppose "prosecuted" is a vague term. I also believe in trial by jury. But 2 recent news articles speak to how badly it can go wrong: Owner of alleged Satanic sex abuse daycare released as case against her falls apart http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/11/27/owner-of-alleged-satanic-sex-abuse-daycare-released-as-case-against-her-falls-apart/ Jury: Newegg infringes Spangenberg patent, must pay $2.3 million http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/11/jury-newegg-infringes-spangenberg-patent-must-pay-2-3-million/ It's possible that well educated judges will make better decisions in some circumstances. -- ⇒⇐ glen ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com |
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