Posted by
Steve Smith on
Nov 29, 2013; 5:37pm
URL: http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/RE-HPSCI-Seeks-a-Continuous-Evaluationa-of-Security-Cleared-Employees-tp7584392p7584407.html
Glen -
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.
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!"
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.
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/4300722
I 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>
It turned out that ATT was still holding a grudge from nearly 10
years before when I'd taken their Visa/calling Card offer and
after a few years of hardly using it canceled it, but some how
fumbled the last $.02 of the bill leading to a $35 late charge
which I refused to pay. They had been nasty-gramming me for 10
years and made me jump through at least one hoop backwards to
secure a mortgage.
It was still on my record... and then THEN it seemed that the two
years of 2004, and 2005 when I'd never received my IRS refund for
the year, that they had misplaced/lost/fumbled my returns. Since
*they* owed *me* money, I didn't worry too much when I never heard
back... I vaguely wondered where my $212 and $363 checks were for
those years, but not too much... and suddenly I get the *only
indication ever* that the IRS "didn't have a filing for those
years". The states of NM and CA both had my filings... I had my
own copies... and they had merrily accepted my 2006, 2007, 2008
filings without a whimper... so HOW could they not have my 2004,
2005 filings, and how could they not have mentioned to me? If I
had *owed them $$* I'm pretty sure they would have been all over
me.
I was a pretty vanilla filer in those days so they had everything
(W-2 forms, Mortgage deduction, not much else) I put in my filing
anyway... so clearly they knew I didn't owe them money and weren't
pushing me to claim what THEY OWED ME! Anyway, after wading
through his page after page after page of this stuff I dismissed
it all as BS... (politely but firmly) and that I would *look into
it* but that none of it sounded like it made me a security risk in
any way. He harrumphed and went away.
Three weeks later, I get notification from my "supervisor" (holder
of my guest scientist/clearance) that this bozo had filed his
recommendations with a "negative". I tried to contact him to no
avail and finally demanded a copy of his report straight from the
FBI. There was no mention of the credit report, and no mention
of any specific issue, only his statement that "the subject was
highly evasive and uncooperative, and when I went to verify his
place of employment, it did not exist". I was self employed, and
had offices in the Los Alamos Research Park... I met him at the
Santa Fe Complex (which is where I was spending a lot of time that
month, and he was based in SFe himself)... but when he went to the
LARP, there were no signs pointing to my offices and nobody in the
building except the few people with offices near mine knew of me
or my business... so he just didn't look hard enough? FFFfff!
</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 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 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
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.
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