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
<http://dontworrygonuclear.blogspot.com/2007_05_01_archive.html> ... 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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