The mental gymnastics involved in having a high security clearance. • Hacker News Board

Re: The mental gymnastics involved in having a high security clearance.

#131

Post by mdc » Thu, Dec 01, 2011, 4:13 PM UTC

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #16

There's a flip side to this as well: as a voter, I don't know what information my elected leaders have when making decisions. In theory, with a small amount of secrecy needed to make diplomacy and security function, this makes sense. The problem is that it's not actually working in practice. There are so many un-elected people who have jobs for life and also the ability to classify broad swaths of information that th…

>There's a flip side to this as well: as a voter, I don't know what information my elected leaders have when making decisions.

I once had a discussion with an Air Force officer who was involved with Homeland Security planning. I made points about warrantless wiretapping and other 4th amendment violations by DHS and TSA. He just shrugged and said I would probably feel differently if I knew all the things they had prevented. I said "Absolutely, tell me. Let me make an informed decision about whether DHS should exist or not".

He just shook his head and changed the subject. So much for an informed electorate.

Re: The mental gymnastics involved in having a high security clearance.

#132

Post by nosequel » Thu, Dec 01, 2011, 4:15 PM UTC

secthrowaway wrote: post #118

nosequel wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well this is certainly only partly true. The difference between a generic Secret clearance and the level of clearance talked about in the article is probably bigger than the difference between having a secret clearance and not having one at all. I got my first secret clearance in a month or so, with the interim clearance coming in only a couple of weeks. Hardly anything that would be considered "oh cool!" is labelled…

I'm actually surprised by this. I work with a ton of people with foreign born wives (many not even green carded yet) -- soldiers tend to marry where they are first stationed. Also, I work with plenty of people with TS/SCIs who have used drugs in the past. The key is just being honest with the investigators. You are right that people with too much debt, gambling problems, current drug use, etc. don't get one. But that…

It could have been the particular agency that was doing the clearance in my case. With a military customer, I saw less issues, but with the customer I was referring to in my previous post, there were lots of denials. I think the location of foreign born wives is important in this case. The few cases I saw were countries we don't have good intelligence relationships with, in asia and the middle east.

Re: The mental gymnastics involved in having a high security clearance.

#133

Post by Symmetry » Thu, Dec 01, 2011, 4:26 PM UTC

gujk wrote: post #127

teyc wrote: post #8

If anyone has seen the comedy series "Yes, Prime Minister", they'll often understand how a leader can be manipulated by his mandarins through selective disclosure of uncorroborated information, present consequences couched in politically unacceptable terms, force the hand by setting the agenda. This is especially true if dissenting opinion is filtered before it gets handed to the President etc. I apologize if the fol…

Is there any evidence that the Iraq War was anything but intentional by the President? Secrecy was used to mislead the public , but the entire Administration was hired based on their commitment to finish GHW Bush's war.

Well, Clinton initially spoke out in support of Bush, saying that he had also though that Iraq had WMDs.

Re: The mental gymnastics involved in having a high security clearance.

#134

Post by saturdaysaint » Thu, Dec 01, 2011, 4:45 PM UTC

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #16

There's a flip side to this as well: as a voter, I don't know what information my elected leaders have when making decisions. In theory, with a small amount of secrecy needed to make diplomacy and security function, this makes sense. The problem is that it's not actually working in practice. There are so many un-elected people who have jobs for life and also the ability to classify broad swaths of information that th…

Is it reasonable for everyone to have access to everything? Taking your UFO example, what if the military had information about unknown objects - could these just as easily be foreign drones with advanced technology? In which case, it's arguably in the interest of national security to hold certain things close to the vest. If the President immediately announced that something unknown was spotted, a potential invader could nimbly push to plan B or re-allocate resources toward better cloaking technology.

Secrets are a competitive advantage - conversely, having competing countries (in terms of economics just as much as defense) know exactly what we know would be a terrible disadvantage.

Re: The mental gymnastics involved in having a high security clearance.

#135

Post by rdtsc » Thu, Dec 01, 2011, 4:47 PM UTC

secthrowaway wrote: post #122

nosequel wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whether the machine works or doesn't work is irrelevant if they convince you during the poly that it does work. I had one, and the technician was far more intimidating than the machine. If I had something to hide, by the end he would have gotten it out of my I'm sure.

Right, often they are simply used to indicate when a line of questioning is stressing out the subject and to continue on that line.

When people are "prepared" for the polygraph (say a mole) they are often trained to construct alternative mental models that would let them answer damaging questions without appearing anxious.

For example, they might organize an obvious seemingly accidental meetup in a some monitored public place (train station) with a foreigner from a specific country so when the question is asked "have you met with foreigners from country X" they can say "yes, I sat next to one when taking the train".

Re: The mental gymnastics involved in having a high security clearance.

#136

Post by javert » Thu, Dec 01, 2011, 5:52 PM UTC

secthrowaway wrote: post #116

javert wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You said that there is no level strictly above Top Secret (just comparmentalizations within that). Is there any actual evidence for that? (I mean, non-classified evidence; I'm not asking you for classified information.) Where did you get the statistic about 1 in 50 to 70 Americans have had at least a Secret classification? That seems absurd. What are you talking about when you say "cut off from the outside world most…

All fair questions (I don't know why the down votes for you)! "You said that there is no level strictly above Top Secret (just comparmentalizations within that). Is there any actual evidence for that? (I mean, non-classified evidence; I'm not asking you for classified information.)" There are no levels strictly above Top Secret. At least as far as the military is concerned. SAP programs and compartmentalizations prov…

I'm sorry, I appreciate the information, but you're not actually giving evidence for your claims about TS being the highest.

Same thing for the ratio of people in the military (except for the Daily Mail citation, which is quite helpful). I mean, Army grunts are not required to have clearances [1], for example, so you can't just say "assume everyone in the military has a clearance..."

[1] This may be a misunderstanding on my part, but that's what I've been told. You don't want to clear (and probably can't clear) a ton of 18yo cannon fodder.

Re: The mental gymnastics involved in having a high security clearance.

#137

Post by javert » Thu, Dec 01, 2011, 5:53 PM UTC

secthrowaway wrote: post #120

philwelch wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Secret ain't really that secret. That's why they invented Top Secret. Seriously, if you add up all the military veterans and people who used to work in defense/government contracting who have had to access slightly classified information, that's not an unreasonable ratio.

Right, my out-of-the-ass estimate is probably very conservative. It's probably an even lower ratio in reality, 1:10, 1:15 maybe?

You guys aren't presenting real evidence, just making up numbers. 1:10 is absolutely ridiculous. If there are 4.2 million now (according to the Daily Mail article cited elsewhere), that's 1.36 percent. You're never going to get that to 10 percent, expecially since (as the DM article says) the currently high number is due to recent expansion of the number of people who have clearances (so you can't argue about tons of retirees as easily). I realize that we're counting "people who have ever had a clearance," but I doubt there's going to be like 5 to 10 times the # of contractors who once had a contract, but don't currently have one (again, the increasing number of clearances argues against that).

Re: The mental gymnastics involved in having a high security clearance.

#138

Post by marshray » Thu, Dec 01, 2011, 6:07 PM UTC

bediger wrote: post #50

marshray wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It also makes it more difficult for them to collaborate and conspire without the coordination of those above.

Let's flip that around: it makes it easier for "those above" in the hierarchy to deceive a whole pile of compartmentalized people into performing useless work, and thereby consuming lots and lots of government money.

Good point.

Seems like that would inevitably lead to everyone in the organization unable to determine whether or not their contribution was useful. (Short of them actually saving a life at the bottom level.)

With no hope of finding meaning in your job, it would make a 40-year career to retirement a long career indeed.

Re: The mental gymnastics involved in having a high security clearance.

#139

Post by marshray » Thu, Dec 01, 2011, 6:14 PM UTC

ivansavz wrote: post #79

marshray wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It also makes it more difficult for them to collaborate and conspire without the coordination of those above.

This. The pyramid structure that seems to permeate all things //system// has the following salient feature. Say a system pawn is a node at level $L$ and his/her boss is at level $L+1$ and the boss' boss is at level $L+2$. Depending on social skills and intelligence, the pawn might have information about "what is going on" at level $L+1$ by talking to the boss, but for sure he/she has //no// information about what is…

Interesting, thanks.

Re: The mental gymnastics involved in having a high security clearance.

#140

Post by firemanx » Thu, Dec 01, 2011, 6:26 PM UTC

derefr wrote: post #26

firemanx wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's likely referring to the SCI status - the point of SCI, over and above just Secret or Top Secret, is that you have different "compartments" (clearances) for different categories of information. A guy with SCI working for the DOE would see much different information than a guy working for the DOD, or the FAA. And it's much more granular than that. I don't know anything about how the SCI compartments are created, o…

> I suspect there isn't really anyone who knows what every compartment is. Unless the process is completely decentralized, there must be someone approving new compartments. They probably know at least a little about each one.

Well, you have to keep in mind that compartments, from the way I understand them, are topical, or centered around the specific field they pertain to. Thus, the DOE and the DOD won't have the same compartments, and even the Army and the Navy won't have the same compartments.

This is, I believe, one of the reasons that intelligence sharing between agencies and the armed forces is so difficult. Some intel is compartmentalized in places that are inaccessible to another branch or agency, and changing the classification level or compartment of information is an extraordinarily inconvenient process.

The upside of this, however, is that we really do have a secure system for information