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What not to write on your security clearance form (1988)

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Re: What not to write on your security clearance form (1988)

#11

Post by avereveard »

a3w wrote: post #6
Reubend wrote: post #4

> I learned by chance that putting certain provocative information on a security clearance form can greatly speed up the clearance process. But that is another story. Did he ever write about what that trick is?

> After about three months it stopped and a month later I was suddenly informed that the clearance had been granted. The other two people whose investigations were begun at the same time did not receive their clearances until several months later. Mongrels are mixed race dogs, I guess? So just put the concept of "race" under scrutiny, and have your mental health debated. E voilà, your background check takes off fast…

reminds me of an old story where the development team was convinced they had a good product, but feared about management intermingling, so they intentionally put a not so good feature front and center for the manager to "remove", so that the rest of the program could pass the demo unchanged.

Re: What not to write on your security clearance form (1988)

#12

Post by AdamN »

DocTomoe wrote: post #8
a3w wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> After about three months it stopped and a month later I was suddenly informed that the clearance had been granted. The other two people whose investigations were begun at the same time did not receive their clearances until several months later. Mongrels are mixed race dogs, I guess? So just put the concept of "race" under scrutiny, and have your mental health debated. E voilà, your background check takes off fast…

Well, we do have "Nafri" (North AFRIcans), "Ausländer" (foreigners, but only used for "problematic" foreigners somehow), "Migrationshintergrund" (migration background, meaning everyone who is an immigrant, and anyone related to them for two generations, regardless of nationality), "Südländer" (initially people from the south, such as Italians, Greeks, Jugoslavians, but nowadays "people coming from the middle east"),…

I'm a White American living in Berlin, what word would the Berlin police put in my file??

Re: What not to write on your security clearance form (1988)

#13

Post by Daub »

This quote...

> When I handed the form in to the security officer, he scanned it quickly, looked me over slowly, then said, ``Explain this''--pointing at the FBI question. I described what had happened. He got very agitated, picked up my form, tore it in pieces, and threw it in the waste basket.

Reminds me of this scene from Starship Trooper...

https://youtu.be/Le-uDcNlJO4?t=118

Re: What not to write on your security clearance form (1988)

#14

Post by petesergeant »

bell-cot wrote: post #10

Sadly, the moral of the story seems to be that the 1943 FBI had loads of zealous (performative?) plods on staff, but ~zero law enforcement professionals. In '43, the US had plenty of highly competent professional cryptographers, who were quite experienced with current Japanese, German, Italian, British, etc. codes. Before an entire local FBI office spent even a day on this case (let alone 6 weeks), maybe they should…

> Before an entire local FBI office spent even a day on this case (let alone 6 weeks), maybe they should have asked some of those professionals to look at the supposed "Japanese code key" page?

That sounds far less exciting than scrambling to find a fifth columnist and potentially being hailed as a hero.

Re: What not to write on your security clearance form (1988)

#15

Post by petesergeant »

xdfgh1112 wrote: post #7
Reubend wrote: post #4

> I learned by chance that putting certain provocative information on a security clearance form can greatly speed up the clearance process. But that is another story. Did he ever write about what that trick is?

https://yarchive.net/risks/mongrel.html Other poster posted the same link but is getting downvoted so might get overlooked.

From that article:

> He also remarked that they had asked him if he knew me socially and that he had answered "Yes, we just celebrated Guy Fawkes Day together". When the investigator wanted to know "What is Guy Fawkes Day?" he started to explain the gunpowder plot but thought better of it. He settled for the explanation that "It's a British holiday".

Re: What not to write on your security clearance form (1988)

#16

Post by [deleted] »

petesergeant wrote: post #15
xdfgh1112 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://yarchive.net/risks/mongrel.html Other poster posted the same link but is getting downvoted so might get overlooked.

From that article: > He also remarked that they had asked him if he knew me socially and that he had answered "Yes, we just celebrated Guy Fawkes Day together". When the investigator wanted to know "What is Guy Fawkes Day?" he started to explain the gunpowder plot but thought better of it. He settled for the explanation that "It's a British holiday".

[deleted]

Re: What not to write on your security clearance form (1988)

#17

Post by ant6n »

Daub wrote: post #13

This quote... > When I handed the form in to the security officer, he scanned it quickly, looked me over slowly, then said, ``Explain this''--pointing at the FBI question. I described what had happened. He got very agitated, picked up my form, tore it in pieces, and threw it in the waste basket. Reminds me of this scene from Starship Trooper... https://youtu.be/Le-uDcNlJO4?t=118

This sort of thing happened a lot with East Germans in the 90s etc. After unification, we of course all became Western Germans, with the right to travel to the US on the visa waiver program. You just had to fill out the I-90 form (and pay 6$ when crossing a land border). It’s a relatively small form, but it does ask whether you’re criminal, used to be a nazi, terrorist… or member of a communist party. Well, most East Germans had to be member of the party, just in order to participate in society, so of course some would later put a mark there when travelling to the US. Border agents would usually just hand them a new form and tell them „you’re supposed to leave this blank“.

Re: What not to write on your security clearance form (1988)

#18

Post by ckastner »

It's a great story, but didn't the author confess to a felony by publishing it? He lied on an official document, even if directed to do so by the person across him.

I know this is pedantic, but that's exactly what I would expect from a security clearance vetting process.

Re: What not to write on your security clearance form (1988)

#20

Post by bell-cot »

petesergeant wrote: post #14
bell-cot wrote: post #10

Sadly, the moral of the story seems to be that the 1943 FBI had loads of zealous (performative?) plods on staff, but ~zero law enforcement professionals. In '43, the US had plenty of highly competent professional cryptographers, who were quite experienced with current Japanese, German, Italian, British, etc. codes. Before an entire local FBI office spent even a day on this case (let alone 6 weeks), maybe they should…

> Before an entire local FBI office spent even a day on this case (let alone 6 weeks), maybe they should have asked some of those professionals to look at the supposed "Japanese code key" page? That sounds far less exciting than scrambling to find a fifth columnist and potentially being hailed as a hero.

True. But most people, after they've been grown-ups for a while, figure out that "find the winning lotto ticket on the sidewalk and get rich" is not how life actually works. And with a war on...the FBI's kids, simpletons, day dreamers, and glory hounds should have been closely supervised by real grown-ups. Or transferred to lines of work better suited to their talents.
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