About 250 Boeing employees were working on Air Force One planes with expired security clearance, report says

The security crap has gotten out of control.

They are hyper sensitive and super strict in some aspects, but then it doesn’t even apply to folks in Congress, appointed officials that run these organizations, or they give waivers out left and right for folks in top positions that would fail a “basic” background check...

The entire security system in the US is a joke.

One simple and obvious example should make this clear to you.

Do you think a pot smoking, cocaine snorting, guy with associates that are communists or even members of terrorist organizations would ever get a clearance? Yet that man was the Commander in Chief for 8 years, Barrack Hussein Obama.

Do you think he had a full background done? A polygraph? Bla bla bla?

All these idiotic rules only apply to the simple and low people. Do you know where most of these leaks to the media are? They are from the staffers in Congress, or top senior level officials intentionally leaking things to influence the political landscape: https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/29/politics/james-comey-ig-report/index.html

“We don’t pay taxes. Only the little people pay taxes.” LEONA HELMSLEY (the same goes for clearances and all this security junk)

It’s all gotten out of hand, like so many other things where a bureaucracy goes unbridled/unchecked and simply creates more and more policies.

I have an idea. Hope those guys do a good job and actually ensure the plane doesn’t come apart in flight, rather than make sure that they all are in good credit standing, didn’t have an angry ex make accusations of domestic violence, they didn’t smoke pot in the last 6 months, or default on a federal government subsidized student loan (the sort of idiotic junk that gets most peoples clearances pulled but has zero bearing in how they do their job in reality)...

Not sure if you’re telling me that someone like this posses no security risk?

https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/13/politics/sam-brinton-department-of-energy/index.html

1. You have thousands of waivers, BUT ONLY for folks in top positions that are politically connected.

2. Political appointees and elected politicians do not go through the same procedures and are not looked at with the same scrutiny.

3. The so-called adjudication process is subjective.

4. ***The variables used to deny a clearance are largely based on political and social nonsense, NOT objective standards where you can show a correlation and some sort of causality between a behavior and them being a security risk.***

Concrete examples, marijuana use where the standard has shifted many times but it never made any difference in the first place. It was legal before 1969 (Controlled Substances Act), then very illegal, now it’s being relaxed and as long as it’s been more than 6 months back you’re OK today when applying. But can you show me where it ever mattered in the first place? Just one example?

College loan repayments. Can you give me one example of a spy or someone that later leaked information that was someone who didn’t pay back their federal subsidized student loan?

On the one hand you have folks losing a clearance because of “allegations” of physical abuse from an angry ex, while at the same time you have the head of the CIA that was a factual/documented member of the Communist party USA: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2016/09/cia-director-reveals-he-was-once-a-communist-sympathizer.html (and no, he wasn’t on some secret undercover mission)

But let me ask you this, while I can give you NUMEROUS examples of where homosexuals were caught spying, or leaking information intentionally either to the enemy or press, do you think anyone bestowing a clearance would DARE use sexual orientation as a discriminating variable in their clearance process today? https://www.cnn.com/2011/12/18/justice/bradley-manning-hearing/index.html

So you tell me, what is this entire clearance game worth?

It’s a joke that impacts peoples lives, with people that act really important, where we spend a lot of money, but it’s about as real as phrenology.

If we want a personnel security system then maybe we should start by identifying and applying those variables that historically have shown someone to be a security risk. Does that make any sense?

Likewise the entire classification system is a joke.

It is overused as a rubber stamp for CYA purposes by half the folks to put that on every email, etc.

It is abused by folks to hide wrong doing, i.e. things which would cause a public outcry, legal action, etc.

“Secret” or even “Top Secret” gets stamped on far to much, on stuff which the pubic should actually see and the decision makers should be held accountable for.

The concept of government secrecy can apply to literally (((anything))) since even payroll, number of personnel in the agency, the budget, size of various departments, contracts awarded for new systems, etc. can be argued as information someone can exploit for intelligence purposes against you. Today, in the name of secrecy and national security, we no longer explain in a Nuclear Museum (AQ) the operation of the first atomic bombs because of worries that these more simple designs could act as the basis for someone wanting to build one. Even though this is information that is 78 years old, was available before, is available on the Internet, in print, internationally... I am sure some security douche bag GS-14 felt important.

It’s really simple actually: If something reveals technical information that can be used to defeat/counter a system (current - and the information isn’t readily open source available anyhow), identify a source, pertains to future operations, then it’s a secret.

If it makes the director of the CIA look bad, it’s not necessarily a secret. If it makes the President of the US look bad and have to answer questions, that alone is not a secret: https://www.motherjones.com/crime-justice/2012/04/secret-torture-memo-cheney-hid/

The big red and orange stamps are overused.

Bottom line: both the clearances and classification systems need revised.

They need to be made “functional” regards the clearances for personnel, and “transparent” regards the classification system and to the American public.

That doesn’t mean we have no secrets.

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