Right answer?

Half Fast

Half Fast

Touchdown! Greaser!
Joined
May 7, 2016
Messages
14,563
Location
Central Florida
Display Name
Display name:
Half Fast
I had to do a security clearance update at work last week, and one of the items on the questionnaire was:

Do you advocate the overthrow of the U.S. Government by violence or subversion?​

I answered that I preferred violence, as it seems more honest than subversion, but I'm not sure that's the answer they wanted.
 
Half Fast said:
I had to do a security clearance update at work last week, and one of the items on the questionnaire was:

Do you advocate the overthrow of the U.S. Government by violence or subversion?​

I answered that I preferred violence, as it seems more honest than subversion, but I'm not sure that's the answer they wanted.
Click to expand...

Lol. Now they’ll have to put ‘either’ in there. Then you can say ‘neither,’ I have better ways.
 
Should have come here first. I'm sure someone would have been glad to sell their security clearance to you.....;)
 
Half Fast said:
I had to do a security clearance update at work last week, and one of the items on the questionnaire was:

Do you advocate the overthrow of the U.S. Government by violence or subversion?​

I answered that I preferred violence, as it seems more honest than subversion, but I'm not sure that's the answer they wanted.
Click to expand...
The other aspect is that violence is pretty cut-and-dried, but subversion is not. Googling the word results in the defintion, "the undermining of the power and authority of an established system or institution." VOTING would qualify, as would campaigning against a current officeholder.

Years ago, this question was, "Have you or any member of your family ever advocated the overthrow of the U.S. Government?"

Story went that one guy thought about it a moment, and answered, "Yes."

As with all things bureaucratic, this went unnoticed until the final check. Then the do-do hit the fan, and they hauled the guy in to the security office for questioning.

The answer? "My great-great-great grandpappy fought for the South in the Civil War."

They soon added the word "immediate" before "family".....

Ron Wanttaja
 
Daily Double :

Alex Trebek: “How long will this thread stay open before getting locked?...

 
Zeldman said:
Should have come here first. I'm sure someone would have been glad to sell their security clearance to you.....;)
Click to expand...
Why pay? Just copy one of the many examples of SF86's that cleared directly from China.

Nauga,
burned
 
Just had to redo mine this year. Interesting note that the website was showing an average of something like 484 days require for a 10 year reinvestigation on current Secret level clearances. Tops were nearly 700 days and anything above that were beyond that.
 
Craig said:
Just had to redo mine this year. Interesting note that the website was showing an average of something like 484 days require for a 10 year reinvestigation on current Secret level clearances. Tops were nearly 700 days and anything above that were beyond that.
Click to expand...
One of the many things that made retirement joyous... no longer have to worry about the SF86 or any of the required reporting. Had a Zoom meeting with a South African EAA chapter this week. Would have been LOTS of fun trying to report that.

Six months after I left I got a phone call: "We forgot to debrief you on XXXX, and your ticket's still active. Can you come in as a consultant?"

I did (the money was very, VERY good), but it took just fifteen minutes to realize it had been a mistake. Finished the proposal, bailed out, haven't been back.

Ron Wanttaja
 
Ron: Know the feeling on the reporting stuff. 1st time I had a clearance with the current employer, I spent a week working with the crew from MiG during the US tour of the MiG 29’s. Talk about getting some raised eyebrows....
 
My first TS/SI right out of college they asked everywhere I'd been out of the country since 1932, 15 years ago, or my 18th birthday whichever was later. That was pretty much Canada and Italy. Then on my polygraph they asked if I'd ever been outside the US othe than Italy or Canada. I said, you want to know before my eighteenth birthday? They said just give us a list. OK, Brazil, Argentina, South Africa, Rhodesia, Botswana, Kenya, Tanzania, England, Finland, Russia, Poland...wait did you say Russia? Yes. We need the dates and where you stayed. In Leningrad I stayed in the hotel Zaria. How do you spell that? Well it looks like a three, an A, a P, and a backwards R, I guess.

I eventually got that clearance. Over my desk in the SCIF I hung a map of the world I had bought in Moscow (obviously all written in Russian). Since our project did have a geospatial component, people would come in from time to time to check something on the map. I had to provide a little Cyrillic to Roman character lookup on the side of it. There was also a postit note pointing at Denver that said "You are here, Comrade!" It seemed to escape notice until the security officer shows up one day and someone ribs her about the map. She goes in and looks at it:

Where did you get this man?
Moscow?
No seriously?
I bought it in the House of Books in Moscow when I was there.
If I call up and say to take it down, it better be gone by the time we get upstairs.
It stayed up until I left the company.
 
Craig said:
Ron: Know the feeling on the reporting stuff. 1st time I had a clearance with the current employer, I spent a week working with the crew from MiG during the US tour of the MiG 29’s. Talk about getting some raised eyebrows....
Click to expand...
One of our big black programs mostly completed in the mid-90s, and many of the engineers went to work on Sea Launch. Which, of course, was launching a Russian rocket from a converted oil platform. This, of course, gave security fits, especially when many of the people from the previous program were sent to Russia for weeks on end.

About 40 years ago a friend of mine was a major competitor in international Wakefield (free flight) model competitions. They had the world contest in Poland one year (this was prior to the breakup of the iron curtain). He was debriefed prior to departure, told NOT to make any comments that would set him apart from the rest of the American contingent.

Prior to departure, the American team was given a last minute briefing on potential threats during their trip. At the end, the briefer pointed at my friend and said, "If this man gets sick, do NOT take him to a Polish hospital. Take him to the American Embassy only!"

Way to make him blend in.....

He did get re-briefed into all his access when he returned.

Ron Wanttaja
 
What happens if you answer those sort of questions "yes"?

I like to think you get the job and they watch you closely, assuming you're either a particularly dumb or honest spy.
 
cowman said:
What happens if you answer those sort of questions "yes"?

I like to think you get the job and they watch you closely, assuming you're either a particularly dumb or honest spy.
Click to expand...


You might like to think that, but the reality is you don't get the clearance and you don't get the job. But does anyone think a spy wouldn't lie about it?
 
Half Fast said:
I had to do a security clearance update at work last week, and one of the items on the questionnaire was:

Do you advocate the overthrow of the U.S. Government by violence or subversion?​

I answered that I preferred violence, as it seems more honest than subversion, but I'm not sure that's the answer they wanted.
Click to expand...
Is that for the chemtrail job or another job?
 
cowman said:
What happens if you answer those sort of questions "yes"?

I like to think you get the job and they watch you closely, assuming you're either a particularly dumb or honest spy.
Click to expand...

Oddly, in twenty some years of having security clearance investigators show up to ask about current and former employees, I've only ever had to tell them that I didn't believe someone should have a clearance. That day, my boss (the president of the company) actually refused to meet with the investigator (which should have been telling). I ended up as VP talking to him.

ME: For the first time in years, I'm going to have to tell you that I'd recommend this guy not get a clearance.
GUMSHOE: Why? Do you think he's disloyal to the US?
ME: No, I think he's stupid. He'd give away the secrets to the enemy without knowing he's done it.

I had to explain that not only did this guy give out corporate proprietary information to another entity on a couple of occasions but he also made improper comments about a female employee of one company to an employee of another. He failed to see what was wrong with anything he did. It's one of the reasons we had terminated him.

Alas, it was all for naught, I found out they gave the idiot a clearance anyhow. It's not quite as bad as the guy who quit moments before I went in to fire him and had the audacity to use me as a reference. I get this call:

HR: Mr. Lee put you down as a reference.
ME: He did, did he?
HR: You were unaware of this?
ME: Yes.
HR: Would you like to give him a reference anyway?
ME: It would be better for him if I didn't.
HR: I understand.
 
I have an older "maiden aunt" type friend; senior citizen that lives alone and is starved for attention. She's a writer, and among a lot of things, I do the tech support for her computer. Usually, visits to fix minor problems extend to an hour or two because she's lonely and just wants to gab.

I used to list her as a reference for my security clearances...she'd LOVE when the investigator came around to sit and talk with her. She'd call me afterwards and tell me all about it. The investigator's opinion is not known.

One time she said, "I told him you were just a big Boy Scout." Any Star Trek fan will know how I answered that.....

About 25 years ago, I was the chairman of the city's airport advisory board. It was an unpaid, totally advisory position. The board (and myself) had no power, were unpaid, had no keys, were not given access to facilities beyond what the public had, no access to kids or the elderly, etc.

Then the city announced that ALL members of advisory boards would be required to undergo a criminal background check.

This really steamed me. I, of course, went through worse periodically to maintain my security clearances. But this just seemed like a ridiculous invasion of privacy, for no gain in public safety. It was all to minimize the chance of the city looking bad if it turned out that one of its volunteers had a record. It's one thing to assist in avoiding "grave damage to the safety of the United States," it's another when they just don't want to look bad in the newspapers.

I refused, and the mayor fired me from the board. I actually knew the mayor casually; Pete was a good guy, really, and a very good mayor. But he was probably wondering what deep, dark secret I was hiding.

Not long after that, the investigator came around for the final review of my latest security re-check. As part of that, they ask for a reference OTHER than the ones we listed on the paperwork.

I gave him the mayor's name. That probably made Pete REALLY wonder.....

Ron Wanttaja

I still wonder what Pete thought of the DIS investigator coming by asking questions about me.
 
I always figured it this way:

Everyone who’s ever leaked state secrets, passed all the clearance checks and never-ending process.
 
Back in in college, engineering school, early/mid 80's, we used to get the occasional background investigator coming through the dorm asking questions about folks who'd graduated a few years earlier. Being an RA, they usually got pointed my way and I had to tell several of them "It is 1985. Everybody here was in high school when he graduated in '79."

I hope those guys found what they needed, because randomly asking questions in the dorm never worked.
 
denverpilot said:
I always figured it this way:

Everyone who’s ever leaked state secrets, passed all the clearance checks and never-ending process.
Click to expand...
And many of them passed polygraph tests.

Favorite quote is from Alistair Maclean: "There are prisons in America, and cushy hotels in Moscow, full of people who had Top Secret security clearances...."

Ron "in neither" Wanttaja
 
I've never had a security clearance and assume I could not get one. I lived outside the USA for 12 years (Czech Republic, UAE, Republic of Georgia), and have been to nearly 100 countries in the past 20 years including Iran, Yemen, Sudan, Syria, Lebanon, Russia, Cuba and North Korea. If they asked me to provide dates and where I stayed, I doubt I could answer in every case.

I was once asked by CBP what I had been doing in Bahrain 7 years earlier and if anyone had given me anything (?!) when he saw the stamp in my passport.

I can't imagine trying to deal with all that bureaucracy.
 
Half Fast said:
You might like to think that, but the reality is you don't get the clearance and you don't get the job. But does anyone think a spy wouldn't lie about it?
Click to expand...

But here’s the problem: because they are running 700+ days to adjudicate a TS/SCI, they just grant you an interim clearance once you submit in EQIP and then...years later, they are like ‘oh, crap, we have a problem...’
 
denverpilot said:
I always figured it this way:

Everyone who’s ever leaked state secrets, passed all the clearance checks and never-ending process.
Click to expand...

If you’ve ever seen some of the people doing the investigations, you’ll understand why.
 
Fearless Tower said:
But here’s the problem: because they are running 700+ days to adjudicate a TS/SCI, they just grant you an interim clearance once you submit in EQIP and then...years later, they are like ‘oh, crap, we have a problem...’
Click to expand...


True sometimes. Some programs require the final, though, and won’t accept an interim, particularly some SAPs.
 
denverpilot said:
Met a nice USAF Captain once. She seemed pretty normal.
Click to expand...

No, I mean the people doing the actual investigations, interviews, researching your answers...etc.

They are all contractors and or GS employees and some pretty shady ones at that.
 
Pilawt said:
I'm disqualified. I once ordered a salad with Russian dressing.
Click to expand...
Back in the day (this was 1981 when I was working one job), we'd joke about the interviews, "Bill only smokes pot when he's drinking with his gay friends at the young communist league meetings."
 
flyingron said:
Back in the day (this was 1981 when I was working one job), we'd joke about the interviews, "Bill only smokes pot when he's drinking with his gay friends at the young communist league meetings."
Click to expand...


I've found that you can be completely honest yet have a devastating effect simply by tagging the words "when he's sober" to each answer.

"Bill is completely trustworthy when he's sober."

"Bill is a conscientious employee when he's sober."

"Bill would never reveal classified information when he's sober."​

Now, Bill can be a 100% tea-totaler and the above would still be true.
 
denverpilot said:
I always figured it this way:

Everyone who’s ever leaked state secrets, passed all the clearance checks and never-ending process.
Click to expand...

Consider this: How many people who don't have a clearance are targeted by those looking to steal secrets?
 
Bob Noel said:
Consider this: How many people who don't have a clearance are targeted by those looking to steal secrets?
Click to expand...

Quite a few, actually. Threatening family is a common way to get to the secret holder. Bankrupting them is even more common.

Family members who can’t stay out of life or money troubles are a huge liability even for the squeaky clean kids.

Technically — you’re right. They’re targeting the secret holder but indirectly, I suppose.

The “security” folk always want to know where clearance holders’ money comes from and goes to. Number one way to control someone.

Hence: Polygraphs of dubious value... etc etc etc.

But it’s a decent point. No secrets, no lies, nothing to hide. :)
 
denverpilot said:
The “security” folk always want to know where clearance holders’ money comes from and goes to.
Click to expand...

Ha! "Unexplained Affluence" is the technical term.

About 15 years ago, I was called into a meeting with a security investigator. He pointed out that my wife was unemployed, yet we were living in a nice house, recently bought a Lexus with cash, owned an airplane, and had been taking a lot of trips. Where were we getting the money to afford all that?

Pointed out while my wife WAS unemployed, her last employer had been Amazon.com. And that she was one of the first 50 employees, when the company was putting doors on sawhorses for desks, and handing out massive stock options in lieu of higher pay. Told him the number of share options my wife had received, and invited him to check the current stock price to compute their value.

Never had to deal with that question again.....

denverpilot said:
Polygraphs of dubious value... etc etc etc.
Click to expand...

Polygraphs are nothing but a way to put pressure on someone being investigated to see if they crack. In 1983, the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment studied the accuracy of polygraphs, and found while a guilty party had a ~5% chance of NOT being detected, an innocent person had a ~50% chance that the machine would claim they were lying.

Ron Wanttaja
 
kyleb said:
Back in in college, engineering school, early/mid 80's, we used to get the occasional background investigator coming through the dorm asking questions about folks who'd graduated a few years earlier. Being an RA, they usually got pointed my way and I had to tell several of them "It is 1985. Everybody here was in high school when he graduated in '79."
Click to expand...
Same thing with summer jobs. Friend of mine was up for a new clearance, and they sent an investigator to the Dairy Queen he worked at one summer in high school. Typical turnover, no one remembered him.

Now, the following is one of the friend-of-a-friend stories you hear...don't know if it's true or not, but it does imply the investigators DO hit pay dirt in some of the long-time-ago checks.

Anyway, a guy was up for a new access, and was denied. As one can imagine, this can be career-limiting, so he pushed hard to find out the reason.

Finally got a meeting with the investigator in question. The man slapped the folder down on the table, opened it up, and asked, "When you were in eighth grade, did you have the nickname, 'Klepto'?"

Turns out the guy used to walk to school with his friends. The route took them past a neighbor's crab-apple tree, and the guy used to climb the tree and filch one. His friends dubbed him "The Apple Kleptomaniac," shortly abbreviated as "Klepto."

The story didn't include whether the man got the denial reversed.

Ron Wanttaja
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top