A top secret security clearance...

timwinters

timwinters

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...needs to be reverified every 5 years. (at least that's what I read today)

...and my third class medical needs to be reverified every 2 years...so I can fly my little 182.

Which is more crucial to the health and wellness and protection of our country?

WTF?
 
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TS clearances these days are a joke. Everyone and anyone can get one. The caveat we were told was that to access classified information was you needed both, the required clearance, and a need to know. Theoretically that would keep the janitor in the Pentagon from leaking nuclear secrets.
 
Sac Arrow said:
TS clearances these days are a joke. Everyone and anyone can get one. The caveat we were told was that to access classified information was you needed both, the required clearance, and a need to know. Theoretically that would keep the janitor in the Pentagon from leaking nuclear secrets.
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1B91DD06-06F0-44F1-AC55-FB8B0248C678.jpeg

Yeah, like him.
 
Another topic near and dear to my heart. And yes, they will give anyone a TS these days. The fact Jared Kushner can't get one is a yuge statement.
 
The base clearance is really common. They send out interviewers to talk to friends and family for the “add ons” these days.

They ask a lot of questions about where the person’s money comes from. More likely to be bribed than anything, I guess.
 
denverpilot said:
The base clearance is really common. They send out interviewers to talk to friends and family for the “add ons” these days.

They ask a lot of questions about where the person’s money comes from. More likely to be bribed than anything, I guess.
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I have a Secret Service agent across the street, and when they do a recurring on him we get to answer questions about him when they knock on our door.

So far he's paid what we wanted and on time....:)
 
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timwinters said:
...needs to be reverified every 5 years. (at least that's what I read today)

...and my third class medical needs to be reverified every 2 years...so I can fly my little 182.

Which is more crucial to the health and wellness and protection of our country?

WTF?
Click to expand...

The top secret clearance is paid for by the govt, the medial is on your dime. Make sense now?
 
Decades ago I got a clearance equivalent to top secret. The federal investigators who screened my application did reference interviews with various people including my former employers, asking if I gambled or committed crimes, etc.

They also talked to my landlord, a nice guy from Hungary who didn't quite understand what this was all about. He assured me later, in his Hungarian accent, that he told the investigator that I ate only healthy food.
 
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I held a TS clearance for years due to being Field Artillery back when we had nukes in the Army. Got lots of calls from folks about DIS folks calling or coming to visit. Due to budget cuts the automatic renewal and investigations were only done for folks with active need to know assignments. As a result, mine was downgraded after five years since my last background check. Naturally, I was later plucked from my unit and deployed to a job in theater with a need to know, only I didn’t have a TS anymore. Typical government SNAFU. It was real PITA.


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Clip4 said:
The top secret clearance is paid for by the govt, the medial is on your dime. Make sense now?
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Some levels of clearance cost about a half-million dollars. When I retired, I was told that clearances were taking about eight months to complete. Much of that was due to the change of administration...not related to which candidate had won, but the fact that the new President would be bringing in hundreds of additional people that would need clearances.

Ron Wanttaja
 
timwinters said:
...needs to be reverified every 5 years. (at least that's what I read today)

...and my third class medical needs to be reverified every 2 years...so I can fly my little 182.

Which is more crucial to the health and wellness and protection of our country?

WTF?
Click to expand...

I got my first Class III medical 31.5 yrs ago. Sometime later this year will be 30 yrs of continuously holding a TS clearance. (Can't claim continuously holding Class IIImedical because I took 20 yrs off from flying in the middle).

I think you're making an apples and oranges comparison in that I don't think the rationale for the medical is health and wellness and protection of the the country.

hindsight2020 said:
Another topic near and dear to my heart. And yes, they will give anyone a TS these days. The fact Jared Kushner can't get one is a yuge statement.
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I disagree, but see why it appears that way. Clearances are supposed to be (emphasis on supposed to be) based on trustworthiness. You can be incompetent, or jerk, or a janitor, and still be deemed trustworthy.

I don't think they said Jared Kushner couldn't get one; just that his investigation was still open so he hadn't been granted a final TS clearance. It is the norm for initial investigations to take over a year. My last 5 yr update took almost a year due to the backlog in the system.
 
Sac Arrow said:
TS clearances these days are a joke. Everyone and anyone can get one.
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That is simply not true.

What is true, is that some who hold one are jokes.

I held a secret for most of my navy career, I had to under go a review every years, Simply to pick up the IFF key every day.
And to have a father that was a foreign national, I got scrutinized.
 
Tom-D said:
That is simply not true.
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Exactly. If anything, a TS is not given to anyone and everyone simply due to the cost associated with that level of investigation. It costs the government a lot of money to pay the contractors to do the background research, and no one is going to send someone up for a TS if there isn’t a justification.

Most people would have no problem passing the investigation, but it is hardly some that Oprah is handing out to everyone.


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I had one employee with a TS clearance. Turned out to be a lying weasel with poor financial habits.
 
weilke said:
I had one employee with a TS clearance. Turned out to be a lying weasel with poor financial habits.
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Poor Financial habits is a fast way to get your clearance reduced.
 
denverpilot said:
Heck any signs of reckless behavior. I know someone who had to chill out on the speeding tickets to keep theirs.
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Circa, 1974 we had a criptotech get booted out of the NAVY after 14 years, At the time I worked electronic R&D the the Naval Missile Center Pt.Mugu, He basically dated a woman who knew the wrong folks. He lost his clearance and could not do his job with out one.
 
Van Johnston said:
I disagree, but see why it appears that way. Clearances are supposed to be (emphasis on supposed to be) based on trustworthiness. You can be incompetent, or jerk, or a janitor, and still be deemed trustworthy.

I don't think they said Jared Kushner couldn't get one; just that his investigation was still open so he hadn't been granted a final TS clearance. It is the norm for initial investigations to take over a year. My last 5 yr update took almost a year due to the backlog in the system.
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It's more than that of course, it also deals with the personal standing that would make one vulnerable to blackmail due to financial duress and conflicts of interest. This of course becomes heightened by default (whether one thinks the government's preference is warranted or not matters not) when foreign contacts are involved. But we're not gonna lecture each other on this, since it looks like we both have held Top Secret clearances to varying degrees. TS-SCI in my case, and happy not to have it anymore, life is simpler for me these days.

I'm not a registered voter, so I have no dog in the ghastly partisan tribalism that prevails our national discourse, but that dude is a member of the King's court. Meaning, we all understand how ridiculously backlogged the investigation system is, but if you truly believe that the system is so egalitarian so as to put the POTUS son-in-law's Yankee White Initial in the hopper with the rest of us nobodys rando SSBIs et al, then I got a timeshare in Aleppo to sell ya. The dude's got more foreign contacts than an Emirates flight attendant on intl layover. He's got a lot of conflict and trolling for financial bailout by foreign entities. That's not a partisan statement in that I don't care for that angle (it's all the same corrupted 'two of the same one' system to me), but rather that in this case I think the system is actually working.

I've known people at my level with a lot of financial/personal turmoil still get a TS, and that has made me skeptical of the real value of the security clearance system. I always found the parallel systems to be more effective. PRP and SCI in my corner of the world at least. At any rate, I agree with the OP, medicals should be relaxed. And I digress.
 
For some reason my friends always list me as a background check reference. I must be good luck because they all got the jobs they were applying for.
 
hindsight2020 said:
Another topic near and dear to my heart. And yes, they will give anyone a TS these days. The fact Jared Kushner can't get one is a yuge statement.
Click to expand...

The most likely trip up for him is his wide international experience. One of the very skills that you would think would be useful in a high level government positions is cited as a concern by security investigators. If you know too many people from other countries, if you have too many financial interests around the world, then you are considered to be susceptible to foreign influence and therefore a risk.

We live in an increasingly connected world. The security guys are still working under cold war doctrine.

One source:
https://www.military.com/veteran-jobs/security-clearance-jobs/security-clearance-eligibility.html
 
timwinters said:
...needs to be reverified every 5 years. (at least that's what I read today)

...and my third class medical needs to be reverified every 2 years...so I can fly my little 182.

Which is more crucial to the health and wellness and protection of our country?

WTF?
Click to expand...
False comparison. It's not the criticality that determines the period as much as the opportunity for change to occur during that period.

Are you more likely to become a security risk in a 5 year span, after getting a security clearance, or are you more likely to have a health issue if you're over 40 in a 2 year span?
 
Sac Arrow said:
TS clearances these days are a joke. Everyone and anyone can get one. The caveat we were told was that to access classified information was you needed both, the required clearance, and a need to know. Theoretically that would keep the janitor in the Pentagon from leaking nuclear secrets.
Click to expand...
I can cite evidence to the contrary.
 
The guys I run with have a standing joke when the investigator renews our clearances. The investigator asks if one of us ever saw the other drunk and the answer always is "Not that I remember."
 
Tom-D said:
That is simply not true.

What is true, is that some who hold one are jokes.

I held a secret for most of my navy career, I had to under go a review every years, Simply to pick up the IFF key every day.
And to have a father that was a foreign national, I got scrutinized.
Click to expand...

I held a TS when I worked battalion S2/S3, and a secret when I was in a line Infantry unit, and if anyone scrutinized me, it happened without my knowledge.

But, if you want an instant DQ for a top secret clearance, just have a solicitation charge on your record. Capital murder would be preferable.
 
hindsight2020 said:
Another topic near and dear to my heart. And yes, they will give anyone a TS these days. The fact Jared Kushner can't get one is a yuge statement.
Click to expand...
Given the level of access he needs (TS and codewords), he's probably required to pass a polygraph test. We don't know the status of that; it's even possible he refused to take one.

Ron Wanttaja
 
Sac Arrow said:
But, if you want an instant DQ for a top secret clearance, just have a solicitation charge on your record. Capital murder would be preferable.
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The “other” common way to “turn” people. Money and sex.
 
hindsight2020 said:
It's more than that of course, it also deals with the personal standing that would make one vulnerable to blackmail due to financial duress and conflicts of interest. This of course becomes heightened by default (whether one thinks the government's preference is warranted or not matters not) when foreign contacts are involved. But we're not gonna lecture each other on this, since it looks like we both have held Top Secret clearances to varying degrees. TS-SCI in my case, and happy not to have it anymore, life is simpler for me these days.

I'm not a registered voter, so I have no dog in the ghastly partisan tribalism that prevails our national discourse, but that dude is a member of the King's court. Meaning, we all understand how ridiculously backlogged the investigation system is, but if you truly believe that the system is so egalitarian so as to put the POTUS son-in-law's Yankee White Initial in the hopper with the rest of us nobodys rando SSBIs et al, then I got a timeshare in Aleppo to sell ya. The dude's got more foreign contacts than an Emirates flight attendant on intl layover. He's got a lot of conflict and trolling for financial bailout by foreign entities. That's not a partisan statement in that I don't care for that angle (it's all the same corrupted 'two of the same one' system to me), but rather that in this case I think the system is actually working.

I've known people at my level with a lot of financial/personal turmoil still get a TS, and that has made me skeptical of the real value of the security clearance system. I always found the parallel systems to be more effective. PRP and SCI in my corner of the world at least. At any rate, I agree with the OP, medicals should be relaxed. And I digress.
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Great second paragraph! BTDT same type of tickets.

One of the BIG reasons clearances take so long these days is the process. 90% foot traffic. The other reason is the 2014 hacks of OPM and the Navy. If priority, such as needed for anything nuclear it will be fasttracked. But otherwise you're in the FIFO queue.
 
Velocity173 said:
For some reason my friends always list me as a background check reference. I must be good luck because they all got the jobs they were applying for.
Click to expand...

I have been contacted on ex employees. What really cracked me up was when OPM sent me a letter with a former employees name, SSN and date of birth to inquire whether I have any information on that person. The only thing missing from that request was the mothers maiden name.
 
murphey said:
If priority, such as needed for anything nuclear it will be fasttracked. But otherwise you're in the FIFO queue.
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Actually, the order in the list is flexible. I retired about the same time as the last election, and was told that contractor clearances would be delayed in order to give priority to the new Executive Branch staffers, no matter who won.

Ron Wanttaja
 
wanttaja said:
Given the level of access he needs (TS and codewords), he's probably required to pass a polygraph test. We don't know the status of that; it's even possible he refused to take one.

Ron Wanttaja
Click to expand...
With the current witchuntery, can't say I blame him if he did refuse.
 
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