6 ms·

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

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.

FpUser 4y ago
Or maybe get a life and go catch actual spies. When the law makes innocent suffer fuck it.
- ckastner 4y ago
  Determining whether you're dealing with an actual spy or an innocent person is the entire point of such investigations.
  - FpUser 4y ago
    The investigation was already concluded. Why should person suffer in the future when nothing wrong was done ?
    - ckastner 4y ago
      The person wasn't really suffering though, this was just about getting a security clearance. Most people don't have one. I don't think it's entirely unreasonable for a special vetting process to have stricter standards.
      - FpUser 4y ago
        Not getting a job and clearance in general over some stupid stuff is "suffering" and if he was not advised to lie he would've left without job / clearance. Basically paying for some stupid course of events. In my opinion shit like this should be automatically wiped out in normal society.
mcv 4y ago
The event happened 80 years ago. I don't know what the statute of limitations is here, but I would guess that it's passed by now. Edit: it's a story from 1988, so at the time it was only 45 years ago.
- ckastner 4y ago
  True. I admit that I just assumed that the statute of limitations for these national security-related kinds of things were indefinite.
  - AnimalMuppet 4y ago
    It might be - for an actual spy. For omitting that detail on a security clearance form? After 45 years, no, nobody cares.
jemfinch 4y ago
He wasn't investigated by the FBI. The FBI was investigating a hypothetical Japanese spy; since he wasn't a Japanese spy, any follow-up that led to him was merely incidental. If the FBI investigates a spy seen driving a silver Honda Civic with license plate ABC-1234, and looks into an unrelated civilian who drives a silver Honda Civic with license plate ADC-1234 in case their witness misremembered the license place, that doesn't mean the unrelated civilian was "investigated by the FBI".
- ckastner 4y ago
  This isn't a case of a mistaken identity, the FBI found exactly the person they were looking for. It just turned out that said person wasn't a threat, after all. I'd say determining that is exactly the point of an investigation. That fact that it ended well doesn't change the fact that the process happened, and was triggered by said person.
  - gnfargbl 4y ago
    It is true that the FBI found the person they were looking for, and that person was the terminus of their investigation. It is not true that the article author was investigated by the FBI. He was nothing more than a MacGuffin in the overall plot. In this specific case, the security officer made the correct decision in having him leave out this detail from the clearance form. Makes for a good story, though.
    - ckastner 4y ago
      > It is true that the FBI found the person they were looking for, and that person was the terminus of their investigation. It is not true that the article author was investigated by the FBI; he wasn't To me, these are the same, so I guess that's probably just my layman's view then.
      - kayodelycaon 4y ago
        They aren’t the same. There is a legal distinction. They were attempting to identify the source of a document. After they found and identified who created it, the investigation was dropped before they investigated any particular person.
emn13 4y ago
I kind of _hope_ any statutes of limitations would have expired 35 years ago for events then 45 years ago. There's not much point in retaining liability for events that long ago; it's not like you'll ever catch the "crooks", nor likely have the ability to really judge events reasonably anymore by that time. 'course, with the general urge to be "tough on crime" and the inevitable occasional horror-story of truly heinous behavior discovered many decades later there probably isn't a lot of political will to support reasonable statutes of limitations, so I wouldn't be surprised if some of this stuff never expires.
- gr4yb34rd 4y ago
  i felt like it might be an embellishment. mostly because i interviewed so many infosec people in the early 2000's and like a quarter of them had some similar story from when they were 10-12 about contact with 3-letter agencies or other nonsense that "got me started on this path at an early age".

FpUser 4y ago

Or maybe get a life and go catch actual spies. When the law makes innocent suffer fuck it.

ckastner 4y ago
Determining whether you're dealing with an actual spy or an innocent person is the entire point of such investigations.
- FpUser 4y ago
  The investigation was already concluded. Why should person suffer in the future when nothing wrong was done ?
  - ckastner 4y ago
    The person wasn't really suffering though, this was just about getting a security clearance. Most people don't have one. I don't think it's entirely unreasonable for a special vetting process to have stricter standards.
    - FpUser 4y ago
      Not getting a job and clearance in general over some stupid stuff is "suffering" and if he was not advised to lie he would've left without job / clearance. Basically paying for some stupid course of events. In my opinion shit like this should be automatically wiped out in normal society.

mcv 4y ago

The event happened 80 years ago. I don't know what the statute of limitations is here, but I would guess that it's passed by now. Edit: it's a story from 1988, so at the time it was only 45 years ago.

ckastner 4y ago
True. I admit that I just assumed that the statute of limitations for these national security-related kinds of things were indefinite.
- AnimalMuppet 4y ago
  It might be - for an actual spy. For omitting that detail on a security clearance form? After 45 years, no, nobody cares.

jemfinch 4y ago

He wasn't investigated by the FBI. The FBI was investigating a hypothetical Japanese spy; since he wasn't a Japanese spy, any follow-up that led to him was merely incidental. If the FBI investigates a spy seen driving a silver Honda Civic with license plate ABC-1234, and looks into an unrelated civilian who drives a silver Honda Civic with license plate ADC-1234 in case their witness misremembered the license place, that doesn't mean the unrelated civilian was "investigated by the FBI".

ckastner 4y ago
This isn't a case of a mistaken identity, the FBI found exactly the person they were looking for. It just turned out that said person wasn't a threat, after all. I'd say determining that is exactly the point of an investigation. That fact that it ended well doesn't change the fact that the process happened, and was triggered by said person.
- gnfargbl 4y ago
  It is true that the FBI found the person they were looking for, and that person was the terminus of their investigation. It is not true that the article author was investigated by the FBI. He was nothing more than a MacGuffin in the overall plot. In this specific case, the security officer made the correct decision in having him leave out this detail from the clearance form. Makes for a good story, though.
  - ckastner 4y ago
    > It is true that the FBI found the person they were looking for, and that person was the terminus of their investigation. It is not true that the article author was investigated by the FBI; he wasn't To me, these are the same, so I guess that's probably just my layman's view then.
    - kayodelycaon 4y ago
      They aren’t the same. There is a legal distinction. They were attempting to identify the source of a document. After they found and identified who created it, the investigation was dropped before they investigated any particular person.

emn13 4y ago

I kind of _hope_ any statutes of limitations would have expired 35 years ago for events then 45 years ago. There's not much point in retaining liability for events that long ago; it's not like you'll ever catch the "crooks", nor likely have the ability to really judge events reasonably anymore by that time. 'course, with the general urge to be "tough on crime" and the inevitable occasional horror-story of truly heinous behavior discovered many decades later there probably isn't a lot of political will to support reasonable statutes of limitations, so I wouldn't be surprised if some of this stuff never expires.

gr4yb34rd 4y ago
i felt like it might be an embellishment. mostly because i interviewed so many infosec people in the early 2000's and like a quarter of them had some similar story from when they were 10-12 about contact with 3-letter agencies or other nonsense that "got me started on this path at an early age".