3 ms·

Is there no vetting of people who either hold office or senior government positions in the US now? One of the most basic things you do when doing a security cle

Is there no vetting of people who either hold office or senior government positions in the US now? One of the most basic things you do when doing a security clearance is checking that you don't have any bad things in your closet. Substance abuse, debt to shady people, gambling habit, mistresses, ... anything and everything that could be used to blackmail you would be a big fat no on your security clearance. Their 4chan accounts and every gaming chat since 1998 should be scanned for weird comments. I get that it's hard to do for top elected officials - they are elected with flaws and all after all, and it's the job of the people to try to guess and judge whether someone, say, has had unknown extramarital affairs or holds bad debt, that could lead to them being compromised. Not saying Musk would insta-fail his security clearance process but he sure wouldn't have a good time being questioned about what he said in a 4chan post or game chat in 2004, or being asked about every pill he took since 2000.

skissane 2y ago
> One of the most basic things you do when doing a security clearance is checking that you don't have any bad things in your closet. I knew a guy years ago who was going for a security clearance. And he was really worried about them asking about illegal drug use, and he told them the truth about his extensive past history of it. And then they told him they weren’t worried about it because the fact he’d been honest about it meant there was low risk of him being blackmailed over it, so they gave him his security clearance. (Not the US, Australia, maybe the rules are different here.)
- relaxing 2y ago
  Yeah it’s basically true. Concealing it is worse than admitting to past use. Current use is still disqualifying, though.
  - skissane 2y ago
    My dad's partner was once interviewed by investigators, her friend's son (in the Royal Australian Navy) had put her down as a character reference for his security clearance upgrade. They asked her if he was gay. She said she didn't think so, given he had a wife and kids, but if he were secretly gay she thought as his mother's friend she'd be unlikely to know. Then she challenged them – I thought you allowed gay people in the military nowadays. (This was at the time the US still had "don't ask don't tell", but Australia had got rid of all such rules years prior). And then they explained that they didn't have any problem giving security clearances to openly gay people, but were worried about people stuck in the closet, that their sexuality could be used by adversaries to blackmail them.

skissane 2y ago

> One of the most basic things you do when doing a security clearance is checking that you don't have any bad things in your closet. I knew a guy years ago who was going for a security clearance. And he was really worried about them asking about illegal drug use, and he told them the truth about his extensive past history of it. And then they told him they weren’t worried about it because the fact he’d been honest about it meant there was low risk of him being blackmailed over it, so they gave him his security clearance. (Not the US, Australia, maybe the rules are different here.)

relaxing 2y ago
Yeah it’s basically true. Concealing it is worse than admitting to past use. Current use is still disqualifying, though.
- skissane 2y ago
  My dad's partner was once interviewed by investigators, her friend's son (in the Royal Australian Navy) had put her down as a character reference for his security clearance upgrade. They asked her if he was gay. She said she didn't think so, given he had a wife and kids, but if he were secretly gay she thought as his mother's friend she'd be unlikely to know. Then she challenged them – I thought you allowed gay people in the military nowadays. (This was at the time the US still had "don't ask don't tell", but Australia had got rid of all such rules years prior). And then they explained that they didn't have any problem giving security clearances to openly gay people, but were worried about people stuck in the closet, that their sexuality could be used by adversaries to blackmail them.