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I wonder if polygraphs are there as a cover for refusing clearance due to secret evidence. If you know bob is a Soviet spy because your agents in Russia say so,
by shubb 11y ago
I wonder if polygraphs are there as a cover for refusing clearance due to secret evidence. If you know bob is a Soviet spy because your agents in Russia say so, you don't want to blow their cover, so you need an arbitrary reason to refuse clearance.
- jessaustin 11y agoIANASpy, but my understanding is that even someone with clearance can't just look at whatever she wants. So we probably want to give a mole an arbitrarily high clearance, and just make sure she looks at top secret fake documents we've cooked up for her.
- lotsofmangos 11y agoIs this aspect of security work that makes me wonder in the back of my mind whether Snowden is a modified limited hang out.
- jessaustin 11y agoIt's an intriguing possibility, but my imagination is unequal to the task. If they didn't mind showing us all this evil crap, what horrific secrets are they actually hiding? Secret pacts with Cthulhu? Hitler was actually a USA agent? Nothing big enough seems plausible.
- lotsofmangos 11y agoWell, it could be cold war thinking, a line from Dr Strangelove gives one plausible reason. "Of course, the whole point of a Doomsday Machine is lost, if you keep it a secret! Why didn't you tell the world, Eh?" Benway's panopticon only functions if the inmates think they are watched. The secret might be that they cannot actually process all the data and are overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of it, in which case the surveillance is more useful if people think they can.
- sean2 11y agoIANASpy either, but I've worked on some cleared projects. Clearance (and need to know) _is_ what we use to determine what someone can look at. If a co-worker needs a document, I verify that he's cleared for it, then I give it to him. There is no alternate system where I can look up: "Bob has a Top Secret Clearance, but also a spy so don't share anything with him."
- superuser2 11y agoThere is a popular misunderstanding that having a top secret clearance means you automatically have access to all top secret information. When in fact it just means that it might not be illegal to give you access to particular documents. Parent is getting at the fact that it is entirely possible to have a Top Secret clearance and never be granted access to any interesting information.