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PaperclipPerfector  2mo ago (text post)   2658 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for September 20, 2024

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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On the other hand, this isn't criminal prosecution: especially this level of higher-tier security clearance. There's a reason you can tell who's been through that level of interview from those who've just heard about it by the extent they flinch at certain questions. For all the official guidelines are about really overt behavior showing sympathy to foreign governments, illegal behaviors, or blackmailable targets, the practical guidelines are looking for broader understandings of strong impulse control and good judgement, pretty vaguely defined. If playing War Thunder is an unacceptable security risk -- and I think it's pretty persuasive that it is -- it's not like this is that unreasonable.

It does seem like the space between "can't get security clearance" and "criminal prosecution" should be fairly large.

Yeah, and it's not necessarily a completely overlapping set of circles -- there's a lot more security clearance red flags in totally-legal levels of financial mismanagement than in getting in an ill-advised fistfight. A clearance isn't an official designation that you're a good person, or even a completely trustworthy one, so much as trying to hedge off certain security risks. As I said, I'm not sure the clearance determination here is wrong.

But the heuristics are wonky, here. I'm sure mine aren't representative, but it's hard to name ones that are compatible with what we do.

Really, I'm not entirely sure why this is an issue. Security clearance depends on a low blackmail attack surface, so as Puritanism [about what books one reads, in this case] in the population increases or becomes more powerful as a social force, things that wouldn't be an issue in more liberal times start to become viable blackmail avenues.

And yes, that means society is leaving talent on the ground; on the other hand, defending people who hate you is stupid and if their fake moral standards get them killed because of it, then so be it. Maybe the survivors will smarten up.

Security clearance depends on a low blackmail attack surface

That's the excuse yes. But open proud people are also denied. So there's an unrelated aspect of disapproving schoolmarm-ism that doesn't contribute to their goal even according to their justifications, but they like being this way so they do it.

But open proud people are also denied.

If they're going to put being Proud before national security concerns (in the same way, and for the same reasons, that War Thunder players do it- because they're more likely to value winning an argument above national security) this, too, is the right call.

The national security concern is blackmailability. You can't be blackmailed for what you openly do. So that's a fake reason.

I think the real reason is OPM doesn't want to give security clearances to icky people. Like homosexuals in the early 90s or people who admit to jerking it to furry porn today. And back in the early 90s openly gay people complained that the blackmail excuse didn't make sense since it isn't a secret that they're gay.

I would like national security to be correctly prioritized. And I'm skeptical that filtering out icky gays and furries is actually pursuing that goal. Especially when the given justifications are obviously false. But I also don't suppose an Executive Order 12968 but for shota furry enthusiasts is likely to be signed anytime soon.

openly gay people complained

What kind of openly gay people complained, the angry kind that will throw national security under the bus to win an internet argument, or the quiet ones [who are much less likely to take the government to court over getting denied a clearance for it in the first place]?

@thrownaway24e89172 more clearly elucidated the problem with this than I managed to- being Out and Proud is fundamentally at odds with having enough self control to shut the fuck up and not create problems for [from the government's viewpoint] fundamentally selfish reasons. Not being able to put your identity away on the clock, or worse, having a chip on one's shoulder about it (which is what "Proud" means), is the risk factor here.

There were a pretty sizable number of Sipple-like people, who were pretty quiet about things and did not openly go nuclear warfare, but were also still out of the closet and did not believe it was good policy at the time.

That's been more common later, but Watkins first was drafted in the late 1960s, and while a bit of a progressive putz by military standards, was pretty much a poster child for don't-start-nothing-won't-be-nothing.

I have no reason to think "out and proud" people or furries are any more likely to sell secrets to the Russians or leak them on the internet.

being Out and Proud is fundamentally at odds with having enough self control to shut the fuck up

I have absolutely no reason to think this is a true statement. In the absence of compelling evidence I'm going to continue to think that OPM just generally doesn't like icky sorts of people like this furry porn guy. Not that liking Pride and "out and proud" has any correlation with leaking secrets.

This guy is right to take them to court. I'm not faulting him for getting screwed by a Federal bureaucrat and going to court. If they don't like that they can make the lifestyle polygraph focused on actual blackmailability rather than unrelated society conservative disapproval of porn and gay sex, as they traditionally have.

It harms national security to have OPM deny people based on bogus reasons, like being gay in 1994 or earlier. There is a responsibility on OPM's part to correctly deny blackmail vulnerable people and not incorrectly deny people they just like. I don't think they do a great job at this. That comes at a real price.

This seems to be a misinterpretation of some kind. If {SUBALTERN_QUALITY} is a blackmail attack surface, the method of that blackmail is finding secret evidence and threatening to reveal it to people who don't already know. But if someone is out-and-proud, that means that people already know that they have the quality, and they're not worried about new people finding out about it, so it's no longer a blackmail attack surface. If anything, being 'proud' in this way should be reckoned as a positive when it comes to evaluating their national security concerns.

...unless, of course, you're referring to the impact on their prospects from possible superiors who will use it as a way to weed them out. In which case the motivation to hide it, and therefore the existence of a blackmailable attack surface, comes from those superiors' perception that such out-and-proudness is disqualifying. That seems like a far graver instance of putting personal feelings over national security concerns!

If you have a {SUBALTERN_QUALITY} and want a security clearance, you pretty much have one option: nonchalant openness when confronted about it without normally drawing attention to it otherwise. Hiding it is evidence you can be blackmailed into revealing secrets. "Out and proud" is an indication that you can't keep your mouth shut and can be tricked into revealing secrets to protect your pride. The latter is just as big (if not bigger) a problem as the former.

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