Secret squirrels.
10,000 TSA employees get secret clearances
WASHINGTON – The new head of the Transportation Security Administration say he's giving 10,000 of the agency's employees access to secret intelligence information to better enable them to detect threats and stop terrorists.
John Pistole (PIH'-stohl) told an aviation luncheon that he views TSA as a counterterrorism agency. He said his goal is to get the latest intelligence to all employees who have what he called an "action need" to "inform their judgment and decision-making."
Pistole is a former deputy FBI director who was confirmed by the Senate as TSA administrator in June. He said he begins each day with an intelligence briefing.
21 comments:
10,000 secret clearances is just an incredible increase in bureaucracy. They will farm the investigations out to a private contractor and it will cost a mint. A Secret Clearance is really no big deal and employees won;t have access to "lots of secret stuff" because, if nothing else, the compartmentalization of intelligence and "need to know." I've had a Secret Clearance myself and I have to tell you that you don't see anything really important. This is likely more of a feel-good move than anything else.
Prepare Ye for a massive intelligence and security breakdown. A proper secret clearance takes 18mos. to complete.Usually, an interim secret is granted until the full clearance is approved. These will be a 4-6 week records checks, and so many security risks will be approved that the shiese will hit der fan.
Topsy: I don't know how they got this big, they jes grow'd.
In truth, this is no more than window dressing. All commissioned officers and most enlisted e-6 and above, and quite a lot of the lower enlisted ranks in specific fields have this clearance and quite a bit higher.
I'd guess that this is to guarantee access to FOUO and of course SECRET level material, mostly military and FBI gossip, and to make these airport knuckle draggers feel better about themselves.
This is not good.
Ain't that just special... sigh... Just 10,000 more leaks of classified info that we DON'T need getting into the public domain!
What was the lyrics when all of the guys I was in the Army with had TSC clearances?
"Please debrief me, let me go, for I don't want the need to know"....
B/S clearance..
How many of them can pass the background check... and if they can't will they be canned?
There's quite a long list of things that will deny you a security clearance if they show up in your background... google "13 Adjudicative Guidelines".
What I find very interesting is, it seems the new version of the Standard Form 86 just approved by OMB this past March, (but not yet being used by OPM (the outfit that does clearance investigations) doesn't have the "militia question".
The militia question on the current version (2008) of the SF86 reads, "Have you EVER participated in militias (not including official state government militias) or paramilitary groups?"
Could there be a Ned Broy or two at OPM?
Luke III
Glorified,no, federalized security. Nothing more, nothing less. Some I've seen at Newark Intl are part of working welfare.
Mike
NJ
III
I wonder if the TSA plans to run checks for these secret clearances at the same level of scrutiny the Army used when I was checked for a sevret level clearance??
Paul in Texas
Oh -- my -- G*d. . . . . . .
G*d bless us all. We'll need it, and no one else will.
B Woodman
III-per
Well, if they just got them, then all McDonalds employees must have them as well, since they're smarter...
This is simply going to push any real classified intel up into the "top secret" category as the brains back at the NSA aren't going to want a bunch of food service rejects sifting through the secret intel.
I really do not know why the people we pay to x-ray travel bags full of skid-marked underwear need a secret clearance.
Don't they seem to be taking the concept of "security theater" just a wee bit too far?
I have no words.
DD
LOL I don´t believe that TSA employees would know what to do with any real information, or even if they can figure out how to access it.
But I do like the picture of the squirrels, Ya gave me a laugh with that one.
Dennis
III
Texas
In the airports I have been through lately most of the screeners are minimum wage Filipinos. You think they will pass?
If TSA is a 'counterintelligence' agency, I'm a rodeo clown.
More and more; if you're not 'gov' you're nothing.
Well then they should be smart enough and bring this fella aboard who wrote this article. He should train them.
http://www.financialsense.com/contributors/jr-nyquist/those-who-know-will-understand
Moe! Larry! Curly! Read these manuals on brain surgery, and be ready to perform tumor surgery on the president in a week! You will also have all of the equipment necessary at Johns-Hopkins - just ask for it and it will be provided. And if you need help, give Soupy Sales and Pee-wee Herman a call. I understand that the former Mouseketeers may be available, too. You can never be too careful.
BTW, I also held a Top Secret security clearance while working at Cape Canaveral for Pan-Am during the Apollo Project, and although I had access to some pretty secure areas of the Cape, it was all on a "need-to-know" basis, and I don't think I had anything I could have used as a "spy."
However, I'd like to know just what records these bozos will have access to. They will only get cursory b/g checks. I doubt anyone will be going to their neighbors and asking questions, as was done in my case.
Everybody is now getting this even contractors who work with environmental data. It is not a TS in most cases.
Call it window dressing.
Cory
Here's how it works in the UK, and it's safe to presume it's pretty much the same thing in USA...
NATO Secret clearance requires what is called "normal vetting." Basically all that requires is that your name and address is verified. Really, that's it.
NATO Top Secret clearance requires "positive vetting." This is a much lengthier and very expensive process, where your background and activities will be investigated in great depth, including such things as interviewing your school teachers about how you behaved when you were in school. (Serendipidously the latest episode of "Mad Men" showed it being done, with Don Draper's ex-wife Betty being interviewed at length by G-men.)
Really, "Secret" classification is no big deal, it just adds a bit more paperwork to the document audit trail. Messing up over a Top Secret classification is, in contrast, a very big deal.
Obviously if I told you how I know this...
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