Add to that, if say a member of the intel community needs to be 'contacted' by his successor, and as such he needs to keep his clearance, WHY DOESN'T the same apply to members of the military?? after i retired, i got 3-4 emails a day for the first two or so months after getting out, asking about this and that related to what i did... Originally Posted by garhkal
... and immediately starts screaming that it's an effort to suppress his free speech and intimidate him from expressing his all-consuming hatred of Donald Trump.
Clearly two guys who have reached a point of irreconcilable differences.
He is full of shit. Having a security clearance is a privilege, not a right. Brennan is free to continue trashing the POTUS on his twitter account, as a guest on MSNBC, or using whatever fucking vehicle he chooses.
Agree.
When this story first broke I asked - Why aren't security clearances revoked AUTOMATICALLY when someone leaves the intelligence services? Presumably it's to allow retired senior intel people to discuss sensitive national security issues with their successors, if asked.
That is generally the reason. Especially to ask a former senior person, "WHY did you do XXX (or refrain from doing XXX", ie "What was the rest of the story that was never written down because no one in the IC ever really trusts writing the most sensitive things down."
That explanation may have made sense back in the days when both parties sought to maintain continuity in our foreign policy.
And even more so, when so many of the top layers of the IC have become political boons given to people who often have no clue and minimal credentials for the job. Used to be most top IC folk tried to remain separate from politics, but that has been eroding for a couple decades or more.
It makes no sense today when we have a former CIA director running around like a lunatic accusing the POTUS of "treason" and shamelessly working to undermine him at every opportunity.
I am not sure that invalidates the tradition of doing it, but I think in this case Brennan has certainly EARNED having his clearance revoked. It should be case by case, but should not be a blanket revoking just because someone is of a different party or someone disagrees with the current administration.
Nobody in the Trump administration is going to call Brennan in for advice. The only thing he will be called in for is to testify under oath about how he conspired with obama and others to hatch the Russian collusion canard, disseminate the phony Steele dossier, and illegally deploy the machinery of the federal government to spy on an opposing party's political campaign!
Anyone with an intel background have any thoughts? Originally Posted by lustylad
A clearance of any level should never mean you get access to sensitive material. It just means you are trusted not to misuse the information, especially not to divulge it to those who should not have it. In this case I sincerely doubt there was any valid reason to expect Brennan would have a need to know for anything under this administration so revoking his clearance is as much symbolic as anything, but Brennan brought it on himself. I do not think that applies en masse to all former very high level former people. Originally Posted by Old-TOk, thanks for your answers. I respect them since I know you lean left politically but you were irate and disgusted with the way hildebeest mishandled confidential information as SoS yet got off scot-free. The question is really what should the default policy be. Do we let ex-intel officials keep their clearances unless there is a reason to revoke them? Or should such clearances expire automatically at retirement unless there is a valid reason to keep them active. Perhaps the process of being "re-cleared" would be too time-consuming and a needless hassle if the POTUS wanted to pick up the phone and talk to, say, Henry Kissinger about some highly classified issue.
when i was in the Navy i don't recall the rank and file enlisted requiring a confidential clearance. i mean, why would a boatswain mate need it? or a machinist's mate. these days it's nearly impossible to get into the Military with any serious criminal record. they did that in the 80's when i was in also but the standards were less stringent than today. perhaps there was such a thing as a general clearance? There is an overall obligation to protect any info on Military affairs, ship's movements, etc.I had a Top Secret clearance from the mid-70s until Aldrich Ames was caught. The Army reevaluated everybody's security clearance and downgraded the clearances of those who realistically didn't need a rating of Top Secret in the duty position they held: i.e., the "need to know" rule of thumb. In those preceding years, I never had occasion to see or deal with anything classified Top Secret. Up until Ames and afterwards, it was an extremely rare occasion that I saw or dealt with anything classified above Confidential.
my rate, Data Processing, required a secret clearance to even qualify for it. one command i was at required Top Secret because we processed scheduled radio traffic to nuclear subs, their 30 day operational orders while on patrol. several other rates also required Secret or Top Secret.
when i left that command, PMOPAC (Polaris Material Ordnance Command, Pacific Fleet) my clearance reverted back to Secret. Originally Posted by The_Waco_Kid
on a sub tender, Secret was also pretty clear, under real operations during war, the tender would have replacement nuclear ballistic missiles on it. our job would have been to take up station in the rear areas and wait for subs to arrive and reload their missiles.so the number of ballistic missiles onboard would be stored in the mainframe obviously.
we went out to sea several times a year for about two weeks to drill on replacing ballistic missiles. with several subs as well as they also had to qualify on this. we'd extend a boom on either side of the ship and the subs would anchor next to us on either side and we'd drill on installing a full scale mock-up of a Polaris missile. quite interesting. Originally Posted by The_Waco_Kid
how hard was it to load those Polaris into the sub? sounds pretty tricky if the waters are rough.
are they still doing this with Tridents? Originally Posted by dilbert firestorm
so, how long should a person who left govt. service keep his security clearance? Originally Posted by dilbert firestorm
