Security beyond control
 

http://projects.washingtonpost.com/t...ity-inc/print/

Very worrying. Or maybe I should say: Orwelling?

CCCP at the peak of Cold War: 1 KGB agent for every 428 citizens
USA today: 1 top-clearance security agent for every 363 citizens

Certainly something to stop and think about :hmmm:

Orwelling? No. Worry about it? No.

All they say is "top secret contractors."

Guess what, that applies to about 50% of my friends. They need to be more specific. C? L? Q-clearance? Yawn. Anyone working at Sandia labs has a frickin clearance. A buddy at Los Alamos is just the computer guy in emergency management, and he's got a clearance (just in case he sees something on a computer screen while fixing a computer, lol).

Why a rise after 9-11? Are they all spies? NO. Duh, the base is now CLOSED to most civilians (where the lab is), so all the uncleared civies needed a clearance to get to work. I want specifics before I get even a little concerned about this.

Well the Washington Post needs something to attract readers. :yep:

When I started fostering puppies, the first thing I did was take out a subscription to the Washington Post. I received the nicest letter exposing how good it was that I was interested in getting the news from the Washington post and telling me all the benefits of the Washington Post.

I kinda felt bad and wanted to tell them I only needed a paper for my puppies to take a crap on and that their rag had the most pages for the least cost.

Top clearance security agent? :har:

You are aware that the cleaning ladies who scrub the toilets, in some of the facilities, need security clearances as do the dudes who deliver the copier paper. :yep:

Yeah, carpenters, welders, etc all have a clearance at the labs, for example.

They might be welding something that a laser gets attached to, lol.

But top-level? Perhaps my understanding of this is a bit shallow, but I did get the impression that this sort of security applies to people with access to very sensitive facilities and information.

And that said, it's not like every KGB employee was involved in purging undesirables either.

My point is more that when you have such an apparatus operating, by design, without transparency to the people it is responsible to (i.e. the electorate), that is cause to be concerned. I don't doubt most of these people don't actually work in intelligence or do anything remotely sinister or even unusual. But you do have to be at least somewhat worried by the fact that such a massive and well-shieleded institutional infrastracture exists in the country. The Soviet "organs" weren't really malicious most of the time and in the vast majority of their employees/agents weren't either, but when political winds blew a certain way, the infrastructure allowed for some very frightening things to happen, and then to be hidden, ignored, and otherwise dissolved in the mass pervasiveness of the state security establishment. This is how police states operate - not with Big Brother(s) and spooks in scary suits, but more through the sheer reach and 'normality' of the system as a whole.

Noone needs this kind of massive security apparatus - or let's be more specific, the average American does not need this security apparatus. It is expensive, and also goes in contravention to his guaranteed freedoms. At a certain scale, compromises are always needed - but not on a gigantic scale like this. And while janitors may not be concerning, the bigger picture should be.

What!?! How dare you question the Leader!
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wait for it.
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http://officeforward.com/main/wp-con...ats_racist.gif

As oh-ficial zampolit of subsim, your negative attitude has been noted.

OMG:har:
I do the same thing with the Oregonian.:haha: Except, I don't feel sorry for them. ...and I did not take out a subscription.:D

Some comments, if I may

Why do you assume that the "apparatus" is, or should be, accountable to the electorate? The "apparatus", as you name it, is, and should be accountable to the elected representatives of the people, and that the representatives should be accountable to the electorate. This is the basis for the representative government we have in the US. The rational for this is explained in my next comment


The average American does not know what he or she needs, nor would they especially understand the methodologies for obtaining what is needed. The average American does not understand the complexities of the international environments. They do not fit nicely into political pigeon-holes, nor can they be explained in "sound-bytes". To disagree with our past President on foreign policy, "its all nuance". Also the average American has a conception of how their government acts and how our international relationships "should be". The reality would probably confuse the average American and would most likely shock them.

There was an excellent quote from Men in Black that, despite being used in a comedy, is rather accurate

You are correct in that there is always the possibility that such an "apparatus" can be misused. It is really a good thing that the "apparatus" is staffed with many many very very loyal people who monitor not only themselves, but others to see that the system is not misused.

Are they perfect? No, they are human.... a bunch of humans trying hard to do a very difficult job on behalf of a citizenry who has little knowledge nor appreciation of what is being done on their behalf. :salute:

That is just the nature of the wacky world of Intelligence.

It is a dull, tedious, mind-numbing job with difficult working environments, where all your successes are ignored but any failure, no matter how slight, is exaggerated.... and this is on a good day... most days are not this good.

Make that 51% of your friends. I have mine. :03:

CCIP, again, they are too vague for us to know. If they simply got a list or count of all "top secret" clearances in the country, without bothering to sort them by where they are, who knows. For all we know the janitors at DHS have to be cleared in case someone leaves the wrong papers in the trash. The implication of the story is that there are people spying on us all the time.

They need to be far more specific for us to make any reasonable commentary on the number of spooks around.

Reading this thread I could get the impression that the originally linked essay was made of only one or two sentences. But in fact it had a much wider perspective. ;)

Does it? Can you be more specific?