[TrackerFF]

The fact is that even for (NATO) top secret security clearances, there are lots of people that lie through their teeth, and receive the clearance. Obviously on things that aren't in any records. The big ones being alcohol use, drug use, personal finances, foreign partners. Some are more forgiving than others, though.

The military is unfortunately chock full of functional alcoholics. As long as they don't get caught drunk on the job, seen partying too much, DIU, or admit anything to their doctor, they keep getting renewed their clearance.

Interestingly enough, if there's even the smallest suspicious that you smoke weed, they'll put you through the wringer. I've seen more people lose their clearance for pissing hot, than those with six figure debts or drinking 5 days a week.

[DonHopkins]

The US Military is currently led by a dysfunctional alcoholic totally unqualified DUI hire.

[Recurecur]

Oh, you mean the guy that benched 315 lb the other day? The guy who’s led the US military flawlessly through several major operations over the last year?

Check your news sources…

[moron4hire]

> I've seen more people lose their clearance for pissing hot

When? In the 90s? Biggest pothead I know has had a clearance since '05. For my own form, I straight up admitted I had done it and did not regret it.

[hinkley]

It was always explained to me as a mix between, 'are you going to fuck things up by being in an altered state' and 'is someone going to blackmail you to make you into a double agent?'

If your family and wife know you sometimes sleep with men, that's not necessarily a problem. If nobody knows, that's a problem. Similarly if your wife and boss don't know you owe $50,000 to a bookie or your coke dealer, that's a liability.

Actually would be sort of interesting if your boss did know you owed a bookie $50k and they found a way to use that to make you into a triple agent...

[0xTJ]

I was chatting with an old classmate at a homecoming a few months ago, and he mentioned that, during the polygraph top get Canadian Top Secret clearance for a co-op job, he had to say how many drinks he had each week. Being a university student, it got brushed aside, but the answer was considered to be alcoholism-level.

[Terr_]

In a weird way, that's almost a positive sign, if you view the security-clearance process as mostly being about quickly clearing away secrets that could be used for blackmail down the line, when the person has more authority and more to lose.

[ghostpepper]

You can get co-op/internship that requires a Top Secret clearance?

[ErigmolCt]

A lot of that comes down to what's objectively verifiable vs what's discretionary, and also what's culturally normalized inside the org.

[lesuorac]

> The military is unfortunately chock full of functional alcoholics. As long as they don't get caught drunk on the job, seen partying too much, DIU, or admit anything to their doctor, they keep getting renewed their clearance.

Well yeah. If it's not affecting your job then what's it matter? If your a closet alcoholic then sure that's something the Russians could hold over you.

There's millions of people with clearances; that's impossible to staff at below market wages and also above average moral(?) standards.

[yowayb]

And, within high-trust societies (eg Japan, Korea, Vietnam) getting wasted lubricates social bonds in the workplace. I've met successful functional alcoholics. Seriously, they actually function and make lots of money. They're also fun to be around as long as you're not working for them.

[Aurornis]

> If it's not affecting your job then what's it matter? If your a closet alcoholic then sure that's something the Russians could hold over you

Alcohol lowers inhibitions and alters decision making. Drinking a lot of alcohol more so than casual drinking. Frequently drinking a lot of alcohol has a very high area under the curve of poor decision making.

Functional alcoholism can come with delusions of sobriety where the person believes they’re not too drunk despite being heavily impaired.

So they’ll do things like have a few (or ten) drinks before checking their email. It makes them a better target for everything like fishing attacks, as one example.

It’s not just about enemies holding it against you.

[hinkley]

When gift buying for minimalist friends it's common to offer gifts of perishable items or experiences like tickets. So that a week from now the gift has been cleared from their domicile.

It also seems like a fairly smart way to do graft. If you're bribing someone and they drink up or smoke all the evidence then they can't prove how much or how often you bribed them. Which would make alcoholics a good target especially if you can get your hands on fancy liquor.

[yowayb]

I doubt anyone in an official capacity is using such techniques, but I can tell you this is common in sales. A lot of people in management with control of budget have at least one of just a handful of human weaknesses.

[Nasrudith]

The punchline is that automatic firing for 'vulnerabilities' itself creates the very blackmail vulnerabilities they are trying to avoid.

[wakawaka28]

Smoking weed is openly committing a federal crime, and also potentially signalling a lot of other unsavory things such as being a scofflaw and being involved with other criminals, socially speaking, including at least one drug dealer. So, it makes sense that you should get scrutiny.

[kevin_thibedeau]

The US government uses data brokers and the banking industry to continuously monitor cleared people. Eventually they will find any problematic patterns of life.

[samus]

The point is that they seem to worry more about being a weed user than being an alcoholic.

[heraldgeezer]

Are you saying weed should be punished less, or the others should be punished like weed?

[c22]

I'm not sure security clearance is really about punishing people.

[drdaeman]

I think they’re saying that there is an inconsistency, but they don’t suggest anything, leaving any conclusions to the reader.

It’s just “things aren’t right”, and not “here’s what we need to do…”

[HWR_14]

The Vietnam War and all the soldiers on drugs encouraged a very strict drug policy.

[yowayb]

Makes complete sense. I've spent some time around Southeast Asia and met plenty of vets that discovered many psychoactive substances who also happen to be anti-war.

[yowayb]

omg this was my experience. I figured there was no point lying officially, so I listed exactly how many times I smoked weed and took mdma. I was banished to the unclear side for my entire 3 years there. Meanwhile the head of IT was a raging alcoholic. I even wrote their very first J2EE webapp, which required me to be escorted to the cleared side anytime someone needed help with my code. I couldn't touch the keyboards! I was giving vi instructions verbally lol

[albedoa]

> Interestingly enough, if there's even the smallest suspicious that you smoke weed, they'll put you through the wringer. I've seen more people lose their clearance for pissing hot, than those with six figure debts or drinking 5 days a week.

I have to defer to you here since it sounds like my experience is more limited, but this is not my understanding at all. The agencies care a lot about financial indiscretions, as those applicants are most susceptible to compromise. And indeed, if you look at the lists of denials and appeals, you might think that money issues are the only reason anyone is ever denied.

Lying about having smoked weed is another story.

[yowayb]

First job out of college, I spilled my guts on form 86, ~40 joints, ~10 ecstasy. Denied clearance the entire 3 years. This was 2002.

[hinkley]

How do you really ever know if someone you hired for psyops is telling you the truth?