TSA to expand number of employees who will have secret clearances

[Battle Monkey of Zardoz]

Just what we need.  The worker who couldnt get hired at McDonalds looking at secret intel or records of flyers.  This is going to get interesting.  I wonder how long it will be before TSA has its own SWAT Team?

Article from CNN

http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/09/23/tsa.security.clearances/index.html?hpt=Sbin

From Article: 

TSA Administrator John Pistole, former FBI deputy director, believes that giving frontline workers greater access to intelligence will help stop terrorist attacks and make the public safer. The clearances give TSA employees access to information that has been classified as "secret" -- information that is not put out for general distribution in the agency.

Speaking before a House Homeland Security Subcommittee, Pistole said "a key lesson I took from my 26 years at the FBI is that one of the best tools we possess in our effort to combat terrorism is accurate and timely intelligence. Our enemies constantly evolve their methods and their tools...and it's our job to stay ahead of them."

[kgbsquirrel]

They give "Secret" out like candy. At a .mil installation the CO can just sign a slip and give you a Secret level clearance. It doesn't get interesting until an SSBI is involved.

[Jamisjockey]

They give "Secret" out like candy. At a .mil installation the CO can just sign a slip and give you a Secret level clearance. It doesn't get interesting until an SSBI is involved.

This.
Quite often a Secret is issued just because you might be in the same building as the materials. 
I received a secret so I could be my OIC's errand bitch courier. 

[Fitz]

If you're worried about all the idiot TSA employees getting secret clearances,

You'd positively freak out at the quality of "soldiers" who actually get a secret.

It's scary sometimes.

"Wait, YOU have a clearance?"

[Ben]

It's somewhat ironic how the tide is switching on the civilian side. I remember for a few years after 9/11 they wanted to reduce the number of Secret and TS clearances. For a few years, I had to send in an annual justification for mine. Now instead of attempting to reduce the number, they're increasing it like crazy, apparently with the bizzaro thought that the more people that have a clearance, the safer data will be.

As pointed out above, bad policy considering all the idiots that can get Secret. Not to mention the strain this puts on the OPM people that do the background checks for civilians that truly need a clearance. I have a colleague that took a Navy civilian job nearly a year ago and he's still on provisional Secret because of the backlog.

[roo_ster]

One trend I have noticed is a decided desire on the part of .mil customers to keep things unclassifed in the usual sense, just FOUO*.

The costs to do classified work on the civvie side have gotten bats**t insane since 2003's NISPOM Ch 8 revision.  We have gotten work that before then would have been done only in a classified lab.  The customer works with us and bends over backwards to keep things unclassified by one of various means: coded, normalized data, etc.

I appreciate the efforts, as it makes my job easier is many, many ways.  I have done the classified side of the house as well as run secure labs, so I know most the regs from up close & personal experience.  Where once I was the guy who tried my dangedest to push back so as to get tasks done, I am now the guy who raises the classified question early & often and makes us decide, RFN, the path forward to protect the data while working unclassifed.

I don't think my shift in attitude is two-faced or hypocritical (Push back while working class, semi-paranoia working unclass).  Most secure labs are air-gapped and every violation I have seen has been via ignorance or inadvertent.  The unclass work is generally done on a network hooked up to the web and we get hammered every day by Chicom, Russian, and other attackers.  I want to work in a fashion that if some Nork/Chicom dirty SOB gets everything on my HD, they won;t be able to make heads or tails of the sensitive stuff.



* FOUO = For Official Use Only ; Makes it immune to FOIA requests.

[freakazoid]

I was almost denied being an FC in the Navy because I was almost denied my secret clearance due to my debt.

[erictank]

They give "Secret" out like candy. At a .mil installation the CO can just sign a slip and give you a Secret level clearance. It doesn't get interesting until an SSBI is involved.

Dude, I operated the reactors on a frakking AIRCRAFT CARRIER (and could have, if I'd volunteered for it, done so for a BALLISTIC MISSILE SUBMARINE).

I had a *CONFIDENTIAL* clearance, the step below Secret (back in the '90s, at least),same as every other person in Reactor Department onboard.  Below that, there IS no clearance - save FOUO/NOFORN, which isn't "classified" in the strict sense.

WTF are frakking DEMONSTRATEDLY-INCOMPETENT, POWERTRIPPING, ABUSIVE SECURITY-GUARD WANNABES doing getting SECRET clearances!?!?!   

[kgbsquirrel]

Dude, I operated the reactors on a frakking AIRCRAFT CARRIER (and could have, if I'd volunteered for it, done so for a BALLISTIC MISSILE SUBMARINE).

I had a *CONFIDENTIAL* clearance, the step below Secret (back in the '90s, at least),same as every other person in Reactor Department onboard.  Below that, there IS no clearance - save FOUO/NOFORN, which isn't "classified" in the strict sense.

WTF are frakking DEMONSTRATEDLY-INCOMPETENT, POWERTRIPPING, ABUSIVE SECURITY-GUARD WANNABES doing getting SECRET clearances!?!?!   

Really, what was your rating and command?

[erictank]

Really, what was your rating and command?

I was an ET2 (Reactor operator, but at the time I was in, ROs did not have their own rating.  I'm given to understand that that's changed) onboard USS Theodore Roosevelt CVN-71, July 93-May 97 - didn't get my first-class rating until after my EAOS (passed the test but didn't get to put it on, so it came through during my Inactive Reserve time).  Reactor Controls Division, Reactor Department.  I did classroom training in Orlando for ET 'A' (Class 9147) and Naval Nuclear Power School (9205), and did Prototype training in Ballston Spa NY prior to getting to the ship - that's why nukes do 6 years active duty vs. 4, we go to school for almost 2 years before they'll send us to the fleet.

[Tallpine]

TSA Administrator John Pistole, former FBI deputy director, believes that giving frontline workers greater access to intelligence will help stop terrorist attacks and make the public safer. The clearances give TSA employees access to information that has been classified as "secret" -- information that is not put out for general distribution in the agency.

The terms "TSA" and "intelligence" ought not to be used in the same paragraph 

[kgbsquirrel]

I was an ET2 (Reactor operator, but at the time I was in, ROs did not have their own rating.  I'm given to understand that that's changed) onboard USS Theodore Roosevelt CVN-71, July 93-May 97 - didn't get my first-class rating until after my EAOS (passed the test but didn't get to put it on, so it came through during my Inactive Reserve time).  Reactor Controls Division, Reactor Department.  I did classroom training in Orlando for ET 'A' (Class 9147) and Naval Nuclear Power School (9205), and did Prototype training in Ballston Spa NY prior to getting to the ship - that's why nukes do 6 years active duty vs. 4, we go to school for almost 2 years before they'll send us to the fleet.

Neat. I was supposed to go nuke, then found out I'm red/green deficient vision wise.    So I wound up crypto instead. I just find it very odd that you were working on a R level clearance instead of TS considering they were setting me up for an SSBI when I got nuke program guaranteed as a school.

[erictank]

Neat. I was supposed to go nuke, then found out I'm red/green deficient vision wise.    So I wound up crypto instead. I just find it very odd that you were working on a R level clearance instead of TS considering they were setting me up for an SSBI when I got nuke program guaranteed as a school.

When were you in?  Things might have changed, if your service was significantly before or after mine.  That's about all I can come up with, because they said EVERYONE in my class was getting Confidential clearances, and that's all any of our procedures and tech manuals were stamped with.