Conversation

Notices

1. Embed this notice
   Charlie Stross (cstross@wandering.shop)'s status on Saturday, 15-Apr-2023 18:32:28 JST Charlie Stross

   It's beginning to sound to me as if the US security clearance process has completely lost the plot: it focuses on whether your history can be verified and whether you can be blackmailed, not on whether you're a security risk. Lying/blackmail merely indicate vulnerability to foreign agents: wanting to overturn the state/being a Putinist totalitarian make you an actual one but are apparently not screened for these days ...

   https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/liz-cheney-says-greene-lose-security-clearance-defending-suspect-penta-rcna79734

   • Embed this notice
     Rama (photos_floues@mastodon.art)'s status on Saturday, 15-Apr-2023 18:32:27 JST Rama

     in reply to

     @cstross It plays with US blind spots: while lying is something you can tag as a legal offence, and blackmail is codeword for being gay, being a racist and a fascist is your First Amendment right or something.

     clacke likes this.
   • Embed this notice
     Charlie Stross (cstross@wandering.shop)'s status on Saturday, 15-Apr-2023 19:08:06 JST Charlie Stross

     in reply to

     • Aethylred
     • brandon

     @aethylred @brandon Yep. Circ 1950-1990 the security clearance process in the UK was little more than a homophobic witch-hunt, even after it was no longer illegal. This reorientation towards box-ticking may be a left-over from the attempt to fix that, but it means the modern security clearance process is merely differently dysfunctional to the version it supplanted.

     clacke likes this.
   • Embed this notice
     Aethylred (aethylred@mastodon.nz)'s status on Saturday, 15-Apr-2023 19:08:11 JST Aethylred

     in reply to

     • Aethylred
     • brandon

     @brandon @cstross @aethylred hmm, it probably reinforced societal biases , like homophobia, misogyny, racisim, classism, and socioeconomic status, and so I reckon there’s a predatory feedback loop in there

   • Embed this notice
     brandon (brandon@the-gathering.space)'s status on Saturday, 15-Apr-2023 19:08:15 JST brandon

     in reply to

     • Aethylred

     @cstross @aethylred medical debt can also cause someone to lose it. Imagine someone that’s been working a job that has no uncleared counterpart for 20 years, then has a child with a disability on our healthcare system. Some of them also require a polygraph. I suspect a lack of conscience, concern, or an ability to lie provides a large boost there.

   • Embed this notice
     Aethylred (aethylred@mastodon.nz)'s status on Saturday, 15-Apr-2023 19:08:16 JST Aethylred

     in reply to

     @cstross so it completely fails if a person will give up secrets without coercion?

   • Embed this notice
     Charlie Stross (cstross@wandering.shop)'s status on Saturday, 15-Apr-2023 19:08:16 JST Charlie Stross

     in reply to

     • Aethylred

     @aethylred It looks like it took warning flags the 1940s-1980s clearance process made use of to detect possibly vulnerable people, and instead made them for the goal of the process, replacing its original purpose with pointless box-ticking.

     Which is why, as you say, the process failed completely. (Although it was clearly dead in the water when Trump got a security clearance—never mind MTG.)

   • Embed this notice
     Charlie Stross (cstross@wandering.shop)'s status on Saturday, 15-Apr-2023 19:09:08 JST Charlie Stross

     in reply to

     • mike805
     • Aethylred
     • brandon

     @mike805 @brandon @aethylred No fMRI won't give us a working lie detector, because the idea that you can determine truth or falsehood of a person's belief mechanically is junk science. Lie detector vendors are just selling snake-oil that appeals to authoritarians who demand unambiguous answers to their questions, however silly they are.

     clacke likes this.
   • Embed this notice
     mike805 (mike805@fosstodon.org)'s status on Saturday, 15-Apr-2023 19:09:09 JST mike805

     in reply to

     • Aethylred
     • brandon

     @brandon @cstross @aethylred Ames flunked a polygraph and kept his job. Claimed he was under stress. So even the people who run polygraphs don't trust them. If you can get some anxiolytics you can pass one too.

     I wonder if functional MRI and deep learning will give us a real lie detector in the near future?