[HN Gopher] What not to write on your security clearance form (1...
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What not to write on your security clearance form (1988)
Author : blegh
Score : 722 points
Date : 2023-01-19 08:18 UTC (14 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (milk.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (milk.com)
| pachico wrote:
| I browsed the website and found this gem https://milk.com/wall-o-
| shame/body_odor.html
| Communitivity wrote:
| Some of the advice in the other comments is dead wrong ('don't
| mention it', 'lie', 'fudge things').
|
| Have you done any of the things in the past 10 years if Top
| Secret, 5 if Secret (keeping in mind you might have to go TS
| before you've worked there 5 years)? Don't apply for a clearance,
| because they will find out eventually.
|
| If you apply then, be honest and fully truthful, and disclose
| everything. They are looking for signs of bad current judgement
| and things you are trying to hide that could be used to blackmail
| you.
|
| Also, "Have you considered X?" should be taken to mean 'Has you
| given more than a passing thought to X?'. If you had a relative
| die and thought 'I wonder why people commit suicide' that's one
| thing. If you thought 'Maybe I should kill myself', that is
| suicidal thought, even for a moment. Doesn't mean you're likely
| to do it. Does mean you should probably seek professional therapy
| to help you cope with your situation (doesn't mean you have a
| long time thing, just means at this moment you need some help
| coming up with coping mechanisms that work well enough).
| foobarbecue wrote:
| Did he ever publish the juicy sequel alluded to in the last
| paragraph?
| [deleted]
| airesearcher wrote:
| I often answer the doctor office intake questionnaires with a
| glaring mistake just to see if anyone checks. Where it says "have
| you ever been pregnant?" I answer yes. I also mark that I am a
| male. No doctor's office has ever mentioned this to me after I
| turn in the forms.
| dsfyu404ed wrote:
| Realistically what's gonna happen is that the doctor will
| ignore it and the insurance company or some other bureaucracy
| (insurance, state regulator, etc) will use your errant answer
| as a pretext to do something that is advantageous for them at
| the expense of some other party (you, your doctor, etc).
| hotpotamus wrote:
| Those aren't actually considered to necessarily be in conflict
| these days. I think sex assigned at birth or something like
| that would probably be the relevant medical question.
| paulmd wrote:
| modern medical forms do indeed ask for sex assigned at birth
| (or some variation on that) rather than gender, unless gender
| is specifically what they're after. And there really is very
| little variation since almost everyone is part of a hospital
| system nowadays and literally everyone does state/insurance
| interactions that require specific questions/etc.
|
| OP is just being colloquial. But you are correct that there
| is a difference between sex at birth and gender and the
| medical system does handle that.
| javawizard wrote:
| This exactly: gender and possession of a uterus are two very
| different things.
| ectopod wrote:
| Medical forms tend to ask for sex, not gender.
| tuyiown wrote:
| Why would you think someone would check ? This information is
| only consulted if it's needed, or for later cross checks.
|
| Nobody cares if it's correct or not until your health is in the
| line.
| xboxnolifes wrote:
| When I go to a new doctor, they read the intake form
| information.
| szszrk wrote:
| The pregnancy is usually the one thing that is promptly checked
| when a young man fills a form as a blood donor where I live.
| The form is a table, most questions are yes/no with a separate
| column you mark with X. The pregnancy row has a twist, it's
| "fill if you are a women" type.
|
| Thankfully nurses know that well, check it instantly and ask to
| actually read the form. Blood donations are usually fun.
| noisy_boy wrote:
| Alternative explanation is that they do check it and after
| reconciling the checkbox and gender inputs against your
| (presumably) obvious appearance, choose to attribute it to a
| mistake and ignore it.
| berkes wrote:
| But which entry then is mistaken?
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| These are fun. I got told very clearly to not check any of the
| boxes related to mental health shortly after being diagnosed
| bipolar.
|
| If I was suicidal but under treatment for it, I wasn't suicidal
| for the purposes of the form.
|
| Apparently I triggered some mandatory reporting law abd made a
| headache for everyone involved.
|
| Oops.
| ckastner wrote:
| It's a great story, but didn't the author confess to a felony by
| publishing it? He lied on an official document, even if directed
| to do so by the person across him.
|
| I know this is pedantic, but that's exactly what I would expect
| from a security clearance vetting process.
| jemfinch wrote:
| He wasn't investigated by the FBI. The FBI was investigating a
| hypothetical Japanese spy; since he wasn't a Japanese spy, any
| follow-up that led to him was merely incidental.
|
| If the FBI investigates a spy seen driving a silver Honda Civic
| with license plate ABC-1234, and looks into an unrelated
| civilian who drives a silver Honda Civic with license plate
| ADC-1234 in case their witness misremembered the license place,
| that doesn't mean the unrelated civilian was "investigated by
| the FBI".
| apricot wrote:
| I don't buy it. The FBI found his code sheet that he made,
| and tracked him down, and asked people about him. This is an
| investigation, and it's about him. The fact that they thought
| he was a Japanese spy simply means that they made the wrong
| assumption about _the person they were investigating_.
| albrewer wrote:
| The investigation was about the document, not the person.
| If, after they had met with the guy, they started
| interviewing family, friends, and digging into his life -
| THAT would constitute an affirmative answer to the
| question.
| [deleted]
| ckastner wrote:
| This isn't a case of a mistaken identity, the FBI found
| exactly the person they were looking for. It just turned out
| that said person wasn't a threat, after all.
|
| I'd say determining that is exactly the point of an
| investigation. That fact that it ended well doesn't change
| the fact that the process happened, and was triggered by said
| person.
| gnfargbl wrote:
| It is true that the FBI found the person they were looking
| for, and that person was the terminus of their
| investigation. It is not true that the article author _was
| investigated by the FBI_. He was nothing more than a
| MacGuffin in the overall plot.
|
| In this specific case, the security officer made the
| correct decision in having him leave out this detail from
| the clearance form. Makes for a good story, though.
| ckastner wrote:
| > _It is true that the FBI found the person they were
| looking for, and that person was the terminus of their
| investigation. It is not true that the article author was
| investigated by the FBI; he wasn 't_
|
| To me, these are the same, so I guess that's probably
| just my layman's view then.
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| They aren't the same. There is a legal distinction. They
| were attempting to identify the source of a document.
|
| After they found and identified who created it, the
| investigation was dropped before they investigated any
| particular person.
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| That's what the word means. If they mean convicted, they
| should ask that instead.
| emn13 wrote:
| I kind of _hope_ any statutes of limitations would have expired
| 35 years ago for events then 45 years ago. There's not much
| point in retaining liability for events that long ago; it's not
| like you'll ever catch the "crooks", nor likely have the
| ability to really judge events reasonably anymore by that time.
|
| 'course, with the general urge to be "tough on crime" and the
| inevitable occasional horror-story of truly heinous behavior
| discovered many decades later there probably isn't a lot of
| political will to support reasonable statutes of limitations,
| so I wouldn't be surprised if some of this stuff never expires.
| gr4yb34rd wrote:
| i felt like it might be an embellishment. mostly because i
| interviewed so many infosec people in the early 2000's and
| like a quarter of them had some similar story from when they
| were 10-12 about contact with 3-letter agencies or other
| nonsense that "got me started on this path at an early age".
| FpUser wrote:
| Or maybe get a life and go catch actual spies. When the law
| makes innocent suffer fuck it.
| ckastner wrote:
| Determining whether you're dealing with an actual spy or an
| innocent person is the entire point of such investigations.
| FpUser wrote:
| The investigation was already concluded. Why should person
| suffer in the future when nothing wrong was done ?
| ckastner wrote:
| The person wasn't really suffering though, this was just
| about getting a security clearance. Most people don't
| have one.
|
| I don't think it's entirely unreasonable for a special
| vetting process to have stricter standards.
| FpUser wrote:
| Not getting a job and clearance in general over some
| stupid stuff is "suffering" and if he was not advised to
| lie he would've left without job / clearance. Basically
| paying for some stupid course of events. In my opinion
| shit like this should be automatically wiped out in
| normal society.
| mcv wrote:
| The event happened 80 years ago. I don't know what the statute
| of limitations is here, but I would guess that it's passed by
| now.
|
| Edit: it's a story from 1988, so at the time it was only 45
| years ago.
| ckastner wrote:
| True. I admit that I just assumed that the statute of
| limitations for these national security-related kinds of
| things were indefinite.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| It might be - for an actual spy. For omitting that detail
| on a security clearance form? After 45 years, no, nobody
| cares.
| jobs_throwaway wrote:
| > On another occasion much later, I learned by chance that
| putting certain provocative information on a security clearance
| form can greatly speed up the clearance process.
|
| Gotta know this piece!
| DoctorOetker wrote:
| I was about to post the same.
|
| Is this person still alive to tell the other story?
| gdavisson wrote:
| I have an example of the opposite: When I was quite young, I
| got into model rocketry as a hobby. Buying engines required a
| pyrotechnician's license, and I was too young to get one, so I
| talked both of my parents into applying for licenses. My dad
| had been in the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos in WWII, so
| when he got to a question on the form that asked if he had any
| previous experience with explosives, he put something like
| "Yes, conventional and nuclear." His application took
| significantly longer than my mom's to process.
| metadat wrote:
| Also discussed back in 2010:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1444653 (99 comments)
| [deleted]
| zabzonk wrote:
| i was once sitting in coach class (never again) flying from
| heathrow to chicago when they handed out the visa waiver forms.
| for those of you that don't know, this enables people from the uk
| to enter the us on business or holiday, without a visa, and asks
| all sorts of incredibly inane questions, such as "have you ever
| attempted to overthrow the government of the usa by violence?",
| with yes/no checkboxes. the correct answer to all of them is
| "no".
|
| glancing over at the idiot boy sitting next to me, who had been
| somewhat annoying me during the flight, i noticed that he had
| checked "yes" to all of them. i had a moments pleasure thinking
| what would happen to him once he got to immigration, but being
| basically a nice person, i suggested he got a new form from the
| cabin crew.
| pc86 wrote:
| Two points this brought up for me. One, I'd love to hear about
| the provocative information that would speed up clearance
| approval. I bet there's a story or two there.
|
| Two, I had a similar (much less impactful) experience as a high
| school freshman donating blood for the first time. One of the
| questions on the health questionnaire was "have you ever had
| headaches?" I remember being confused at the wording as I checked
| yes because surely everyone has had a headache at some point in
| their life. The (astonishingly rude) person reviewing the
| paperwork got to that question, stared at me for a few seconds
| then just said "well?" After a brief back and forth she taps the
| question a 4-5 times. "What's this?" "I've had headaches before."
| She sighed and said "that's not what it means! go get in line"
| bell-cot wrote:
| Sadly, the moral of the story seems to be that the 1943 FBI had
| loads of zealous (performative?) plods on staff, but ~zero law
| enforcement professionals. In '43, the US had plenty of highly
| competent professional cryptographers, who were quite experienced
| with current Japanese, German, Italian, British, etc. codes.
| _Before_ an entire local FBI office spent even a day on this case
| (let alone 6 weeks), _maybe_ they should have asked some of those
| professionals to look at the supposed "Japanese code key" page?
| If it turned out to be a known code that (say) Canada used for
| low-security consular messages, that'd quickly narrow down or
| close the case.
|
| EDIT: If they believed the "Japanese code key" page might be
| genuine, why didn't they pass it up to the professional code-
| breakers ASAP? Sitting on it, while the Japanese used the code to
| plan an attack on the US, could make that local FBI office look
| like a bunch of idiots and traitors. So perhaps they did pass it
| up, were told that it was a waste of time...but didn't want to
| accept that answer.
| greggsy wrote:
| It's important not to fall into the trap of hindsight. At the
| time, they very well thought it was important, but it of course
| seems silly once you hear the full story.
| bell-cot wrote:
| Note my edit, above. If they suspected it really was
| important, then they should have passed it up to the code-
| breakers ASAP.
| tiagod wrote:
| It was probably just a random key, one-time-pad type. No
| way of figuring out much out of a typewritten random
| number, especially if it was truly random (generated with
| dice, for example)
| bhelkey wrote:
| My reading was that the FBI ended up with a key not an
| encrypted message.
| mauriciolange wrote:
| This was a code key, not a codified message, so there was
| nothing to break, but only the indication that messages could
| have been exchanged using this key.
| adastra22 wrote:
| Which is gold material for the code breakers. The people
| trying to decrypt messages having to do with the ongoing war
| at the time.
| quietbritishjim wrote:
| Yes but if the codebreakers also came across a (real!) coded
| message, wouldn't they want to have the key already to hand
| so that it can be decrypted?
| pjc50 wrote:
| That was Hoover's FBI, the peak of hunting for anyone suspected
| of being a communist, gay, dissident, or anti-segregationist.
| bell-cot wrote:
| Also - "Working for the Evil Overlord" is no excuse for gross
| incompetence. By late 1943, there seem to have been at least
| 4 independent communist spies inside the uber-secret
| Manhattan Project. Most of them with communist connections
| which _competent_ zealous plods, perhaps eager to be heroes,
| could have uncovered.
| bell-cot wrote:
| True-ish. But in 1943, it sounds like they'd gotten badly
| distracted by some less-important "Japanese" stuff...
| petesergeant wrote:
| > Before an entire local FBI office spent even a day on this
| case (let alone 6 weeks), maybe they should have asked some of
| those professionals to look at the supposed "Japanese code key"
| page?
|
| That sounds far less exciting than scrambling to find a fifth
| columnist and potentially being hailed as a hero.
| bell-cot wrote:
| True. But most people, after they've been grown-ups for a
| while, figure out that "find the winning lotto ticket on the
| sidewalk and get rich" is not how life actually works. And
| with a war on...the FBI's kids, simpletons, day dreamers, and
| glory hounds should have been closely supervised by real
| grown-ups. Or transferred to lines of work better suited to
| their talents.
| rjsw wrote:
| Maybe the grown-ups were doing something else during the
| war.
| koliber wrote:
| > most people, after they've been grown-ups for a while,
| figure out that "find the winning lotto ticket on the
| sidewalk and get rich"
|
| True, but it's not completely bleak either. I once wanted
| to take out $40 from an ATM, and it gave me $60! I never
| told anyone and this is the first time I am sharing this.
| If a time comes to fill out a security clearance
| application, should this go in there?
|
| Moral of the story: it takes money to make money. :)
| felipemnoa wrote:
| Your secret is safe with us ;)
| skissane wrote:
| > True, but it's not completely bleak either. I once
| wanted to take out $40 from an ATM, and it gave me $60!
|
| One time, I wanted to take $40 out of an ATM, it gave me
| $80 instead. I checked my Internet banking - they had the
| ATM withdrawal at the expected location, but only for
| $40, which is all I'd asked for. Then, a few days later,
| I got another $40 debit transaction, but of a strange
| type I'd never seen before - it was labelled something
| like "MANUAL ADJUSTMENT". I assume someone at the bank
| had worked out that the ATM screwed up and manually
| corrected it.
| bell-cot wrote:
| Guess: They screwed up in loading or configuring the ATM,
| so it believed it was (say) giving you $10 bills, when it
| was actually giving you $20 bills. I've seen that happen
| - as an insider, to hear more of the (dull) detail.
| skissane wrote:
| From what I recall, it gave me 4x $20 bills instead of
| 2x. I attempted the transaction, it made this "flipping
| bills" sound for an unusually long time, then gave me a
| "dispense" error message. But obviously the cash had
| partially made it through the machine and got stuck
| somewhere, because when I retried the transaction, it
| gave me both the cash from the successful transaction,
| and that from the earlier failed one. Only the successful
| transaction ever appeared on my bank statement as a
| proper ATM withdrawal, but obviously they somehow
| detected the previous one and processed it manually.
| sixbrx wrote:
| Many ATM's can actually detect that too much was given
| and report it as part of their communications protocol,
| it's called a "mis-dispense". Some used to even be
| configured to not allow opening the door to get the money
| on mis-dispense, requiring someone from the bank to come
| out to clear it. Source: I used to work on the bank
| software side of this communication, on IBM AS/400's.
| rvba wrote:
| Well maybe the local office didnt have anything else to do. So
| they followed this lead as a top priority since they had no
| other leads.
|
| Money would be spend on the wages of those agents anyway, even
| if they had nothing to do.
| dwighttk wrote:
| >If it turned out to be a known code that (say) Canada used for
| low-security consular messages, that'd quickly narrow down or
| close the case.
|
| It was made up by the two kids, so maybe they did that but it
| didn't narrow down their case...
| flavius29663 wrote:
| I don't understand your point here. He lost the cypher itself,
| not an encrypted message. So the code breakers would have said:
| yep, that's a cypher alright, it can be used for anything by
| anyone.
|
| Being at war, you want to make sure it's not an enemy using the
| code.
| washywashy wrote:
| The illegals drugs question never made sense to me. It's asking
| you to admit to something that won't necessarily show up on a
| criminal background check if you haven't ever been caught.
| Assuming you have been caught or are still using, other
| preemployment screens will catch that. So why not ask other
| questions like: "Have you ever murdered someone?" "Have you ever
| stolen?"
| paulmd wrote:
| pretty sure there is indeed a "are there any felonies you've
| committed for which you've never been convicted/indicted"
| question to cover that base
| notch656c wrote:
| It's been awhile since I read it but I believe they ask you
| about all felony convictions whereas the use / non-convicted
| felonious activities itself only goes back like 7 years
| (perhaps not coincidentally is also statute of limitation for
| many federal crimes).
| dotancohen wrote:
| My email sig for years: > This electronic
| communication has been processed by the United > States
| National Security Agency.
|
| I've had lots of people tell me about this as if they're
| informing me about something nefarious. I've stopped responding,
| because no matter what I answer _I_ appear to be the one with
| some kind of problem.
| 082349872349872 wrote:
| Avalanche rescue dogs are rewarded for their accurate reports,
| whether they find bodies or not.
|
| Once upon a time, out of mechanical sympathy, it used to be
| popular to add keywords (eg. DNR LNR SSBN-731 Long Po Hai Jun
| Ji Di etc.) in .sig files, to give the descendants of
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_7950_Harvest#Usage something
| to report.
|
| (and back when I was tangentially involved with impedance
| matching crunch with high-capacity/high-bandwidth datastores, I
| wondered how "dual use" nominally civilian scientific programs
| like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_Earth_Science might
| be.)
| drfuchs wrote:
| Les Earnest's original 1986 "bboard" posting of this story, and
| other related ones, are to be found in the dump of the Sail
| backup tapes archived at https://www.saildart.org/BB.MSG[MSG,LES]
|
| Search for "Finger flex" / "e-t-a-o-i-n Spy", "Kick the Mongrel"
| / "White Faces in New Places", and "The Missed Punch" / "Mongrel
| in a Star-chamber" for the the F.B.I. and security clearance
| entries.
|
| As one might imagine from these stories, he's quite a character,
| and still alive at 92 (according to Stanford and Wikipedia).
| ceautery wrote:
| Yep, still alive. He plans on being shot in the back while
| fleeing from a jealous husband in 2043, according to his
| Stanford bio[1]
|
| 1 - https://web.stanford.edu/~learnest/
| neilv wrote:
| This is great. From one of those pages:
|
| > _Now with 55 years hindsight I realize that both our study
| group and the government nuclear safety committee overlooked
| other possibilities such as that a malevolent programmer
| might have been able to launch a missile all by himself.
| There was no certainty that such a scheme would have worked
| inasmuch as the SAGE software was reviewed by multiple people
| who might have questioned any odd-looking code. Nevertheless,
| we should have considered that possibility and taken steps to
| ensure that it didn't happen. The reason we didn't was that
| there was no such thing as a malevolent programmer in that
| era (1950s and '60s) - we were all honest, upright, and
| altruistic, so the idea that a programmer might sneak in evil
| code was inconceivable. Later experiences on the Internet
| have revealed other possibilities._
|
| IIRC, Bertrand Russell had an observation about Western
| philosophers on a related question: they had a blind spot, in
| that they extrapolated too much from themselves, who weren't
| representative of everyone.
| NikolaNovak wrote:
| When I moved to Canada, at age 16-17 I initially failed a lot of
| job applications at places like Staples, Future Shop, Best Buy,
| Radio Shack, etc.
|
| For some reason, many of them had a type of "Corporate
| Personality Test" on their application, and asked the same "Have
| you ever considered stealing from your employer?" to which I
| would cheerfully answer "Yes".
|
| Apparently this was an automatic deal-breaker; there was no
| follow-up - no "HAVE you ever stolen" or "WOULD you ever steal
| from your employer", or "why were you considering it" or anything
| like that. My mind never stops and there's virtually nothing in
| the world I have _not_ "considered" (as in, thought about,
| crossed my mind, evaluated, etc). Similarly, years later it
| actually took my Canadian therapist a little while to adjust as
| well when he asked if I ever considered suicide and I cheerfully
| replied "Yes!" (I'm not suicidal, in the least, by any of the
| normal metrics; but I genuinely don't understand people who have
| "never considered" it - how do you block & limit your mind? What
| mental fences do you have that you have never "considered" such
| an obvious course of action in the likely billion of seconds of
| thinking?).
|
| I don't know what other people do with their brains; my wife
| falls asleep within 30 seconds of her head hitting the pillow, my
| mind insists on spending an hour or three "considering" things I
| apparently shouldn't put on a job application lol :-)
| werdnapk wrote:
| In a similar vein... while driving down the road, have you ever
| "considered" just pulling into the opposing lane? I'd never
| ever do that, but I've considered others driving into my lane,
| which leads me to consider myself doing that to their lane.
|
| Lots of other similar "I'd never do that" situations I've
| definitely considered.
|
| I admire your honesty though. 99% of people would lie.
| Jerrrry wrote:
| The call of the void is a natural instinct evolved to help
| judge possibly (dis)advantageous choices.
|
| As long as you label it as an "intrusive thought," and it
| isn't incredibly (daily) common, that is perfectly normal.
| im3w1l wrote:
| I always figured that the "call of the void" was to
| illustrate to us what a careless movement could lead to. So
| that we will shy away from the edge or constantly second
| guess our movements for danger while we remain.
| devin wrote:
| At a family gathering we were all sharing we've considered
| this while driving. Not specifically veering into oncoming
| traffic but "what if" things like letting go of the wheel,
| intentionally driving into a ditch at high speed, etc.
|
| One person in my family claims they've never had this thought
| _ever_ , and it truly baffles me.
| ShroudedNight wrote:
| "Uh-uh-uh - Turning the car into oncoming traffic ... is
| counter productive!" has been a Jim Carrey tag-line for
| decades: https://youtu.be/4YnslaUd4VY
| jat850 wrote:
| L'appel du vide in one of its more commonly manifested forms.
| Tangurena2 wrote:
| One book that describes these tests, and how they've come to
| dominate low-level jobs is titled _Punching In_ [0]. The
| philosophy is that what sort of personality that would be
| successful at, say, Home Depot, would be completely different
| from American Eagle. At many retail companies, you cannot get
| into the payroll system unless the personality test system
| approves your application.
|
| My experience with the same sort of personality tests that
| you've described is somewhat similar. When trying to get hired
| (I was desperate for _anything_ at that time) at WalMart, the
| personality tests seemed to ask 3 basic questions - but about
| 20 different ways to approach each question - (a) _do you get
| into fights at work?_ (b) _do you steal?_ and (c) _do you care
| if your boss steals?_
|
| 0: - https://www.amazon.com/Punching-Frontlines-New-Brand-
| Cultu-e...
| nkrisc wrote:
| This gave me a good chuckle, and definitely speaks to the
| imprecision of language and how shared cultural context and
| understanding does a lot of heavy lifting. Context and
| understanding that everyone takes for granted but may not be
| apparent to some, even those in the culture.
|
| Almost certainly HR and your therapist were not interested in
| every infinite possible though you may have ever had, but
| whether it was something you seriously considered or planned
| and may have even made intent towards actually completing.
|
| > but I genuinely don't understand people who have "never
| considered" it - how do you block & limit your mind? What
| mental fences do you have that you have never "considered" such
| an obvious course of action in the likely billion of seconds of
| thinking?).
|
| Having an intrusive though pop into my head ("You could totally
| just jump in front of the train!") is not the same as actually
| considering the steps towards actually planning suicide. I have
| had intrusive thoughts, but I would say I've never "considered"
| suicide.
| sleton38234234 wrote:
| just be very careful with how you respond to questions from a
| therapist. they're "legally" required to report certain things.
| You have to know, what you're allowed to say and what you're
| not, if you don't want govt institutions getting involved.
| duped wrote:
| I think you're misunderstanding the difference between
| answering questions truthfully and how your answers are
| received.
| jemmyw wrote:
| There's a difference between thinking about something and
| seriously entertaining it. Like you, I think about a lot of
| things, but I'd take "considering" to mean more than that. I've
| thought about all kinds of ways to commit fraud, but I'd never
| consider doing it. I think you've misunderstood the word in
| context.
| peeters wrote:
| When I was in the security clearance process, the first step in
| the process was a 500 question multiple choice psychological
| exam (randomized order). The test is designed to have some
| level of error checking to make sure participants are taking it
| seriously (e.g. questions that would be expected to correlate).
| Near the start of the exam was a question "do you have back
| pain", I answered "no". Near the end was the same question
| phrased slightly differently, I answered "yes". When in my
| subsequent interview to discuss the results, the interviewer
| questioned why I didn't answer consistently. She seemed to
| accept my answer of "I had been sitting in an uncomfortable
| chair for 2.5 hours by the time I got to the second question".
| the_af wrote:
| > _My mind never stops and there 's virtually nothing in the
| world I have not "considered"_
|
| One piece of advice my mom gave me which I always follow is:
| don't tell them (a company/job/boss) anything that could be
| used against you. There's no need to be truthful here, this
| isn't a consultation with your doctor. So lie, tell them you're
| healthy, you never had any problems with anyone ever, never
| admit to anything. Truth is for your doctor or your therapist
| (and your mom!).
|
| (There's also a fun related video that sometimes makes the
| rounds, "never talk to cops"
| (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-7o9xYp7eE). I suppose it's
| specific to US law, but I find it interesting nonetheless).
| 3-cheese-sundae wrote:
| And if you've ever applied for life insurance, you may also
| know that consultations with your doctor should also be
| treated similarly, lest they use a casual mention of smoking
| a cigar 17 years ago as grounds to increase your rate or deny
| coverage altogether.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| > _There 's no need to be truthful here, this isn't a
| consultation with your doctor._
|
| Even then, depending on your demographic, being honest about
| things like pain might get you labelled as a drug seeker.
| NikolaNovak wrote:
| I've watched that video several times; as somebody "largely"
| honest, I need it to pragmatically re-adjust my perspective
| every few years - because I TOTALLY am the person who would
| inherently monologue for 3 hours when asked a simple question
| by a cop :)
|
| The other piece of advice is trickier, and I personally do
| not follow it too closely (everything in life is
| circumstantial:). Two aspects to mention:
|
| 1. Often, a lie is more harmful than a slightly harmful
| truth. And opportunities to get caught in a lie start with
| the application process - some applications have multiple
| seemingly unrelated or different questions that aim to
| reinforce the validity of your claims; this will also
| sometimes be reinforced with interviews, reference checks,
| etc. And then if you get the job or grant or whatever,
| there's still the risk of getting caught at virtually any
| point in the future.
|
| My wife and a few of her friends have been HR managers at
| quite varied corporations, and universally they lament that
| people get fired over an insignificant lie. What they lied
| about might've been a verbal "Hey don't do that" or a formal
| reprimand, but lie got them immediately fired.
|
| 2. Variation of that but, perfection and/or fakeness can
| stand out. Not to say there aren't people who can lie/fake
| perfectly, and sometimes many of us think that we can pull it
| off better than we can. But while I cannot claim that I have
| never fibbed or concealed in my life, last few decades I've
| been lucky enough that I didn't need to.
|
| And luck is an important word; I've been lucky professionally
| since I came to Canada, which _enabled_ me to have good
| success going counter to that advice: e.g. to every new
| manager, I proactively indicate explicitly that I "Attended
| university but have not graduated", I came extremely upfront
| when I started photography business even though it had
| nothing to do with my IT dayjob, etc. I find one's experience
| at large companies is partially shaped by formal policies
| written by people far away from you, but also hugely by the
| actual people surrounding you, and I've been lucky / chosen
| well over the years. Milleage most definitely WILL vary, and
| I've been in sufficiently different / more precarious or
| dangerous situations to be fairly aware of my current
| privilege.
| dwater wrote:
| I believe you should have the same attitude when giving an
| interview e.g. to a member of the media. They will make it
| feel like a personal conversation which is intended to get
| you to share your story and views, but in the end they are
| really telling their story and their views, and will use
| what you say to support that whether you agree with what
| they are saying or not.
| the_af wrote:
| Agreed about not outright lying. I think my mom's advice --
| the way I interpret it, anyway -- is more "don't volunteer
| information". Sometimes you have to answer honestly if they
| ask you a direct question about a concrete fact they can
| doublecheck in alternative ways, but otherwise: don't
| volunteer information. Don't be a "completionist", if they
| ask you "have you ever considered [something naughty]" the
| truth is only for your therapist; for HR it's always "no,
| never!".
| jrochkind1 wrote:
| > I TOTALLY am the person who would inherently monologue
| for 3 hours when asked a simple question by a cop
|
| Then for you especially, but really for everyone -- don't
| talk to the cop without a lawyer. Just don't. (at least if
| you are in the USA).
|
| For all the reasons you mention. Lying to the cops can be
| committing a crime in itself. Trying to think it through
| and figure out exactly how much of the truth to tell in
| what way -- can either leave you accidentally committing
| the crime of lying to the cop, OR accidentally
| incriminating yourself (even if you don't think you've done
| anything wrong). The cops have way more training and
| practice and experience at this interaction than you, you
| will not outsmart them.
|
| In the USA (and probably other places, but I know the USA),
| you have the right to not talk to the cops without a
| lawyer, and you should exercize it, even if you think
| you've done nothing wrong. (Plenty of people who think
| they've done nothing wrong end up screwed by the cops).
| the_af wrote:
| The video I linked to, which frequently makes the rounds,
| is essentially a defense attorney explaining that you
| should never speak to cops, even if you're innocent, and
| gives plenty of examples of innocent people that ended up
| convicted of something just because they thought they
| were safe (because they didn't do anything). For example,
| he explains even an innocent person making an innocent
| mistake while recollecting the facts to the cops can get
| screwed, whereas an innocent person who simply won't talk
| to them cannot get screwed as easily.
|
| I'll repost it here for emphasis. I'm sure this applies
| mostly to the US, and _also_ that the attorney is
| overstating his case a bit for comedic effect, but I 'm
| also convinced that what he's saying is mostly right (at
| least, for the US legal system).
|
| Again, for emphasis: he recommends that even _innocent_
| people never talk to cops!
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-7o9xYp7eE
| bityard wrote:
| Yep.
|
| I am good friends with police officers and firmly believe
| that _most_ of them are good people trying to do good
| work.
|
| But the most succinct way to put it is: if you are an
| innocent person, you simply have nothing to gain by
| talking to the cops without a lawyer. And potentially
| everything to lose if they choose to pin something on you
| somehow.
| flatline wrote:
| For those of you who are like I used to be and are just
| honest in an unfiltered way that sometimes caused you
| trouble: don't think of it as lying, think of it as keeping
| secrets. You can also view it as maintaining a personal
| boundary, which is not something people of my generation were
| brought up with. We all keep secrets to some extent: shameful
| memories we do not readily recount; job confidentiality;
| things we only share with our doctor or therapist. Just be
| like that more, it's okay to be a bit of a mystery to others,
| and you can do this while still divulging a ton of stuff
| about yourself. Lying just feels stupid and wrong. Pretend
| you are a spy in this life, and you can consciously choose
| what face to present to anyone.
| the_af wrote:
| Yes! Like I clarified in another comment, I didn't really
| meant "lying" but "not volunteering/selectively withholding
| information".
| trifurcate wrote:
| > You can also view it as maintaining a personal boundary,
| which is not something people of my generation were brought
| up with.
|
| Which generation do you belong to, out of curiosity?
| flatline wrote:
| I am presently 46 years old.
| Natsu wrote:
| People are using a different version of 'considered' where it's
| not just a passing fancy, but something you would be likely to
| do.
| nlnn wrote:
| Many people use "considered" to actually mean "seriously
| considered acting upon", rather than "idly considered
| hypothetically" in this context.
|
| Plus when screening many applicants with few differentiators,
| this might be an easy question to reject on.
| foobarbecue wrote:
| I'm like you. An ex of mine claimed that most people never even
| think about committing suicide. It's hard for me to understand
| how anyone could avoid such an obvious thought, but I have
| since seen a lot of evidence that some people's minds really
| don't explore the possibility space, and when they do it's only
| along prescribed paths... So I guess it's possible?
| derbOac wrote:
| FWIW, this sort of issue is a serious problem for many people
| with severe OCD. Basically a thought comes into their minds,
| about something disturbing or taboo, and they start obsessing
| over the fact they had the thought, because they're so
| distraught about the idea it would even come into their mind.
| In most cases, they are so far from actually doing anything
| related to the thought, and that's why they are so
| distraught. This leads to penitential behavior, and
| compulsions, etc.
|
| Sometimes figuring out if they're just obsessing because
| they're worried about a thought, versus actually
| perseverating over a potentially actionable drive, is really
| really difficult.
|
| Not saying you have OCD, it's just a whole area that can lead
| to seriously debilitating problems for some individuals.
| justsocrateasin wrote:
| I actually feel like this is a good argument _for_
| normalizing the fact that probably everyone has thoughts
| about suicide (as OP said, thinking about the implications
| versus considering).
|
| I remember a period of my life where I was struggling a bit
| more than normal with anxiety, and my creative / intrusive
| brain was like "how about you think on the concept of
| suicide?" to which my brain responded "wow now you're
| thinking about suicide, you should really seek help".
|
| In reality, it was just an intrusive thought. But the fact
| that my brain jumped on that thought, and ruminated on it
| as "if the thought popped into my head, maybe I'm not OK",
| that was the thing that caused problems.
| foobarbecue wrote:
| Interesting; that makes a lot of sense. This insight makes
| me think there's a continuum between brains set to "control
| all thoughts" and brains set to "autmatically explore all
| possibilities."
|
| I think I'm pretty neurotypical and fall somewhere in the
| middle, but I can see how a minor change in that "setting"
| would have a big impact on my behavior.
| rhacker wrote:
| That's the main difference between OCD and not.
| kibwen wrote:
| It boils down to a semantic argument. People have differing
| definitions of what it means to "think about committing
| suicide". If you're up on top of a tall object and happen to
| imagine yourself plummeting over the edge even without any
| intention to do so, some people will consider that "thinking
| about it", and some people won't.
|
| The useful interpretation is to exercise empathy and put
| yourself in the mind of the person writing the questionnaire,
| and ask what definition _they_ are likely using. For example,
| your therapist doesn 't care if you had a random intrusive
| thought thirty years ago, they care if you presently have
| actual designs of self-harm. Likewise, in the OP, the person
| interpreting the security clearance doesn't care if you were
| accidentally caught up in a silly witch hunt when you were
| 12.
| foobarbecue wrote:
| I agree that one should attempt to answer the /intended/
| question.
|
| In this case, however, it wasn't semantic. My ex and I were
| on the same page as to how we were using "think". She was
| claiming that by our shared definition of think, most
| people didn't, and we did.
| Atheros wrote:
| It's impractical for everyone and impossible for some
| people to interpret every question through the lens of the
| person asking the question. The use of American euphemisms
| is constantly changing and it is unreasonable to expect
| non-native English speakers or neurodivergent people to
| keep up.
|
| Practice empathy. Guess at others' intent in order to do
| your best to give others the information that they want.
| But then insist that they use plain English in the future
| and that doing otherwise is wrong.
|
| https://sneak.berlin/20191201/american-communication/
| bityard wrote:
| > if you speak directly, what will be heard by your
| listeners is whatever your statements are presumed to
| imply, not what is actually stated--regardless of whether
| or not those implications are intended or not.
|
| This pretty well sums up my experience of the HN comments
| section.
| photochemsyn wrote:
| That might be related to why it's such a taboo subject -
| people fear that even mentioning the word 'suicide' will
| cause some people to starting making deliberate plans to end
| their own life. (It's certainly a rather depressing topic,
| not suitable for small talk or dinner conversation, and
| people who are always bringing it up probably could use some
| therapist time.)
|
| The effect is similar to the statement, "don't think of a
| blue elephant" - it's pretty hard to not immediately think of
| some kind of a blue elephant (Dumbo the Disney character? A
| wild African elephant that got blue mud all over it? A
| painted elephant in a Indian potentate's parade? Etc.)
|
| Psychologists use the term 'ideation' to distinguish between
| merely thinking about a topic, versus obsessing over a topic,
| making plans related to a topic, and so on.
| SpaceL10n wrote:
| I find this concept fascinating, where can I read more?
| foobarbecue wrote:
| [Fox News joke removed since upon further reflection it
| wasn't funny]
|
| Seriously though, I suppose I was misusing the word
| "evidence" here... I haven't actually studied this beyond
| observing and talking to people I know. I would also be
| interested in reading on the topic if anyone can suggest
| something!
| foobarbecue wrote:
| I'm sad that Slava_Propanei's comment below is dead. I'm
| stoked to learned the word "keyfabe."
| dang wrote:
| You can vouch for [dead] comments. When enough users do
| that, it will come back to life. See
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html#cvouch.
| Slava_Propanei wrote:
| Ah yes, Fox News. The source of all bad thought is not
| the global liberal hegemony, but rather its kayfabe
| opposition.
| foobarbecue wrote:
| Vouching for this. It's off-topic and a little
| inflammatory but I started that, and it taught me the
| word kayfabe. Thanks to dang for introducing me to the
| vouch feature.
| PuppyTailWags wrote:
| I think it is possible and I think it helps to explore what
| you don't think about. Everyone has things that never/rarely
| occur to them to consider performing as an action, even
| people with significantly broader consideration-spheres than
| others. For example, I've considered suicide but never going
| pro in ballet. I've considered stealing from my employer but
| never becoming an opera influencer. I'm less athletic than a
| sibling of mine, so things like vaulting over fences/climbing
| trees aren't things I that would even occur to me to perform
| but my sibling is always thinking of ways they can get over
| and around physical obstacles with their body.
|
| I don't think that it's some people follow prescribed paths.
| I think everyone has familiar and less-familiar paths, and
| some paths are totally out of the way. And I think the
| overlap of what's considered familiar and what's considered
| out of the way have much less overlap than is commonly
| understood.
| dsr_ wrote:
| Unfortunately, now I have considered going pro in ballet
| (result: not going to happen), becoming an opera influencer
| (result: highly unlikely but not absolutely impossible; can
| I reasonably work towards the return of the comic operetta?
| Probably not without writing one. I could manage the book
| but not the music. Who do I know who might want to write
| the music?) and I have frequently considered but discarded
| the likelihood of vaulting over most fences and climbing
| most trees.
|
| Thanks.
| PuppyTailWags wrote:
| But that's the thing, right, you didn't consider those
| things before. There's no difference between not having
| considered suicide and not having considered pro ballet
| and it doesn't reflect anything about you in particular.
| That's why I'm saying I don't think it's incomprehensible
| that some people just haven't thought of things you've
| considered before. Because obviously you also haven't
| thought of things to consider until someone else (myself)
| brought them up.
| [deleted]
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| Probably because you were overthinking it.
|
| You're thinking in terms of grey while they're testing to
| ensure that you have at least a basic understanding of black
| and white.
| CapmCrackaWaka wrote:
| I can't pretend to know what the original test writers had in
| mind. However, I actually think this question serves a
| different purpose than to determine if you had actually
| considered stealing from an employer. These types of questions
| are better suited to determine if someone can walk the
| corporate walk and talk the corporate talk. They don't want a
| low level employee to go off on a customer, or make rude
| remarks, or otherwise say "between you and me, fuck this
| company lmaoooo", because that opens them up to litigation. On
| that front, I would say they achieved their goal.
|
| The _obvious_ answer to this question, if you want a job, is
| "no". Anyone that answers "yes" is a liability, regardless of
| their actual intention to steal.
| tejtm wrote:
| So they are filtering for a ethic that accepts boldface lying
| to them is necessary to cover essentials.
|
| I can not see how this paradigm could end well.
| aeturnum wrote:
| I mean - all ethical systems favor boldfaced lying in some
| situations? Even Kant's Categorical Imperative simply says
| that, if you lie, you should do so in a situation where
| anyone in that situation should lie (i.e. hiding Jews from
| the Nazis, etc). Even within a Kantian framework, you could
| argue that in this context (a formal job application) it is
| moral to lie because no one believes your answer represents
| your most deeply held beliefs - but rather represents your
| willingness (and ability) to perform a role (the role of
| the Good Employee). If you can't be a Good Employee you
| should reveal it by not lying - but if you can be you can
| reveal it by lying on the form (which reflects the lying
| you will be expected to do in the job).
| idopmstuff wrote:
| Yeah, seems like if you're hiring for a low-level retail
| employee, it's not necessarily a plus if they're the kind of
| person who deeply analyzes this sort of question instead of
| giving the superficially correct response. Particularly if
| this was in an employer-friendly time from a hiring
| perspective, and they had an endless supply of candidates.
| applejacks wrote:
| > they're the kind of person who deeply analyzes this sort
| of question
|
| Clearly they didn't deeply analyze the question in the
| relevant context. Answering "yes" to this is high school
| level "edginess".
|
| One needn't condescend, as there are equivalent questions
| at all levels of hiring, all with equally obvious
| (in)correct answers. No, you shouldn't answer "what is your
| biggest challenge" with "not showing up to work drunk",
| even if it is indeed your biggest challenge, _and_ one that
| you work hard to successfully overcome every day.
|
| Another commenter refers to this as "walking the corporate
| walk" but I think it's more "having an understanding of
| context and appropriate levels of sharing" and it applies
| _at all times in life_.
| notch656c wrote:
| Some cultures, and strongly correlated thus
| nationalities, are more brutally honest than others. So
| it may just be a test to see if you're an apple pie white
| American, which could be unlawful discrimination.
| CapmCrackaWaka wrote:
| I think you have this backwards - Apparently, Americans
| are considered more brutally honest and direct in
| negotiations than other cultures:
|
| https://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-negotiate-around-
| the-...
| lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote:
| That doesn't mean that Americans are more brutally honest
| in social interactions. In my experience, Americans
| commonly (admittedly, not always) avoid topics and
| observations which they think a listening party would
| find uncomfortable.
| [deleted]
| quocanh wrote:
| This actually reminds me of something I've been thinking
| about lately. What we call honesty is actually two
| different things: truthfulness and openness. Americans
| are probably truthful and not open.
| ipaddr wrote:
| Like Canadians are polite but not friendly
| BrandoElFollito wrote:
| No s**t, my g*d these Americans are really *****
|
| (who would have thought it is so difficult to beep out
| words in HN, I had to escape each *)
| lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote:
| Reminds me of the time I said the fuck word kinda loudly
| in public in Provo, Utah. Had people looking at me like
| I'd just grown a second head.
|
| That's kinda why I always say "the fuck word" instead of
| "the eff word". I've had too many interactions where
| somebody felt comfortable correcting my word choice for
| me to be polite about it. ("Fuckin' heck!" is pretty fun
| too; people just don't know how to respond.)
| yamazakiwi wrote:
| It's common in most roles for employers to check if you are
| flexible, teachable, and ready for cool-aid.
| NavinF wrote:
| *kool-aid
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drinking_the_Kool-Aid
| alasdair_ wrote:
| *Flavor Aid
|
| They didn't actually use Kool-aid in the Jonestown
| massacre, people just think they did.
| NavinF wrote:
| "drinking the Flavor Aid" doesn't sound nearly as good.
| It sounds like a knockoff
| entropicdrifter wrote:
| Just because the saying is apocryphal doesn't mean the
| spelling "cool-aid" was correct. The saying is "drinking
| the Kool-Aid" regardless
| yamazakiwi wrote:
| Sounds like you're drinking their cool-aid.
| davidw wrote:
| Reminds me of the scene in Cryptonimicon, again:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1866629
| wedn3sday wrote:
| Many things remind me of scenes from the Cryptonomicon,
| especially things that rhyme with "torpedo."
| shagie wrote:
| A retail company that I worked for (I worked in the general
| office and we got a bit of a chuckle talking about the test)
| had a test that was very much in the same vein - though it
| wasn't a "have you ever considered" but rather put on a "agree
| to disagree" spectrum. It is ok to get into
| fights during your break as long as you aren't at the store
| It is ok to take office supplies home if they aren't valued
| more than $10 It is ok to not clock out for a smoke
| break if it is less than five minutes long
|
| There were other questions that were ones you were supposed to
| agree with too - just those weren't as memorable.
|
| Apparently, there were people who failed the test.
|
| The _other_ part of the test is that it is on record. So when
| someone _does_ get into a fight during their break the GM can
| pull the test out and say "see, you knew this."
| m3047 wrote:
| I mean, there's a whole book that's popular dedicated to saying
| "yes" to every opportunity you're offered to improve your
| "luck"...
| FireBeyond wrote:
| I had to write a letter in support of my immigration
| application, explaining my situation and circumstances.
|
| I gave it to my attorney and she read over it and handed it
| back to me. "You already have an attorney. My letter will read
| like an attorney wrote it. Yours should instead look like a
| human wrote it."
| voisin wrote:
| Mindfulness meditation may help calm the racing mind.
| geomark wrote:
| I did that while taking a polygraph administered by a
| representative of a three letter agency. He said I was being
| deceptive.
| brookst wrote:
| Did you explain that you were just _pretending_ to be
| deceptive, b it were in fact fully cooperating?
| geomark wrote:
| It was clear the examiner had no sense of humor. So no.
| But when he said I was being deceptive I asked "In what
| way?" And he said "You tell me." And so we ended in a
| standoff.
| NikolaNovak wrote:
| Thanks, I've heard that over time; I've tried a bit of
| mindfulness over the years and I see the value in it, I just
| haven't been able to harness it yet. I've tried some guided
| audio body focus mindfulness/meditation and 1. Most of it
| tries too hard and loses me with "Third Eye" and "Spirit
| world" "and chakra energy frequency balance" 2. Most of it
| starts from toes and turns out I need to start from center
| (ridiculous preference but apparently true for me:) and 3.
| Most importantly, unsurprisingly, I _suck_ at it. I keep
| trying every now and then; maybe I 'll give it another go :)
| hackingthelema wrote:
| Abandon guided meditations and audio-based meditations, and
| focus to a simple programme of breath-focus. You just:
|
| 1. sit quietly and comfortably
|
| 2. breathe through your nose
|
| 3. find the feeling of air moving in and out of your nose
|
| 4. observe that feeling of air
|
| 5. if your mind starts observing other thoughts instead of
| the breath feeling -- 'I have an itch', 'this sitting
| position is uncomfortable', 'what about my meeting
| tomorrow' -- you notice your observation has left the air-
| in-your-nose feeling, and you gently redirect it back to
| focusing on that instead of the thoughts.
|
| 6. Repeat. You'll slowly increase from 2-3 seconds of focus
| to minutes at a time.
|
| > 3. Most importantly, unsurprisingly, I suck at it. I keep
| trying every now and then; maybe I'll give it another go :)
|
| You're better off with 3-5 minutes daily, _regularly_ ,
| than with longer sessions sporadically. It's a matter of
| practice and getting the knack of concentration down.
| Slowly increase to 10-15 minutes a day over a month or two,
| and really focus on getting the technique mastered more
| than anything.
|
| The book _Mindfulness in Plain English_ is both available
| freely online, and my favourite guide to getting it right.
| ufmace wrote:
| This is basically the idea. Exact techniques vary, but
| the point is to keep gently re-focusing on something
| minor and physical. It doesn't really matter what it is,
| scan direction vs breath flow vs something else, none of
| it matters, just pick one and work on focusing.
| j33zusjuice wrote:
| The app "Balance" is decent, and they give a year free on
| it (or gave, anyway). I primarily use it to go to sleep
| when my mind is racing (I fall asleep within 10 minutes
| every time, even if I've been laying and thinking for an
| hour or two), but I've listened to a few here and there,
| and I haven't heard any mysticism.
| frogpelt wrote:
| On the word "consider": A friend of mine tells a story about
| his dad and his appreciation for the practicality of a brick
| house.
|
| Someone once asked him "Would you ever consider putting any
| other siding on your house besides brick?"
|
| His answer: "I'd consider it. And then I'd brick it."
| robocat wrote:
| Bricks have bad failure modes in earthquake prone areas.
|
| Worst case: falling over and killing people in an earthquake
| (happened especially with many commercial properties in my
| hometown, Christchurch, in 2011 earthquake).
|
| Even with very minor damage you end up with fine mortar
| cracks so sealing fails, and wind blows water through cracks.
| Nobody fixes cracks properly so the problem is hidden by the
| repointing and painting over, and also cracks reopen on minor
| aftershocks years later.
|
| I like bricks, but I would avoid them in say California.
| IIsi50MHz wrote:
| Tangent: Some historic brick-built structurer in Cali are
| reinforced by apply fiberglass resin (just the resin, no
| fibers) to the surface of the bricks. This usually
| manifests as a glossy clear layer completely covering
| brickwork of the ground floor, followed by narrower and
| narrower strips of resin for the next floors. It can be
| applied to interior, exterior, or both surfaces, depending
| on assessment of the structure.
| gr4yb34rd wrote:
| that's how i knew 'voice stress analysis' tests were trash.
| when i was a teenager, it was all the rage for companies to put
| candidates through these and i'd sit there lying all the way
| through it and still get the job every time.
|
| now, any of my ex's can agree, i'm the worst liar in the world
| and if that test thought i was being honest, there's definitely
| something busted with it.
| ALittleLight wrote:
| Personality tests aren't about a test of your personality, but
| your ability to project the ideal personality for an employee.
| That has some value because it shows you'll know how you're
| supposed to act on the job.
| giaour wrote:
| Did you methodically weigh the pros and cons of stealing from
| your employer? Was there a real possibility that you would have
| emerged from the consideration having decided to go ahead with
| the theft?
|
| If not, what you're describing sounds like "theft ideation,"
| which I'm sure employers wouldn't be thrilled about but
| wouldn't warrant a question on the application.
| harpiaharpyja wrote:
| > _What mental fences do you have that you have never
| "considered" such an obvious course of action in the likely
| billion of seconds of thinking?)._
|
| Honestly I think it may just be semantics. When I think about
| the usage of the word "to consider," there does seem to be two
| different and distinct meanings. When people use it in the
| sense of "to consider a course of action" it actually has a
| different meaning than when the same word is used in other
| contexts.
| [deleted]
| kadoban wrote:
| > how do you block & limit your mind? What mental fences do you
| have that you have never "considered" such an obvious course of
| action in the likely billion of seconds of thinking?).
|
| I don't think people block their minds. I think they just lie
| on forms more. I also sometimes struggle with which lies are
| expected.
| gpcz wrote:
| Instead, the companies want people willing to lie on forms.
| myself248 wrote:
| 5+ years experience in a language/technology that only
| appeared 2 years ago!
|
| Congratulations, you will only hire liars. Which I think
| describes 90% of hiring these days.
| anticensor wrote:
| No, that actually means they want a specific person, indeed
| not mentioned in the listing. When the right person
| applies, all those unsatisfiable requirements are suddenly
| ignored.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| Indeed. If you insist on only hiring people who answer the
| question a certain way, don't be surprised when you hire a
| bunch of liars.
| screamingninja wrote:
| I would think that you have been using the word "considered"
| rather lightly. To me, it means careful thought and
| deliberation, not just "the thought crossed my mind at some
| point".
| threatofrain wrote:
| And there are many who do use "considered" to mean that a
| thought crossed their mind. Surely this does not shock you.
|
| The problem is not the interpretation of a word. The problem
| is how the ocean of other people answered this question.
| There comes a point when being honest is completely stupid,
| and when most people use the word honesty they don't mean to
| cross into the completely stupid territory.
|
| That being said I'd consider such a person to be a fine
| candidate for friendship.
| cm2187 wrote:
| Perhaps filtering out stupid people is the goal of the
| question.
|
| No one is completely honest. Courtesy is the art of lying.
| oxfeed65261 wrote:
| In this context, I think "considered," here, is best
| understood as:
|
| "Have I deliberated over whether or not to do this?"
|
| Not:
|
| "Have I thought, in the abstract, about how I might do this,
| or what it might be like?"
| davchana wrote:
| Yes, more like, "wanted" (to do) it.
| NikolaNovak wrote:
| Yes and No.
|
| I have "Considered" stealing from my employer several times.
| When I was 15 I was a refugee and worked in a Radio-Shack-
| like store in Croatia. We built PCs in back and sold them in
| the front. The front and back were separated by a curtain,
| and highest value items (ram sticks) happened to be stashed
| on the shelf on the side of the entrance. I realized it would
| take literally 5 seconds for a customer to reach through the
| curtain and grab them. That got me thinking on whether as an
| insider I would have higher or lower risk than a random
| customer. How could I reduce the risk? What's a simple, non-
| overly-elaborate method that would let me accomplish this? So
| I did spend some time considering this problem space (and
| then next day suggested to my boss to move the RAM further
| inside:)
|
| Similarly with suicide. Everybody's life is hard and has ups
| and downs. I've "considered" suicide in several different
| ways many times in my life, sometimes at "obvious" times of
| hardship, otherwise at simply slow, boring times. I'm largely
| a cheerful optimistic person FWIW, but I find everything
| interesting even fascinating, including that particular life
| (ending) choice.
|
| Talking to couple of my closest oldest friends, who are most
| similar to me, they have few mental taboos. But talking to
| most other people, at least as far as they're willing to be
| honest with me and/or themselves, they have never considered
| _SO MANY_ topics, virtually regardless of how light or heavy
| we define the word.
| toss1 wrote:
| Yup. "Considered" is certainly ambiguous enough to be a
| failure in the context of a job application.
|
| When I was working at IBM, a my manager introduced me in
| passing to one of his peers who was getting a huge
| promotion, about three levels up. Why such an unusual
| promotion? He'd noticed a way that 4 people could conspire
| to exfiltrate $25 million on a Friday and be in some non-
| extradition country before it was noticed. He had reported
| this flaw, and they were promoting him for alerting them.
| He had _certainly_ "considered" quite deeply stealing from
| his employer, and was being rewarded for doing the right
| thing.
|
| And, of course, an honest answer on his BestBuy app would
| have disqualified him.
|
| We can quibble about the meaning, but this is an absolute
| fail on the job application, unless the goal is to filter
| out intelligent people who have naturally curious minds.
|
| There is a huge difference between thinking about something
| and taking action to do it. You have brought us another
| great example of utter cluelessness in corporate HR.
| erehweb wrote:
| Nitpicking that thinking about a vulnerability is not the
| same as considering exploiting that vulnerability.
| toss1 wrote:
| exactly the point -- that nit falls well within the
| ambiguity of the wording
|
| (and yes, if you're reasonably sharp and not a super-
| stickler, you should be able to suss out the screening
| intent of the question, constrain the current meaning of
| "consider", and answer "No" regardless of your previous
| thoughts and understanding of the word -- it's not like
| thoughtcrime is prosecutable ...yet)
| afarrell wrote:
| My hunch is that this is a third of the reason why
| politicians give "politician answers" to things that most
| people believe are straightforward yes-or-no questions.
| mason55 wrote:
| > _but this is an absolute fail on the job application,
| unless the goal is to filter out intelligent people who
| have naturally curious minds._
|
| Not sure why you think this is a crazy goal for a retail
| job. If you can't figure out that you should say "no" to
| the stealing question, no matter what the truth is, then
| you're probably not a good fit to work retail.
|
| In fact, I'd bet that most of the "yes" answers to this
| question are people who are curious but have poor social
| understanding. I imagine that someone who really would
| steal is also dishonest enough to lie on the question.
| im3w1l wrote:
| Don't underestimate how stupid criminals can be. It's not
| like the prisons are empty because no one ever gets
| caught.
| toss1 wrote:
| >>I imagine that someone who really would steal is also
| dishonest enough to lie on the question.
|
| Bingo!
|
| I do expect that there are attempts to filter out overly
| intelligent people for some jobs. There was a lawsuit in
| Connecticut by an applicant who scored too high on the
| police exam and was denied a job. He lost the case, and
| established the right for police to reject people for
| being too smart as they might get bored or something
| (sorry, I don't have a link on hand).
|
| But, as you point out, this question filters out only the
| honest and intelligent people.
|
| It leaves you with the pool of people who are either dull
| or dishonest. Classic HR fail.
| what_is_orcas wrote:
| Found this because I was curious (and this was the first
| non-paywall link that I knew the domain from, sorry if
| there are other, more reputable sources):
| https://abcnews.go.com/US/court-oks-barring-high-iqs-
| cops/st...
|
| Looks like the reason is: we refuse all smart people
| equally and it's a means to reduce turnover...
|
| What a joke.
| rcfox wrote:
| I'm not so sure about that. If you spend a lot of time
| mentally disengaged, (walking, exercising, commuting, etc.)
| you have lots of opportunities to deeply consider many things
| that you have no intention of doing.
| dang wrote:
| Related:
|
| _What Not To Write On Your Security Clearance Form_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1444653 - June 2010 (98
| comments)
| FpUser wrote:
| From what I remember many kids go through the stage devise
| various codes for "secret" communications. I "invented" one and
| used it to send messages to my school buddy when we were like
| 10-12 years old, do not remember exactly. And I was not alone.
| petecooper wrote:
| I did a tour of IT distributors & resellers around Johannesburg
| back in the early '00s. I was the tame tech, the sales guy was a
| good dude. It was standard issue for all visitors to fill out a
| paper form with name, company, occupation, and car registration
| details as a lot of parking lots were secure compounds, given the
| atmosphere in South Africa. As the week went by, and the sunshine
| got to us, we ended up providing our occupations with increasing
| absurdity: serial killer, axe murderer, escaped drug lords, etc.
| The only one that raised any response - from a very burly
| Afrikaner - was me stating I was a "6ft invisible bumblebee".
| Daub wrote:
| This quote...
|
| > When I handed the form in to the security officer, he scanned
| it quickly, looked me over slowly, then said, ``Explain this''--
| pointing at the FBI question. I described what had happened. He
| got very agitated, picked up my form, tore it in pieces, and
| threw it in the waste basket.
|
| Reminds me of this scene from Starship Trooper...
|
| https://youtu.be/Le-uDcNlJO4?t=118
| ant6n wrote:
| This sort of thing happened a lot with East Germans in the 90s
| etc. After unification, we of course all became Western
| Germans, with the right to travel to the US on the visa waiver
| program. You just had to fill out the I-90 form (and pay 6$
| when crossing a land border). It's a relatively small form, but
| it does ask whether you're criminal, used to be a nazi,
| terrorist... or member of a communist party. Well, most East
| Germans had to be member of the party, just in order to
| participate in society, so of course some would later put a
| mark there when travelling to the US. Border agents would
| usually just hand them a new form and tell them ,,you're
| supposed to leave this blank".
| psychphysic wrote:
| > It's a relatively small form, but it does ask whether
| you're criminal, used to be a nazi, terrorist... or member of
| a communist party.
|
| Not that different today, includes are you a war criminal or
| wanted by Nuremberg and are you a islamic terrorist no?
| Similarly there's still increased rules if you have been to
| particular places
| watwut wrote:
| > Not that different today, includes are you a war criminal
| or wanted by Nuremberg and are you a islamic terrorist no?
| Similarly there's still increased rules if you have been to
| particular places
|
| Those are widely different questions. These people were
| affirmatively not war criminals nor wanted by Nuremberg.
| And they were not equivalent of islamic terrorists either -
| the equivalent of that would be membership in stasi or so.
|
| This would be analogical to "was you muslim" or "did you
| had membership in Mosque".
| Symbiote wrote:
| Nowadays there's the question "Have you ever violated any
| law related to possessing, using, or distributing illegal
| drugs?" [1].
|
| As late as 2018, they were asking about communist party
| membership [2]
|
| [1] https://www.nnuimmigration.com/esta-questions/
|
| [2] https://papersplease.org/wp/wp-
| content/uploads/2018/05/DS-01...
| psychphysic wrote:
| Seems similar to me, people perceive questions
| differently I guess
| watwut wrote:
| This is not about subjective perception. This is
| literally about what words mean. You being performatively
| against communist party does not make "member of a
| communist party in eastern block" the same situation as
| "islamic terrorist".
|
| And it does not make them war criminals either, you need
| to engage in war for that in the first place. It does not
| make them wanted by Nuremberg either, because Nuremberg
| never asked for them.
| el_nahual wrote:
| > On another occasion much later, I learned by chance that
| putting certain provocative information on a security clearance
| form can greatly speed up the clearance process. But that is
| another story.
|
| Talk about burying the lede!
|
| Charming story nonetheless.
| 51Cards wrote:
| Bit of an aside story but I'm in the process of renewing a US
| work Visa (travel into the US for work often from Canada). I was
| reminded going through the online form last week that there are 3
| full pages of questions like: "Have you ever participated in
| child trafficing?", "Have you participated in terrorist
| activities?", "Have you participated in overthrowing a
| government?", etc. etc. All of the most extreme international
| crimes you could think of.
|
| I later realized that they don't expect any one to answer these
| truthfully, however if in future you are caught doing (Edit: or
| having previously done) any of these things the "lied on Visa
| application" is grounds for an instant revocation of the Visa
| without all the other possible complications.
| philwelch wrote:
| > "Have you participated in overthrowing a government?"
|
| This must be an awkward question for Iraq War veterans.
| freedomben wrote:
| Yep that's a favorite US government method. They do the same
| with the form you have to fill out to buy a gun.
| notch656c wrote:
| 4473 doesn't ask most those. Attempting to overthrow a
| government doesn't make a prohibited possessor.
| eldaisfish wrote:
| I never understood the legal justifications for that. If i
| answer a visa-related question now, the context for me is the
| present and past. How can laws cover retroactive lies that were
| not lies at the time?
| 51Cards wrote:
| I should have noted that their intent is to cover your past
| and present, so that if in future they find out that in your
| youth you trafficed/postituted humans and farmed drugs to
| fund over throwing a goverment through terrorist
| activities.... even if all of those were outside the US
| jursidiction, they can still yank your Visa for having lied.
| [deleted]
| smugma wrote:
| Previously (2010): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1444653
|
| His hijinks remind me of Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman, which
| I happen to be re-reading right now.
| raindear wrote:
| The date of the post is April 1st.
| everly wrote:
| _" Lady, this case has cost the government thousands of dollars.
| It has been the top priority in our office for the last six
| weeks. We traced the glasses to your son from the prescription by
| examining the files of nearly every optometrist in San Diego." It
| apparently didn't occur to them that if I were a real Japanese
| spy, I might have brought the glasses with me from headquarters._
|
| First of all, absolutely hilarious - second of all, pretty
| intrigued by the old-school, brute-force method that actually
| ended up working.
| JamesSwift wrote:
| What makes you think that type of thing is old school? This
| kind of brute forcing is still very much in use [1], but
| usually we are better at having computers do a lot of the
| filtering these days.
|
| [1] - https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/white-sedan-police-
| found...
| floatrock wrote:
| Just the other day Italian police announced they found some
| old mafia boss who was hiding for 30 years because they got a
| tip he was sick, so they scoured the national health records
| for clinics treating someone around the right age with the
| same conditions.
| adonig wrote:
| "It apparently didn't occur to them that if I were a real
| Japanese spy, I might have brought the glasses with me from
| headquarters."
|
| I'm not a criminologist but I think they might have classified
| the glasses and the glasses case and maybe found enough
| evidence indicating that the glasses have been made in the U.S.
| or maybe even in San Diego.
|
| Even if they didn't, then it's still their job to do exactly
| what they did and they were successful. They found the real
| owner of the glasses and were able to confirm, that the person
| isn't a potentially dangerous enemy spy. That case can be
| closed and they can do something else.
| adrianmonk wrote:
| Also, it's plausible that a Japanese spy would buy new
| glasses in the US. It would probably be smart. Why take a
| chance that someone will notice your slightly unusual-looking
| glasses? Just get new ones that look normal.
| Asooka wrote:
| Third of all, it's the government's own fault they lost their
| mind over a child's toy.
| WesternWind wrote:
| This is the first of three stories available at
| https://yarchive.net/risks/mongrel.html
| mcv wrote:
| I'm so that guy. Not for security clearance, but medical
| questionaires. I always fill them in with total honesty, listing
| the most minor and irrelevant details if they fit the question.
| My wife keeps telling me not to fill that stuff in, and she's
| quite the opposite, giving the preferred answer everywhere, even
| when I think: "but shouldn't you mention that thing?"
|
| Of the two of us, she's the one who has tons of experience
| navigating and running bureaucracies, and does so quite well. I'm
| terrible at it.
| Agentlien wrote:
| Sometimes you just can't win, though.
|
| I used to work for a Swedish company making training
| simulations for surgeons. There are of course special rules
| regarding customs declarations of medical equipment.
|
| Our salespeople often complained that when entering the U.S. it
| was basically a coin toss if the customs agent would be angry
| with them for declaring our simulator as "medical equipment"
| and wasting their time, or get angry at them for trying to
| sneak this medical equipment through customs without declaring
| it.
| mynameisvlad wrote:
| I had the same problem with something so much more benign
| than that.
|
| I was a Green Card holder. Technically, you need your card
| and foreign passport to enter the country.
|
| I got yelled at for giving them my passport once, with the
| guard claiming it's useless and not needed. So then I started
| having it on hand but not providing it on the spot, at which
| point I'd get yelled at for not providing the needed passport
| upfront. It's almost as if they like yelling more than
| consistently following rules.
| jkaplowitz wrote:
| My understanding is that the passport is not actually
| required at the CBP checkpoint if you present a valid
| unexpired green card. But yeah, there's no way different
| officers should be yelling contradictory things at you.
|
| Side note: A passport may still be required to board an
| inbound international flight even if I'm right about it not
| needing to accompany a green card at the CBP checkpoint,
| depending on the rules of the airline and the departure
| country.
| mynameisvlad wrote:
| Is it? I've been yelled about doing or not doing it so
| much that I can't keep track anymore.
|
| That part of my life is behind me so now I get the next
| fun challenge: Which passport to use when going up to
| Canada and back as a dual citizen.
| jkaplowitz wrote:
| That one is clearer, at least. TL;DR for the easiest
| experience - bring both passports, enter and leave each
| country on the respective passport, and if anyone is
| confused, show both passports and explain that you're a
| dual citizen.
|
| To enter and leave the US, you're supposed to use a US
| passport and not a Canadian one. To enter Canada, it's
| smoothest and fastest to use your Canadian passport, but
| they do have an exception for US-Canadian dual citizens
| that allow you to use a US passport.
|
| If you use a US passport and claim to be a Canadian
| citizen at a CBSA checkpoint, they might send you to
| immigration screening to verify your claim, especially if
| you don't also show some evidence of citizenship like
| your citizenship certificate. If you use a US passport
| and claim to be a Canadian citizen to a commercial
| transportation company like an airline on the way into
| Canada, they're advised to do "due diligence", but there
| is no specific set of documentation required. The
| citizenship certificate would probably satisfy them, and
| in practice many times maybe the US passport by itself
| too.
| dwighttk wrote:
| Yeah I think the lesson I took out of the story was DO put
| that you have been investigated by the FBI and let the guy
| you give the form to tell you to leave it off...
| adastra22 wrote:
| > My wife keeps telling me not to fill that stuff in, and she's
| quite the opposite, giving the preferred answer everywhere
|
| This might literally kill her.
| olsgaarddk wrote:
| Last time I was at the doctor, I answered "not that I know of"
| when asked if I had any allergies.
|
| Afterwards at the pharmacy, it turns out my prescription
| included a box of antihistamine.
| prmoustache wrote:
| What a weird doctor you have.
|
| You don't discuss about your actual medical condition and he
| doesn't tell you why he prescribe each drug and for which
| purpose?
| weberer wrote:
| Next time just ask for an allergy test. These days they just
| draw a bit of blood and send you the results in a few days.
| Then its on your records for good.
| adrianmonk wrote:
| I'm not sure how to interpret this. Were the antihistamines
| in case you had a drug allergy? Or were they for the other
| kind of allergy (pollen, pet danger, dust, etc.)?
| Vrondi wrote:
| Antihistamines are for any kind of allergy. They don't care
| if it's from breathing in something, touching something, or
| eating something. Allergy is an allergy.
| adrianmonk wrote:
| Right, but what was the doctor's intent?
|
| Were they thinking, "The patient might find these handy
| if they have pollen allergies but never really thought to
| do anything about it"?
|
| Or, were they thinking, "The patient doesn't seem to know
| if they're allergic to this prescription I'm giving them,
| so I'll give them an antihistamine to go along with it
| just in case."
| mcv wrote:
| I have a very obscure allergy to some specific compounds in
| some medication. It gives me a rash, nothing serious. I'm
| always very diligent in mentioning what little I still
| remember about that allergy.
| blagie wrote:
| It can be important.
|
| Obscure allergic reaction and obscure disease often look
| the same. You treat them opposite. The former, you want to
| suppress the immune system, and the latter, you don't. In
| obscure circumstances (e.g. a doctor is debugging a serious
| rash after a surgery while you're unconscious and on an
| IV), those sorts of tidbits can be important.
| saalweachter wrote:
| I've spent thirty years telling doctors I'm allergic to
| amoxicillin; I'm not sure if I am, but that's how my
| parents started every doctor visit when I was small so I
| carry on the tradition. I think I might have thrown up
| after taking it as a small child, but I have no
| recollection myself.
| chadd wrote:
| it's common to have childhood allergies to penicillin-
| class drugs which go away in adulthood; i had to have
| major surgery (as an adult) but had a similar childhood
| reaction. I was advised to do an allergy 'challenge
| test'. It turned out the allergy was either never really
| there or had gone away, which gives doctors more options
| when antibiotics are needed. It might be worth looking
| into.
| ianai wrote:
| But only "look into it" in a carefully supervised medical
| center. Don't go rolling the dice on a severe allergic
| reaction to an antibiotic at home or outside of that
| supervision.
| c0nsumer wrote:
| I have something similar with epinephrine. Every visit
| I'm asked "allergy to epinephrine?" and I have to, again,
| clarify "no, but I'm sensitive to it, and it makes me
| really jittery, so I prefer to not have it unless there's
| no choice". It makes me feel like I've had way too much
| caffeine and is just generally unpleasant.
|
| Those conversations don't seem tomatter much, because
| when getting common small procedures done (such as mole
| removal) the doctor will use whatever they prefer.
| Epinephrine is a vascoconstrictor, so it helps with
| bleeding and keeps the anesthesia (eg: lidocaine) from
| wearing off as quickly. So, doctor's prefer it. So each
| time I have to ask the doctor if that's the variant they
| are using, and if they could do without. Sometimes they
| do, sometimes they explain why it's best not to and we go
| ahead with.
|
| I know I could outright say allergy and they wouldn't use
| it, but I really don't want to cut off a useful tool for
| them, for no good reason other than I don't like a minor,
| short-lasting side effect.
| oaktrout wrote:
| Many people get a rash when a viral illness (epstein barr
| comes to mind) is treated with amoxicillin. This is not
| an amoxcicillin allergy.
| bubblecheck wrote:
| what not to write:
|
| * successfully gaslighted target during the death of a parent
| using hacked iMessages
| pram wrote:
| I had a TS/SCI clearance when I was in the military, and I don't
| even recall being interviewed. I filled out some background
| information form and months later I was unceremoniously informed
| I had received it. Maybe it's just more stringent for civilians?
| wnkrshm wrote:
| They will investigate your background, whether you have any
| ties to family abroad by which you could be blackmailed etc.
|
| An acquaintance of mine (from East-Germany) had a US boyfriend
| who started to work for Lockheed - in the interview he was
| asked "Why doesn't your Eat-German girlfriend answer her
| phone?". She said she got some calls from an unknown number and
| didn't pick up.
|
| Edit: I meant Eastern Germany, after unification (but her
| parents lived in East-Germany, i.e. the GDR) my bad.
| ahtihn wrote:
| How did she know the call was from an unknown number as a
| normal person in East Germany in the 80s or earlier? (Ie when
| it was still called East Germany)
| wnkrshm wrote:
| I should have written Eastern Germany, it was long after
| unification and there were smart phones involved (but in
| the US security apparatus, Eastern Germany may still be
| suspect).
| zoklet-enjoyer wrote:
| I don't think East Germany ever had caller ID
| devde wrote:
| Been there, made this mistake. Recently pursued an SF-85 public
| trust for work and under the "have you ever accessed or attempted
| to access a computer system without prior authorization" question
| I detailed at length my exploratory research into penetration
| testing, including how I discovered (and reported) that a school
| computer system had _domain admin_ credentials of admin:password,
| among other privilege escalation bugs I had found and reported.
|
| Yeah, that did _not_ get approved.
| hindsightbias wrote:
| During a very warm part of the Cold War, a relative in service in
| Germany got a visit from the services security agency. They put
| him in a room and grilled him and eventually asked "why didn't
| you tell us you had relatives on the other side of the wall?"
|
| He asked where, and informed them they were all presumed to have
| died in WWII. They informed him one of his cousins was a near
| counterpart on the other side and provided a village name. Then
| they asked "would you talk to your parents and tell them to tell
| the neighbors it's ok to talk to the G-Men".
|
| The FBI had apparently been going thru his tiny upstate hometown
| and scaring all the Polish/Czech/Slovak/Latvian/etc emigre
| neighbors who spoke little English.
|
| Of course he didn't tell them his sister wrote a letter to that
| village, re-established contact and then she, her husband and
| pre-teens (who only spoke English) flew over to Europe and took a
| train to visit. Thankfully everyone on the train distracted the
| security officials whenever they got near the kids.
| Reubend wrote:
| > I learned by chance that putting certain provocative
| information on a security clearance form can greatly speed up the
| clearance process. But that is another story.
|
| Did he ever write about what that trick is?
| j1elo wrote:
| I very much enjoyed the reading, but at the end... oh boy this
| person knows how to end a tale with a good cliffhanger!
| [deleted]
| yosito wrote:
| This is an interesting point. I once had to fill out a security
| clearance form for a job at NASA detailing every individual I
| had had contact with outside of the US in the last 10 years.
| Since I've traveled extensively internationally, and couldn't
| even begin to mention all the people I've been in contact with,
| I just wrote an essay explaining my lifestyle. I expected to
| get denied, but I got security clearance faster than anyone
| else in the department had ever heard of.
| lallysingh wrote:
| Probably because you didn't give them names to check!
| mynameisvlad wrote:
| I've always wondered, as an immigrant, how they would expect
| someone like me to answer that question.
|
| My entire family are outside the US. A big chunk of the
| people I interact with are friends who also moved down to the
| states and are not citizens yet. I probably interact with
| non-citizens daily more than citizens. It would be
| practically impossible for me to detail everyone I ever
| interacted with 10 years ago while I was at a Canadian school
| getting my degree.
|
| The whole thing is so absurd for anyone who has ever been
| outside of the US even once.
| xdfgh1112 wrote:
| https://yarchive.net/risks/mongrel.html
|
| Other poster posted the same link but is getting downvoted so
| might get overlooked.
| 082349872349872 wrote:
| By way of context,
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loving_v._Virginia would not be
| settled until 1967.
|
| (but note also that these "race" questions were all over US
| forms well into the 1980s. By my time, however, it appears
| that "mongrel" answers were being routinely coded as "Decline
| To State")
|
| Lagniappe: anyone curious about actual Caucasian phenotypes
| can find them on Youtube, eg
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTdXQabTTRg
| TheCoelacanth wrote:
| Virginia still required you to answer a race question to
| get a marriage license until 2019[1]. "Decline to Answer"
| wasn't an option, though in some counties "Octoroon"
| (meaning 7/8 white, 1/8 black), "Mulato" and "Aryan" were
| options[2].
|
| [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/social-
| issues/virginia-...
|
| [2] https://www.wusa9.com/article/news/local/couples-sue-
| over-vi...
| omnibrain wrote:
| Richard Feynman had a similar anecdote involving "skin tone".
| adastra22 wrote:
| My former boss has similar experience with TSA and customs.
| His father in law runs a farm back in his home country, and
| he usually goes once to visit whenever he is there. So,
| technically, he visited a farm which is one of the questions
| on most immigration forms. As a resident alien without a
| green card, he usually gets the 9th degree from TSA and
| customs. He has found, however, that if he checks this box
| they immediately start grilling him about the "farm" he says
| he stayed at. Once he explains "Oh no, it's a farmhouse. I
| visited my father in law for dinner one night. I didn't do
| any farm work or walk in the fields." they stamp his form and
| let him go. They never ask (or even check, as far as he can
| tell) anything else.
|
| Moral: give the agent an easy problem to find, but one with a
| simple solution in your favor. They will never look for a 2nd
| problem.
| pjc50 wrote:
| Tremendous essay. As someone else pointed out, this was back
| when Virginia was still an apartheid state, in the process of
| getting desegregation imposed on it; racial categorization
| was an important weapon of the state against some of its
| citizens, and not one they were going to give up easily in
| the face of some guy (correctly) declaring it nonsensical.
|
| There's so much _Seeing Like A State_ in the punchcard
| incident as well. Having invented the categories, you must be
| made to fit them. These days plenty of people will say
| "well, of course he's right, you can't jam everyone into
| racial/ethnicity categories, and you shouldn't" then turn
| around and code gender as an immutable M/F binary in their
| database.
| prmoustache wrote:
| I never understood that obsession and unwillingless to give
| up that broken concept of race/ethnicity in the USA.
| pjc50 wrote:
| Large areas of the US were, in a very literal sense, built
| out of racism. While the most overt racism has mostly been
| pushed out of the public, legal and media spheres, large
| quantities remain as a sort of Superfund site just below
| the surface.
|
| Plenty of people from that era are still alive, like
| Elizabeth Eckford against whom the Arkansas National Guard
| was deployed to prevent her from going to school.
|
| Hatred against miscegenation was so high that there was an
| entire legal structure to prevent ""mongrels"" from
| existing, so somebody writing that on their form is going
| to cause conniptions.
| petesergeant wrote:
| From that article:
|
| > He also remarked that they had asked him if he knew me
| socially and that he had answered "Yes, we just celebrated
| Guy Fawkes Day together". When the investigator wanted to
| know "What is Guy Fawkes Day?" he started to explain the
| gunpowder plot but thought better of it. He settled for the
| explanation that "It's a British holiday".
| [deleted]
| ant6n wrote:
| This one actually has a programming related lesson at the
| end!
| nottorp wrote:
| > The security people apparently found it impractical to
| obtain the _hour or two of a programmer 's time_ that would
| have been needed to fix the code
|
| I laughed so hard.
| saalweachter wrote:
| > I will probably never know.
|
| I wonder if the author got his answer through modern DNA
| ancestry.
| a3w wrote:
| > After about three months it stopped and a month later I was
| suddenly informed that the clearance had been granted. The
| other two people whose investigations were begun at the same
| time did not receive their clearances until several months
| later.
|
| Mongrels are mixed race dogs, I guess? So just put the concept
| of "race" under scrutiny, and have your mental health debated.
| E voila, your background check takes off fast and intense, and
| is suddenly about being sane of mind.
| https://yarchive.net/risks/mongrel.html
|
| Greetings from germany, where we have ethnicity or, officially,
| mostly nothing in this place. (Police will kinda inofficially
| still racial-profile you, since "north-african looking" seems
| to be easier than to say "tanned, slim and curly hair")
| avereveard wrote:
| reminds me of an old story where the development team was
| convinced they had a good product, but feared about
| management intermingling, so they intentionally put a not so
| good feature front and center for the manager to "remove", so
| that the rest of the program could pass the demo unchanged.
| strken wrote:
| These stories date from the 40s and 50s, and the author notes
| in one of them that the American forms now use ethnicity too.
| I suspect that at some point in the 40s Germany would have
| had a very extensive racial classification system.
| DocTomoe wrote:
| Well, we do have "Nafri" (North AFRIcans), "Auslander"
| (foreigners, but only used for "problematic" foreigners
| somehow), "Migrationshintergrund" (migration background,
| meaning everyone who is an immigrant, and anyone related to
| them for two generations, regardless of nationality),
| "Sudlander" (initially people from the south, such as
| Italians, Greeks, Jugoslavians, but nowadays "people coming
| from the middle east"), and - now that the latter has become
| a charged term - "West-Asians", officially sanctioned by the
| Berlin police HQ as a non-racially-loaded term, but meaning
| the same.
|
| The euphenism treadmill is strong over here as well.
| AdamN wrote:
| I'm a White American living in Berlin, what word would the
| Berlin police put in my file??
| DocTomoe wrote:
| Well, if you get in contact with the police for any
| reason, you obviously are a problematic person, so
| "Auslander".
| fransje26 wrote:
| Sozialfluchtling
| [deleted]
| DocTomoe wrote:
| ... which translates to "refugee for
| healthcare/unemployment benefits/social benefits
| reasons", implying that they never paid a dime in, but
| happily take out of the pot nontheless.
|
| fransje26 meant this as a joke, but the term has been
| used unironically to refer to East-Europeans (and the
| situation in the States regarding the non-existance of a
| functional social safety net would render them relatively
| similar in this case).
| watwut wrote:
| He did not put the concept of race under scrutiny. He used
| different and much more detailed classification of races.
| mgraczyk wrote:
| I went through the process of getting TS clearance the summer
| after my senior year of college, and I made the mistake of
| mentioning on my form that I drank alcohol with friends every
| weekend, and that I sometimes drank more than a few drinks in one
| night. At the time I figured this was the norm for people my age
| and thought nothing of it.
|
| Unfortunately that was a big red flag for the investigators, and
| they interviewed 5-6 of my college friends asking about my
| behavior and whether or not I had a drinking problem. Very silly
| if you ask me but fortunately didn't seem to delay the process
| much.
| tarotuser wrote:
| Long story short: it's perfectly OK to lie on governmental forms,
| provided you don't get caught.
|
| Forms also lack any nuance, so mild funny things appear to be
| "serious transgressions worthy of the state apparatus".
| jrochkind1 wrote:
| Not exactly an encouraging story about the reliability of
| security clearance at the time!
| abruzzi wrote:
| my first "real" job was managing the public computer lab at
| college, and doing misc IT type tasks. Also part of my job was
| managing the workstudies that attended the lab and helped
| students. It was a pretty lightweight job and the workstudy
| positions had a fair amount of turn over as students moved on.
|
| One day I got a call that one of my workstudies had applied for
| an internship with the NSA and put me down as a reference. They
| wanted to schedule a meeting with me to talk about the applicant.
| Up to that point I had received a few reference check calls from
| companies that were hiring former workstudies, and they never
| lasted more than 5 minutes, and they never wanted in-person
| meetings.
|
| The meeting ended up lasting over an hour, and not once did they
| ask me about technical capabilities or job duties. All the
| questions were about his social connections, personality,
| narcissism. I realized that this wasn't a reference call but a
| security clearance screening. A lot of times they asked the same
| question in multiple ways, trying to trip me up or see if I had
| inconsistant answers. They also asked questions about me,
| presumably to determine if I was a trustworthy source.
|
| A few years later I applied for security clearance since I had
| moved jobs to the US Navy, and I had to maintain PC with
| classified data on them. My clearance level was probably the
| lowest level because their interview of me was not as probing as
| what I went through for the workstudy that applied to the NSA (I
| never heard whether he got the internship.)
| volodarik_lemon wrote:
| [dead]
| darod wrote:
| I'm curious of the next article that describes the speed up
| process.
| AceJohnny2 wrote:
| Off-topic, but:
|
| > _the most frequently occurring letters in typical English text
| are e-t-a-o-n-r-i, in that order. (The letter frequency order of
| the story you are now reading is e-t-a-i-o-n-r. The higher
| frequency of ``i '' probably reflects the fact that _I_ use the
| first person singular a lot.)_
|
| Wait, I thought the letter frequency was Etaoin Shrdlu
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_frequency
|
| Interestingly, that Wikipedia article references the same "Secret
| & Urgent" book by Fletcher Pratt, but only for the Spanish letter
| frequency!
|
| Also, though the header table confirms my memory, it cites a now
| defunct algoritmy.net website, and the per-language table below
| has a "citation needed" for english! The archived algoritmy.net
| website also doesn't mention what corpus it used!
| technothrasher wrote:
| "Here, fill it out again and don't mention that."
|
| I had the exact same experience when applying for a clearance
| while I was in college, for the "have you taken illegal drugs"
| question. When I honestly answered yes, the interviewer got
| fidgety and then asked, "well do you take them now?" no. "Do you
| know any drug users?" We're on a college campus, what would you
| like me to say? "Well, are you friends with any of them?" Again,
| we're on a college campus. "Ok, well, we're just going to put
| down no for all of that."
| Merad wrote:
| Interesting. About 10 years ago I got a job offer from a three
| letter federal agency that would've required a clearance. I
| ultimately declined so I never started the process, but I was
| told that past drug use (weed, at least) wasn't necessarily a
| deal breaker while being caught lying about past drug was an
| automatic fail.
| JamesSwift wrote:
| For the written form, I've always been told to be 100%
| truthful. During the polygraph though I've had several
| antagonistic interactions similar to yours. Its all part of the
| game though at that point. They are trying to get under your
| skin. My personality does not play well in that scenario. Glad
| to be out of that line of work now, and I generally say no to
| anyone asking if I'd be open to having a clearance again.
| sizzzzlerz wrote:
| Over my years working for defense contractors, I've held
| clearences from multiple agencies and have gone through 5 or
| so polygraph tests. In everyone of them, the examiners were
| professional in every sense of the word. They clearly
| explained the procedure, went over what questions were to be
| asked, and ran the tests calmly and fairly. I never had a
| reason to complain about any one of them. Now, I didn't like
| to be tested but it was part of process to get and hold the
| clearance so I could do my job so I went through it. I never
| heard of any of my colleagues complain either. Still, every
| job has its assholes and you were unlucky to encounter one.
| JamesSwift wrote:
| Thats.... the exact opposite of my experience lol. I was at
| a 3 letter agency for ~5 years and close to everyone I knew
| failed the first poly of every round. IMO its a ploy to
| raise the stakes and get you on edge.
| Cyberdog wrote:
| Did they fail the polygraph? Or were they _told_ they
| failed a sham polygraph in the hopes that they would
| confess their crimes afterwards? The police do this
| tactic often; if you are suspected of a crime, never
| consent to a polygraph not done by a neutral party no
| matter how not guilty you are, or you will probably
| "fail."
|
| (Polygraphs are pseudoscientific BS in the first place,
| but I know there are some cases where you must undergo
| them for whatever reason.)
| sizzzzlerz wrote:
| I wonder if that's because you were working for the
| agency instead of as a contractor. Since the testing
| costs the company money, they might get pissed if too
| many of their employees kept failing and require a
| retest. For large contractors like LMSC or Raytheon, that
| can be a sizeable expense. Of course, it goes into the
| overhead charges when they bill but still, not something
| they want.
| JamesSwift wrote:
| Well I was actually military (which is a non full-scope
| poly) then contractor (full-scope poly) : )
| WrtCdEvrydy wrote:
| Bro, they brought the girl that talked to me on campus to
| confirm it was me at the polygraph.
| ActorNightly wrote:
| I got put in for a poly for one of my older job. Naturally
| being of a rational mindset, I started googling how to beat a
| poly.
|
| During the poly, few question in, guy asked me if I ever
| looked up how to beat a poly. I naturally said yes cause I
| was startled that this in fact could be one of the questions,
| which automatically ended the interview.
|
| Thats when I realized that smart people don't work in the
| government.
| walrus01 wrote:
| What if you're being recruited for a counterintelligence
| job for a 3-letter agency and _part of the job definition_
| is being intimately familiar with the details of how
| persons might attempt to beat a polygraph? That 's
| definitely something a person in that specific field would
| spend a good deal of time studying.
|
| I guess this is sort of a chicken/egg problem since you
| can't or won't get hired from the job if you appear too
| familiar with the workings of the recruitment process. But
| then if you don't get hired, they might be leaving out one
| of the better informed candidates.
|
| Anecdotally from the defense contractor industry I've known
| a number of people who have a whole bookshelf of books on
| subjects like cold war era espionage, are deeply familiar
| with some of the most noteworthy moles/spies that were
| publicly prosecuted and jailed (or north korean, chinese,
| soviet officers and officials who were just straight out
| executed with a bullet to the back of the head). It didn't
| seem to prevent any of them from passing their clearances.
| Some jobs want to know that you're motivated to learn the
| subject matter at hand and research its past 60+ years of
| history.
| jredwards wrote:
| I was proactively instructed by an O-6 (full bird colonel) to
| lie on my application about drugs if I had ever used them.
| Without even asking me if I had ever used drugs, he said, "I
| don't care what the truth is, on the form you put no." This was
| probably 20 years ago; I was pretty young.
| stingraycharles wrote:
| What would the ramifications be if they ever found out you
| lied? It's an innocent lie, but still, I can imagine that lying
| on these types of forms could turn out badly.
| wesleyd wrote:
| I assume it's to give you plenty of opportunities to lie.
|
| Revoking naturalization or a green card involves a huge legal
| effort, but if it can be shown you lied on the application,
| that's a much easier case.
|
| Many US laws seem to be designed for ease of prosecution than
| for strict fairness. For example, open container laws are
| probably easier to prosecute than drunk driving.
| hotpotamus wrote:
| Didn't the previous Executive Administration have a few
| issues with their SF-86 forms? The fact that I remember the
| form number leads me to believe it must have been in the news
| a bit. I think they just had to fill out some amended forms
| or something like that - didn't seem like a big deal.
| r2_pilot wrote:
| OPM had a security breach back in 2015 and the data on
| these forms was stolen.
| https://news.clearancejobs.com/2015/06/13/sf-86-stolen-
| opm-h...
| matwood wrote:
| > It's an innocent lie
|
| It's not the lie itself, it's that you lied at all. Now you
| are untrustworthy. Drug use in the past is typically not an
| issue, particularly if you were young at the time. The whole
| process is to determine if you have good judgement and can be
| trusted.
| eloisius wrote:
| And to find out of you have secrets that other people could
| use to get leverage over you.
| Symmetry wrote:
| Yes, but if you admit everything in your application
| process then no leverage! And if you're in the habit of
| admitting things then if some foreign agent get you to
| commit some indiscretion in the future you might also
| admit that rather than letting them blackmail you into
| treason.
| anthomtb wrote:
| They would revoke your clearance. You would lose the job
| which required the clearance. And you would never get cleared
| again (source: happened to a now-former coworker).
| eloisius wrote:
| Perjury
| stingraycharles wrote:
| Exactly. So what is the best approach here? Ignore it?
| Pretend to be of good faith?
| jhart99 wrote:
| The guidelines have changed in the last couple of years.
| With the exception of certain agencies(FBI and DEA), drug
| use is evaluated with the surrounding circumstances. They
| treat I smoked pot once in college or I dealt pot or I am
| currently addicted to heroin differently.
|
| The guidance these days is to tell the whole truth and
| describe the circumstances. Lying on the form will
| definitely disqualify you and a couple dumb things a few
| years ago won't necessarily.
| joxel wrote:
| Don't apply
| technothrasher wrote:
| I don't know, likely at very least they would take away the
| clearance. That was all over thirty years ago now and I have
| nothing to do with anything that requires a clearance any
| longer so I'm not overly worried about it at this point.
| matwood wrote:
| This is surprising because it's the exact wrong thing to do.
| Past drug use will not disqualify you from a clearance, but
| lying absolutely will. Depending on the clearance level they
| will interview a number of people, including second degree
| connections. I know someone who used to be an investigator, and
| it surprised me when they told me how often first degree
| connections would say bad things about their 'friend'.
| [deleted]
| DoctorOetker wrote:
| I would also expect lying to be a bigger red flag compared to
| past drug use, and while it seems these stories invalidate
| such an idea, I believe they actually validate it: these are
| stories of people who did get security clearance and they
| were honest, the ripping up part is more like a symbolic
| gesture from the system "let's both pretend none of that
| happened".
|
| These stories don't mean the person would have past when
| immediately denying the past offense...
|
| While growing up, and during my studies I had often
| considered job roles where security clearances would
| presumably be required, but I decided to stay away from that
| world for multiple reasons:
|
| 1. when a sector is heavily propagandized / advertised in
| media (books, films, ...) then usually it's to attract more
| talent who wouldn't spontaneously apply. lots of people get
| disillusioned in armies etc around the world, which is why
| the experience is artificially inflated in movies etc...
|
| 2. I understand that in some situations people in certain job
| roles need to sacrifice some of their personal freedoms in
| order to protect the freedoms of the population at large,
| think for example freedom of expression vs secrecy, and the
| need of secrecy say among the Polish, French, British, ... in
| the context of the cracking of the Enigma coding system. To
| join and apply for security clearance entails signing away
| certain rights and freedoms. The mere thought that the only
| way to find out if that's a good decision or not is by taking
| that decision for life is nauseating to me. Even if I were to
| become an employee and the practical experience would be that
| the organization and the individual that signed up agree on
| the need for secrecy 99% of the time (which sounds very
| optimistic), I would balk at that 1% or more of the time
| where I disagree, where I might be convinced the secrecy is
| creating more problems than solutions. That thought seems
| unbearable to me, so I'd rather have no security clearance at
| all and feel ... free.
| berniedurfee wrote:
| That's my understanding as well. Lying on a clearance
| application is far worse than admitting to many criminal
| acts.
|
| The thought is that someone could blackmail you into
| revealing secrets by threatening to expose your lie, thus
| causing you to losing your clearance, job or worse.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Lying on a clearance application is far worse than
| admitting to many criminal acts.
|
| For one thing, admitting to past criminal acts doesn't
| add a new criminal act with the statute of limitations
| clock at 0, whereas lying in any official government
| process, like a security clearance application, does.
| Symmetry wrote:
| That's been my impression with myself and several friends
| going through the process. The defense establishment is
| looking for honest people without drug abuse problems, not
| people who've never tried a joint. But I understand the
| opposite is true when applying for a job in law enforcement.
| robcohen wrote:
| Police typically have a 5 year period they want for zero
| drug involvement. The military is more dependent on the
| position and clearance level, but the max limit numbers are
| arbitrarily set. They set the numbers high enough to make
| recruiting possible, but it isn't based off of any science.
| Symmetry wrote:
| I meant that lying was more acceptable on police
| applications because police, in the course of their
| duties, often have to lie whether its telling a suspect
| that you have proof of their guilt and they just need to
| confess or using boilerplate language like "there was a
| strong smell of marijuana" to justify a search in the
| paperwork whether you smelled anything or not.
| leoqa wrote:
| This is absolutely not the case. Law enforcement
| background checks are more intense than clearance, and
| drug use policies are very black-white.
|
| The general principle is that you must be unimpeachable
| such that your testimony is valid in court.
| idontpost wrote:
| [dead]
| notch656c wrote:
| In what country is this the case that police have
| unimpeachable history?
| leoqa wrote:
| I'm mostly referring to federal law enforcement, I'm not
| familiar with local police suitability (but I'm guessing
| it's not nearly as well resourced as the feds).
| notch656c wrote:
| I wish my experiences with federal LEO in CBP could
| reflect that. I've lived some corrupt ass places but
| federal CBP officers take the cake.
| porpoisemonkey wrote:
| To reiterate half of what you've said, but maybe in a
| slightly different way, the defense security clearance
| process is designed to determine how likely you are to be
| incentivized or coerced into revealing classified
| information.
|
| The point of the deep dive is not to prove you've always
| been an upstanding citizen, but to look for factors that
| make you an easier target for foreign intelligence services
| such as:
|
| 1. Do you have any financial problems that could make you
| easier to buy off? (Bad credit, gambling problems)
|
| 2. Do you have any (real or perceived) addictions that
| might impair your judgement or can be leveraged against
| you? (drugs and DUIs)
|
| 3. Are you currently attempting to hide any criminal
| activity that you could be blackmailed with?
|
| 4. Do you have any sensitive foreign connections or other
| possible allegiances?
| throwaway2016a wrote:
| A friend of mine has the same experience. They answered yes
| to the marijuana question and still got clearance.
|
| Another friend lied and said no (this was for a college
| internship so I knew a couple people working there) and got
| rejected once their story didn't check out with their
| personal references.
| sybercecurity wrote:
| The interview/form is looking for potential blackmail or
| tendency to lie or obscure facts. If you are honest, that's
| fine, although they sometimes ask that you are currently
| using as well and that is a strike against you.
| evouga wrote:
| I was talking to an NSA recruiter last year, though, and
| they told me they routinely report applicants to the FBI
| for confessing to crimes during a polygraph. So damned if
| you do, damned if you don't...
|
| (For a recruiter he did an uncanny job at convincing me
| _never_ to work for the NSA)
| gateorade wrote:
| I mean, that might be true if someone confesses to
| heinous/violent crimes (and shouldn't they?) but its
| definitely not true for things like minor drug use/sale
| etc.
| CrazyPyroLinux wrote:
| See also https://antipolygraph.org/
| sailfast wrote:
| This is the right answer. Drug use (outside the past 12
| months) should not rule you out for clearances.
| TigeriusKirk wrote:
| Right after high school a friend of mine went into the
| military and needed a clearance for his assigned job on a
| nuclear missile submarine. Investigators came around and
| asked his friends back home about him, we all lied a little
| in his favor. I remember explicitly thinking at the time "Of
| course people's friends are going to lie a little for them.
| What's the point in asking these questions?"
|
| Then I realized the real red flag would be if you weren't
| stable enough to have friends who would help you out a bit.
| KMag wrote:
| Yea, sounds like terrible advice. I tried pot a couple of
| times in college, honestly really disliked what it did to my
| memory, and disclosed it on my EPSQ 2.2 clearance paperwork.
| I had absolutely no problems. The background check folks
| never even asked me about it.
|
| The main reasons people betray their country are MICE (Money,
| Ideology, Coercion, Ego). Drugs might be expensive (money),
| might themselves be a secret you hold (coercion/blackmail) or
| might cause you to do dumb blackmailable things (e.g. fall
| into a honey trap). So, that's what background check folks
| are looking for w.r.t. drugs.
|
| Hiding drug use makes it look like maybe it could be used to
| blackmail you, and suggests that maybe you're hiding other
| things.
|
| Also, they're looking for people who follow the rules, won't
| bring classified material home, won't try to impress people
| by revealing classified info, etc.
| walrus01 wrote:
| The "MICE" model of understanding behavior like Robert
| Hanssen, etc has also been extended to RASCLS:
|
| http://dustinkmacdonald.com/recruiting-intelligence-
| assets-w...
|
| https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-
| b-d&q=RASCLS+in...
| notafraudster wrote:
| Yeah. My father didn't do secure work, but he was an
| immigrant to the country where I was born. As part of the
| immigration process, he was asked whether he had ever been
| arrested (maybe it was charged, I don't recall and he's long
| gone so I can't ask). He said "no". In fact, he had been
| arrested as a pre-teen for stealing an idling tractor and
| joyriding in rural post-war England. Immigration authorities
| don't care that a teen went for a joyride on a tractor. They
| care that he lied. Took a bunch of lawyering and paperwork to
| resolve the issue.
|
| I guess fundamentally the distinction is "if they can catch
| you, tell the truth, and if they can't, make yourself look
| good", but I guess it can be hard to know.
| walrus01 wrote:
| On the other hand, you can answer this too truthfully and
| just screw yourself up for no reason. Example: I know
| Afghan former translators/employees for ISAF projects who
| have been arrested by Pakistani "authorities", local police
| in various cities just for the purpose of shaking them down
| for bribes/money.
|
| I can _guarantee_ you that no record of any such arrest
| exists in paper or electronic form anywhere in a database
| that can be queried in Pakistan, even _if_ US immigration
| authorities had a way to get cooperation from Pakistani
| federal police authorities without involving very high-
| level diplomatic contacts. Answering truthfully on a
| question like that will just fuck up your own case.
|
| Is it still being legitimately arrested if you've been
| detained unlawfully for a shakedown by corrupt police? The
| same happens in many developing nations. It's actually more
| like being _kidnapped_.
|
| Some of the process of using other data sources to verify
| that what a person has said is truthful/factually accurate
| only works if you're dealing with people coming from places
| with non-corrupted legitimate record keeping and
| bureaucratic processes.
| [deleted]
| cardiffspaceman wrote:
| But what if you said you were kidnapped by people in
| police uniforms and forced to pay a ransom?
| walrus01 wrote:
| 'have you ever been kidnapped' is a different question
| than 'have you ever been arrested', I suppose.
| cardiffspaceman wrote:
| So in context, they ask if you've been arrested, you say
| no. But this is because you characterize an incident as
| unlawful, while others characterize it as a lawful
| arrest.
| godelski wrote:
| I'd be careful, a friend of mine answered yes (and doesn't
| smoke anymore/at the time of the question) and got denied a
| clearance for it. But we can also see others who are
| suggesting interviewers are pressuring them into a "no"
| answer, which I had some personal experience with. But it
| seems different people are having different experiences. I
| understand why people lie though.
|
| I always found this odd too because I agree with the
| sentiment that you're expressing. It's always been told to me
| that the reason they don't want people with a history of drug
| usage (different from current usage) is that it can be used
| as blackmail against them. But the explanation of blackmail
| is that it can get them fired, from a job where the only
| reason that happens is because you lied on your clearance.
| Wouldn't they want no skeletons in the closet?
| DontchaKnowit wrote:
| I was _completely honest_ on my form.
|
| E.g. i admitted to drug use, but the firm was so insanely
| detailed there was no way to be fully honest. It literally
| asked how many times youve done each drug, who with, whered you
| get etc. Well for a raging polysubstance addict, this is
| hilarious. Just listing all the differe t drugs would take more
| room than there was on the forum and that doesnt even start to
| account for all the tertiary information they wanted.
|
| I got interviewed of course. Was a very weird experience
| sitting in an office in my workplace 14 feet from my boss
| talking about "yeah I did cocain a few times" "why did you
| stop" "well it feels good but it makes you act brazen, selfish,
| and flippant. Also it sucks to be around people who are coked
| up"
|
| Anyway, I got the clearance
| walrus01 wrote:
| The fact that you frankly acknowledged the drawbacks and
| foolishness of casual cocaine use, with the benefit of
| additional age/maturity/experience, reflecting upon your own
| actions as a younger person is probably why they cleared you.
|
| Additionally they were looking for any hint that you might
| have had an ongoing/current drug habit where you would either
| be vulnerable to financial pressure or societal coercion from
| drug dealers/persons associated with drug dealers, and that
| they they believed you were no longer a user was likely a
| factor.
| nunez wrote:
| This is a common one. You try something in the same year you
| (unknowingly) need to apply for a clearance.
| sailfast wrote:
| This response is a really bad idea, and I think the security
| office people that recommend this are actually compromising
| security by making value judgments about what is and isn't
| relevant to background investigators based on their own
| personal beliefs. If this came to light they might get fired,
| despite it being way too normalized.
|
| The conventional wisdom is to answer truthfully, and justify
| your answers. You really don't want to get caught lying. It's
| not up to the person asking you to fill out the form to tell
| you what to list and what not to list.
|
| If the government can't find enough qualified people they need
| to adapt the process (and they have). Some things are 100%
| dealbreakers and should have been changed a long time ago (see
| local Marijuana jurisdiction laws), but I'm a firm believer you
| shouldn't lie to get the job. Find another one and move on. My
| .02.
| grishka wrote:
| My only experience with serious US government forms was
| applying for a tourist visa. This form also has some bonkers
| checkboxes like "do you plan to commit any crimes in the US".
|
| Also the entry form they give you on your flight deserves a
| mention. This one has "did you handle livestock in the last X
| months" repeated like 3 times in different phrasing. Not as
| stupid as the first one, but... why? Why is that question that
| important in the first place? Pest control?
| ahoho wrote:
| It's about disease prevention (mad cow, avian flus, etc)
| kemayo wrote:
| I got an immigration official very worried when I was asked
| whether I'd ever been convicted of any "crimes of moral
| turpitude" and asked whether they could tell me what that
| meant before I answered. They had to go print out a
| dictionary definition.
|
| (I had never been convicted of any crimes, so admittedly I
| could have just said "no" without causing a scene.)
| dbspin wrote:
| The livestock question might have been added during the Foot
| and Mouth epidemic, which could be spread on footwear and
| necessitated the destruction of livestock in the millions in
| Ireland and the UK
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001_United_Kingdom_foot-
| and-m...
| archon1410 wrote:
| > destruction of livestock
|
| Such a tragic, disgusting euphemism for the murder of
| millions, without them getting to devour their corpses.
| dbspin wrote:
| Please don't equate the death of people with the death of
| non human animals. It's not useful and it's needlessly
| inflammatory. Murder is defined as the unlawful
| premeditated killing of one human being by another. The
| term doesn't apply to deaths in battle, through
| negligence, or by execution, however distasteful we might
| find those things. It also doesn't apply to the killing
| of animals - whatever ones moral perspective on the
| matter.
|
| Just rhetorically, using inflammatory terminology isn't
| going to convert anyone to vegetarianism / veganism. For
| those of us who've lost friends and relatives to murder
| (including myself unfortunately), it's profoundly
| distasteful.
| archon1410 wrote:
| > Murder is defined as the unlawful premeditated killing
| of one human being by another.
|
| Surely this is not as easy as just pointing out the
| 'correct' definition of words. The difference between
| "execution", various other forms of killing you mention,
| and murder can't be so clear that you can easily say "it
| doesn't apply in this case".
|
| > not useful
|
| More than rhetoric and saying what is useful, sometimes I
| just feel like I should be saying what I find to be true.
| After billions and trillions of 'killings', with people
| saying 'useful', definitinly correct things in response,
| I just want to be more honest, sometimes--instead of
| pretending I don't find certain things disgusting,
| distasteful, vile etc for the sake of garnering
| 'converts'. I am not running an evangelism program--I'll
| leave that to the experts. They will perform like the
| they do regardless of what I say. Maybe honesty is the
| more useful policy in the long term.
| floren wrote:
| The federal and state departments of agriculture go to great
| efforts to control agricultural diseases. Others have
| mentioned foot and mouth, but there are lots of other things.
| For instance, half of Washington State is declared an "Apple
| Maggot Quarantine Area"
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Maggot_Quarantine_Area)
| where it's illegal to bring in homegrown / wild-picked fruit
| lest you infect Eastern Washington's massive apple orchards.
| A couple years back the Governor very publicly violated that
| long-standing order:
| https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2020/sep/16/inslee-
| brings-...
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > half of Washington State is declared an "Apple Maggot
| Quarantine Area" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Maggo
| t_Quarantine_Area) where it's illegal to bring in homegrown
| / wild-picked fruit lest you infect Eastern Washington's
| massive apple orchards.
|
| The article you link suggests that the quarantine area is
| the region from which it's illegal to bring fruit _out_.
|
| The wikipedia article also does something interesting where
| it describes a mature fly as being an "apple maggot". I
| would have thought that the term "maggot" referred
| exclusively to the larval form.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Isn't a mature fly just a maggot delivery vehicle?
| pedrovhb wrote:
| Ah, the "are you a terrorist" section of the U.S. visa
| application is hilarious. I was honestly laughing out loud at
| some of the questions, imagining a sincere terrorist having
| their plan foiled by their strict moral code which requires
| them to lay out in detail their plan to topple the government
| :)
| apricot wrote:
| I am reminded of the (probably apocryphal) story about a
| logician asking for a visa to enter the US for a
| conference. When he got to the question "Do you plan to
| overthrow the United States Government by force or
| violence?" he hesitated and then answered "violence".
| turminal wrote:
| There's a true story about Kurt Godel's citizenship
| application:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del%27s_Loophole#Bac
| kgr...
| thechao wrote:
| > Other writers have speculated that Godel may have had
| other parts of the Constitution in mind as well,
| including the possibility that a partisan ratchet effect,
| via lifetime Supreme Court appointments and selective
| application of the law, could permanently stack the
| Supreme Court with Justices of one political persuasion.
|
| This is mentioned in the article. It's a pretty standard
| way to overthrow democracies -- it subverts the system,
| using the system.
| idontpost wrote:
| [dead]
| Jerrrry wrote:
| That is still the last question asked on the eQuip, and
| it has been reworded, implying that yes, this likely did
| happen.
|
| And my delayed response likewise agitated the Mr 202 area
| code spec agent.
| red-iron-pine wrote:
| It's mostly so that someone can't say "well you never
| asked!" -- okay fine we'll ask from now on.
|
| Additionally it creates a condition of jeopardy, because
| now you've made an official statement, and if it's false
| you're now potentially chargeable for perjury or making
| false official statements. So if you're a super-slick spy
| type and they can't pin something on you conclusively, but
| are sure you're up to something (in the same way they could
| only get Al Capone for tax evasion), then at least it gives
| them a pretext to take action and charge or deport you.
| bloak wrote:
| I heard about a company web site that had a tick box like
| that on their download page. Unfortunately they got it the
| wrong way round so you had to claim to be a terrorist (or
| intending to build a nuclear weapon: I forget exactly what
| it was) in order to download the software. The story is
| that the web site was broken like that for about six months
| but it didn't stop hundreds of thousands of downloads from
| taking place. I hope no poor bastard in the FBI was tasked
| with investigating every case.
| [deleted]
| ArnoVW wrote:
| I've always understood that those questions are just a
| legal construct to be able to get you out of the country in
| case of issues.
|
| No need to prosecute for expulsion if there were lies on
| the immigration form; it becomes just an administrative
| matter.
| [deleted]
| owlbite wrote:
| My understanding was it also helped firmly establish
| federal wrongdoing rather than merely state.
| dilznoofus wrote:
| I mean, yeah. It's like gun laws that prohibit having a
| joint whilst commit armed robbery or whatever - it's not
| actually trying to stop the behavior, merely empower the
| prosecutor after the fact.
|
| But, hey, there might be a true believer on the T-side!
| God says you're not supposed to lie, so it's a real
| Catch-22 - 'Render unto Caesar the evidence he deserves.'
| notch656c wrote:
| It's my understanding that same law about the joint still
| applies just for having an otherwise lawful firearm in
| the safe doing nothing.
|
| Disclaimer: not legal advice, for entertainment value
| only.
| rwky wrote:
| The UK visa application has the same questions pretty much
| identical. Also made me laugh!
| rospaya wrote:
| The UK also had a question about communist party
| membership on their visa application. Funny thing is that
| the UK also has a communist party.
| rwmj wrote:
| The funniest thing is people now in government were
| members: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/a
| ug/01/why-jo...
| Cyberdog wrote:
| The US has this question as well, but I've heard that it
| didn't eliminate people from China who were able to make
| a "I had to join the party to get a certain job"
| argument. I presume that as long as you don't voice
| actual support for the revolutionary aspects of the
| ideology, the migra won't care.
| grishka wrote:
| Hm. I had multiple UK visas (but only visited once lol)
| and I don't remember that. Granted, all of those visas
| were applied for with assistance from the job I had at
| the time. The entry form was also much more boring.
| n0tth3dro1ds wrote:
| Foot and mouth disease (and others)
| rjsw wrote:
| It also used to have a question "Are you a gunrunner", any
| computer person had to lie and answer "NO" to it. At the
| time, strong cryptographic algorithms on your laptop counted
| as a munition.
| rqtwteye wrote:
| In the 90s we had to fill out a form when dealing with Apple
| to certify that we didn't plan to build nuclear weapons.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| That's still a thing. I know I signed pages and pages of
| stuff like that requesting a sample of 5 ancient TTL chips
| from Texas Instruments.
|
| Part of it is liability (tho I like to think they send the
| most reliable parts on sample orders), but also ITAR.
| deutschepost wrote:
| I heard a pretty good interpretation of why these questions
| exist. If you say that you don't plan to commit crimes and
| then commit one, you have essentially lied on the form. In
| some cases at least it is way easier for the state to deport
| someone if they lie on their immigration form. But if the
| question wasn't there you would have to go through the whole
| legal process.
|
| On the other hand, if you answer yes to this question they
| will probably don't let you into the country... But I can't
| say for sure.
| jstanley wrote:
| But you might legitimately not be planning to commit any
| crimes, but then change your mind once you get there. The
| fact that you committed a crime after saying you weren't
| planning to do so does not mean that you were lying.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| Cool. Hopefully you have $150k to hire the attorneys to
| argue that, and deal with the trainload of stuff that
| will come your way when they do.
| godelski wrote:
| Or worse, what if you accidentally commit a crime? Not
| all crimes are obvious and something that can be normal
| in one country can be criminal in another. For example,
| jay walking (crossing the street not at an intersection
| (when an intersection is not reasonably near by)). Or
| something else silly like that.
| sealeck wrote:
| Are you a lawyer?
|
| :D
| ipaddr wrote:
| Ask 5 lawyers and get 5 answers. Either way it doesn't
| matter unless that person is your lawyer.
|
| I would have ask if they were a judge. At least they are
| tasked with weighing the facts and deciding and not
| fighting for one point of view
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| > _I would have ask if they were a judge. At least they
| are tasked with weighing the facts and deciding and not
| fighting for one point of view_
|
| But then in the US it still wouldn't matter unless they
| are _your_ judge.
| LudwigNagasena wrote:
| Why would it be easier to deport someone for lying on a
| form rather than for being a terrorist?
| allan_s wrote:
| If i was to guess i would say the same as for Al capone,
| easier to prosecute for an administrative issue for which
| there is clear evidence and a fast-lane of application
| rather than go through heavy procedure required for heavy
| crime for which you may not have clear evidence
| Spooky23 wrote:
| It's cheaper to demonstrate a lie than to have people
| testify, etc.
| rodgerd wrote:
| If I said, in the US, "Peter Thiel is a woman-hating
| monster and the country would be better if he and every
| politician on his payroll was swinging from a lamppost
| Mussolini style" it would be difficult to make any case
| that I was doing anything not covered by first amendment
| protections.
|
| If I'm a visitor to the country and say the same thing
| having signed an affirmation that I'm not going to
| advocate for violent overthrow of the US government it's
| not a first amendment case, it's a lying-on-immigration-
| forms case and out I do.
| kortilla wrote:
| I don't think death threats are covered by the first
| amendment.
| notch656c wrote:
| This is not legal advice but I think they are. See
| Brandenburg v Ohio.
|
| "Brandenburg was convicted of violating a criminal law
| that prohibited speech that advocates crime, sabotage,
| violence, and other similar acts after he spoke at a KKK
| rally. The Supreme Court found that the law infringed on
| Brandenburg's First Amendment rights, and created the
| imminent lawless action test. In order for speech to fall
| out of First Amendment protection, it must 1) be directed
| at producing imminent lawless action and 2) it is likely
| to produce such action."
|
| I think there is an exception for ones made against
| certain public officials, which IMO are likely
| unconstitutional, but no one is really excited about
| challenging those.
|
| https://www.thefire.org/supreme-court/brandenburg-v-ohio
| Delphiza wrote:
| The Oz government used some similar loophole (or
| threatened to use it) with the Djokovic covid saga at the
| Australian open. As I recall, a judge said that he could
| get a visa for whatever covid medical exemption reasons,
| but on his immigration form he said that he hadn't been
| travelling elsewhere. Social media proved otherwise, so
| he was caught in an easily provable lie on an immigration
| form. He was then able to be refused entry for reasons
| unreleated to the covid rules. In the end, they didn't
| have to rule on whether or not the Oz tennis association
| could issue a medical exemption for covid - they could
| kick him out on a much clearer legal basis. I don't
| recall the exact details, but that is the gist of some of
| the legal drama.
| ipaddr wrote:
| All it did was reflect poorly on Australia.
| wongarsu wrote:
| If they commit a crime there is the question of whether
| they should be imprisoned or deported. That likely
| involves a court case, something US prosecutors famously
| hate (just look at all the plea bargains).
|
| If you lie on your immigration form, you gained entry
| under false pretenses. Nothing complicated or grey about
| that.
| SkeuomorphicBee wrote:
| Because you need proof, and proving that someone is a
| terrorist is a long expensive and not guarantied process,
| while the lying on a form thing is purposefully self
| evident.
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| But if you haven't proven they are a terrorist, how can
| you prove they are lying about being a terrorist?
|
| They might not be a terrorist, in which case they weren't
| lying.
| wholinator2 wrote:
| Well the form doesn't literally ask, "are you a
| terrorist? ". It's just a bunch of terroristic and
| criminal activities. So if you said no to "do you plan to
| commit any crimes" and then you rob a store or God forbid
| actually commit terrorism, which is a crime, you've lied
| on the form and can be expelled quickly
| pokot0 wrote:
| Jaywalking is illegal. It doesn't have to be the same
| illegal thing they want you out for. They're just giving
| them more options.
| bbarnett wrote:
| The Freedom to Walk act, in California, just made it
| legal. (Not relevant to your point, just a side bit of
| interesting info).
|
| edit:
|
| Huh. These guys:
|
| https://www.dlawgroup.com/california-freedom-to-walk-act-
| for...
|
| claim it is still illegal, but cannot be ticketed for
| without certain conditions. I wonder why, or if, this
| weird condition exists.
|
| (I see it is supposedly to prevent police harassment, but
| that doesn't explain the weird legal status)
| Zak wrote:
| The main purpose is likely to allow the police to cite a
| pedestrian who is at fault for an accident, which helps
| protect the other parties involved from civil liability.
| bbarnett wrote:
| The law could be rewritten to take that into
| consideration. The current exception even has language in
| it to delineate its use.
| bbarnett wrote:
| It _may_ be burden of proof. Where I live, criminal court
| is to be thought of as 99% proof of guilt, where as
| _civil_ court, eg being sued, is more like 50.1%.
|
| So maybe an expulsion tribunal is 50.1% too?
| jrumbut wrote:
| I doubt that this is the logic but there are different
| standards of evidence. If the traveler faces a criminal
| charge they'll get an attorney and the government will
| need to prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt.
|
| In a civil case, it's likely to be about the
| preponderance of evidence and in front of some non-court
| administrative body there may be no particular standard
| of evidence at all.
| akiselev wrote:
| Immigration courts aren't real courts and the judges are
| part of the executive branch (Department of Justice), not
| the judicial branch [1].
|
| Their evidentiary standards are closer to "nonexistent"
| than to preponderance of evidence.
|
| [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_Judge_(Un
| ited_St...
| vilhelm_s wrote:
| Yes, pest control. E.g. foot-and-mouth disease is eradicated
| from the U.S. and cattle here are no longer vaccinated, but
| it's common in Asia and Africa and there are occasional
| outbreaks in South America. Even a single outbreak imported
| from abroad could cost billions of dollars, mostly because it
| would trigger international embargos preventing exports. [htt
| ps://www.ers.usda.gov/webdocs/publications/45980/12171_er...]
| Vrondi wrote:
| Diseases. The livestock thing is related to diseases. Are you
| carrying the new strain of swine flu inside your body?
| adbachman wrote:
| I can say confidently that asking potential refugees--who
| were born and have lived in a refugee camp for their entire
| lives--if they intend to pirate software when they are in the
| US is hilarious to refugee officers, too. In some languages
| it takes a lot of explanation to even get to a yes or no.
|
| It's exclusively asked as a, "turns out you lied, that's
| perjury" question to make deportation easier in criminal
| cases.
| NovemberWhiskey wrote:
| My father got caught at an agricultural inspection entering
| the U.S. with an apple he'd picked up in a business class
| lounge and forgotten about. He got special treatment every
| time he entered the U.S. for about the next five years.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > This form also has some bonkers checkboxes like "do you
| plan to commit any crimes in the US".
|
| The point of this is not to get people to admit their plans.
|
| Its to convert having those inchoate plans into a crime
| (fraud against the government) that can be prosecuted if
| discovered without any criminal act after entry (and can be
| used, with a reduced proof threshold compared to prosecuting
| crime, as a basis to withdraw status and deny any future
| application.)
| anthomtb wrote:
| My first clearance interview, about 10 years ago, it was all
| going along just fine. I had the standard litany of "bad"
| things any early 20-something American guy gets into - a few
| mushroom trips, an alcohol ticket, friends from foreign
| countries. No deal-breakers so long as you are honest and I
| answered honestly.
|
| The only stumbling block came when the interviewer asked "have
| you smoked marijuana?". I truthfully answered no. The
| interviewer suddenly changed from bored old lady to the
| hardened, ex-cop that I suspect she was, glared into my soul
| and asked again. "No", I answered once again. "Well, that does
| not check out with your background. We will have to ask around
| on that one." She did ask around, my friends corroborated my
| story and I got the clearance.
|
| My background involved undergrad education at a #1 party
| school, in a college town where open marijuana usage was common
| well before being legalized. And I had casual experimentation
| with other drugs (the aforementioned shrooms) and plenty of
| alcohol usage. I was probably the _only_ one in my college
| acquaintance circle that didn 't smoke on a semi-regular basis.
| I sometimes think I could have lied and said "yes I smoked
| weed", and still gotten the clearance. It would have actually
| been less of a red flag for the investigator(s).
| favorited wrote:
| Not related to a security clearance, but a coworker at a
| summer job in high school was applying to be a police
| officer. He was told to answer "yes" when they asked if he
| had ever smoked pot, because anyone answering "no" was
| presumed to be dishonest.
| Cyberdog wrote:
| Interesting, but not at all surprising, to learn how early
| cops are trained to lie for the "greater good."
| MrVandemar wrote:
| "Power attracts the corruptable".
| chiefgeek wrote:
| I filled out DoD form for TS clearance years ago and answered
| honestly that I had smoked weed and done coke in college.
| That's what my boss said to do. He said if they caught you in
| a lie you were finished because that meant you could be
| blackmailed.
|
| EDIT to add: Ironically he had gotten in trouble for phone
| phreaking as a teenager.
| notch656c wrote:
| Anyone can be blackmailed.
|
| If the thing you did was less bad than the penalty for
| treason or revealing secrets (life in prison and/or death)
| then the blackmail argument falls apart. It's just more
| irrational hocus pocus by self-important bureaucrats. Hell
| the thing you're blackmailing doesn't even have to be true,
| they can just find an ex lover and blackmail _that_ person
| to say you raped them or whatever, and well even if you
| beat the charges your kids get tossed into DCS /foster care
| your life is ruined etc etc.
|
| Yet another reason why I'll never work for the government.
| nl wrote:
| For many people this isn't true.
|
| It's not uncommon for people to _commit suicide_ over
| things they are being blackmailed about.
|
| Plus people doing the blackmailing aren't stupid. They
| don't go "we know you lied on your clearance form about
| smoking weed once. Get us that top secret document!"
|
| They start with something much lower risk and then
| leverage compliance into higher and higher value targets.
| notch656c wrote:
| I don't see much functional difference between outcomes
| of committing suicide because you were blackmailed
| regarding a fake but believable rape accusation vs say
| blackmailed because someone found out you grew a bad
| plant. In the end though suicide seems like an honorable
| pick if the binary option is that or revealing life-or-
| death secrets to the enemy.
|
| The US has such insane conspiracy laws frankly it isn't
| much effort for a few motivated individuals let alone a
| state actor to blackmail someone for the worst of false
| offenses using some corrupt "witnesses." Maybe before the
| war on drugs it was easier to blackmail someone with real
| offenses than fake ones but nowadays it's probably easier
| to manufacture them TBH.
| chiefgeek wrote:
| Yes, I did not particularly enjoy the two and a half
| years with that division!
| [deleted]
| cfeduke wrote:
| I had a somewhat similar experience with the polygraph
| portion of my clearance process - apparently its common to
| calibrate the machine to the subject by asking "have you ever
| smoked marijuana" and they expect you to lie and say "no" but
| then sometimes people have never smoked marijuana.
| geepound wrote:
| >"Here, fill it out again and don't mention that."
|
| >I had the exact same experience when applying for a clearance
| while I was in college
|
| Speaking as someone on the autistic spectrum, this is why the
| entire clearance process is a joke and has been since I had the
| misfortune of meeting some of these spooks as a child.
|
| They _claim_ that the one thing that will preclude you is
| lying, but obviously as posts like these demonstrate, that 's
| not the case.
|
| I still remember going on a date with a woman who was recently
| divorced... she told me about traveling up and down Baja
| California for RAND (smoking her brains out along the way).
|
| I've met a ton of these people -- they'd have been precluded
| from federal employment back in the day just for being
| divorced... or a woman... or a myriad of other things... but
| somehow they manage to get these cushy roles and cling to them.
|
| I've since quit doing any job interviews... at all. I got the
| sense folks were treating them like free consulting sessions,
| so I'm very purposefully showing up in the comments when
| something comes up in the news and refusing to "stop posting".
|
| At the end of the day, if you "do a clearance", you're helping
| perpetuate war crimes, and it's been that way since Iraq,
| arguably as far back as when the draft ended.
|
| (I got the sense they, the royal they, "the feds" were
| aggrieved I kept applying to the agencies in my hometown, but
| hey, I was born here, and I'm not required to ignore antisocial
| behavior. It's not my fault if it begins to look like you're
| abusing someone you met as a child -- denying them employment
| in the private sector then overpolicing their applications in
| the public service)
| kemayo wrote:
| It seems pretty common.
|
| My spouse was considering applying to the Air Force almost 20
| years ago (for the language learning school), and got the
| recruiter very excited after demonstrating excellent scores on
| the ASVAB... then it all fell apart after they answered some
| questions honestly about past depression and refused to lie
| about it on the forms as the recruiter wanted them to.
| yterdy wrote:
| You got off easy. I once had to apply for a clearance for an
| admin assistant position, coming out of college (which was
| certainly overkill; I never once came into contact with
| classified material, with the closest I ever got being walking
| past the building's one-room SCIF while seeking signatures for
| textbook order authorizations). When I got to that question, I
| truthfully answered that my single brush with mind-altering
| substances had been an edible a peer had passed me, after he
| realized that I was having trouble relaxing during a
| particularly difficult time, senior year. Back in then-present
| day, my boss had gone over the application, tsked, asked why
| I'd mentioned it, tsked again, and said that it was too late to
| remove, since she'd already seen it. It was sent off without
| another word.
|
| My reserved, nerdy self was replacing her bubbly English major
| bestie, so I don't think she liked me much from jump, anyway.
| dmd wrote:
| On a life insurance form, I was asked "Has a doctor ever
| advised you to stop taking any drugs (including prescription
| medications)?"
|
| I called up and asked them what to do about this question,
| because obviously the answer is yes if you include prescription
| medications. They didn't even understand what I was asking.
| none_to_remain wrote:
| Story I was told once was
|
| Feds: Do you use drugs? Guy: Yes. Feds: Do you plan to stop?
| Guy: No.
|
| The feds went away and conferred briefly and then came back and
| told the guy that they needed him to at least _say_ he planned
| to stop, so he said that, and got the clearance.
| jawadch93 wrote:
| [dead]
| raldi wrote:
| It's an ironic anti-aptonym that someone named "Les Earnest" was
| exceptionally truthful when filling out his security clearance.
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