Twelve senior intelligence officials issued a statement late yesterday butt-hurting (I just made that verb up) about Trump's decision to yank the security clearance from MSNBC star and Twitter celebrity John Brennan.These twelve fools better be careful. I once had security clearances, and I know that intelligence is disseminated on a need-to-know basis. Brennan is a former official, and has no need to know. I'm surprised that his clearance wasn't revoked the minute he left a position with a need to know.
“The president’s action regarding John Brennan and the threats of similar action against other former officials has nothing to do with who should and should not hold security clearances — and everything to do with an attempt to stifle free speech,” the statement reads.These fools are are amazing. If a person has a TS clearance, they specifically CAN NOT talk about it. Free speech is immediately curtailed with a clearance. If I were their bosses, I"d yank their clearances too, for being to stupid to hold sensitive information.
Free speech, my aching ass.
3 comments:
I heard a couple of radio guys (generally right-of-center politically) discussing this, and they both felt that this was bad - because it limited the employability of former government officials once they leave government. And I was shaking my head in disbelief.
As you note, access to secure data is - or should be - given only on a need to know basis. Unless you're working on something official that requires you to have access, you shouldn't have the clearance. And that when you leave the position that required the clearance you should automatically have it revoked.
It's not an entitlement. The real scandal isn't that the President revoked Brennan's clearance. It's that, for the last few administrations, former officials were allowed to retain their clearance once they left the positions that required it. And that non-government jobs existed that rewarded them for access they should no longer have.
At One of my duty Station's I had a Top Secret Background Investigation Clearance and when I left that duty station. The clearance went down to a Secret Clearance. Why do these IDIOTS get to keep their clearances until they DIE that is BS. Once they leave the government job for a different one particularly in the private sector that security clearance should be taken away and NOT Re-issued until the individual re-enters public service.
For normal people, having a security clearance is based on trustworthiness, and need-to-know to do one's job. Once one leaves the position, one is debriefed and no longer has the clearance, as many people have noted.
However, for the inside the beltway crowd, a security clearance is a Lodge Pin saying that that person has been inducted into the fellowship, and is an insider to be trusted with the lodge (beltway) secrets. Also, being a lodge member allows coordination of policy, without outside interference.
Having his security clearance revoked offends on two levels. One - an outsider took it away, and "that's just not done." Only the lodge should be able to excommunicate a lodge member. And two - if it can be done to one member, it can be done to others, and all of the sudden, lodge membership doesn't have the power and exclusiveness it previously had.
Personally, this is what President Trump was sent to Washington to do. "To drain the swamp", and revoking security clearances for people who have no job requirement to have them, should have been completed long ago.
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