[chiefgeek]

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.

[euroderf]

Yes, it is about blackmail. At the start of the 80s, smoking weed or being gay was OK with DISCO (Defense Industrial Security Clearance Organization) as long as you came clean about it and (for example) did not try to hide your sexual orientation from your friends & family. Because therein would lie the opportunity for blackmail.

This attitude of tolerance eroded later in the 80s. During the Reagan regime, they (DoD?) sent out a memo saying that marijuana use was "incompatible with national security goals". Not sure what the effect was out in the trenches though.

[chiefgeek]

Interesting. This was mid 90's.

[notch656c]

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.

[sulam]

I mean, I used to say that I'd never be able to run for public office because <thing that a lot of people do, but that I should be mildly circumspect about>. These days, have you seen the people in public office?!? If you can be elected President after some of the shit that last guy is on the record as having done, I think blackmailing me is probably hard.

The counter-example I'll mention is that if someone framed you for CSAM and could convince people you actually were doing that, blackmail might be effective. Not only is it fully beyond the pale, but just going to prison would be a death sentence.

[nl]

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]

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.

[bena]

I don't think you see what he's saying.

If you want top secret documents, you don't start by asking for top secret documents. You start by asking them to violate a relatively innocuous rule. Changing a date by one day on a file so it's no longer late or something like that. Doesn't matter what it is. The point is that it's not worth being exposed over. And the rule you're breaking would technically be worthy of getting fired over. Especially for the thing they're blackmailing you over. "It's changing a date by one day, no one would know, and it's not worth losing my job over."

It starts off "Hey man, I was cool about the weed thing, do me a solid here." Then it's "Hey, remember that thing you did, do you think you could do this slightly bigger thing?" If they refuse, you can bring up that first thing they did.

Then, a year or two down the line, you're fucking cooked. They come to you and say, "Look man, you've done this, that, and the other thing. If they find out, you are fired, in jail, life ruined. What I need now is this top secret document."

The idea is to build a list of escalating transgressions so in the end, the asset feels as if they have no choice but to comply with your requests. You don't need fabricated offenses. You just need a small issue you can use as a starting point.

[notch656c]

If someone can be blackmailed to do ever progressively worse things over something minor, why couldn't you do the same thing and possibly even faster with something major?

[nl]

There's no "one size fits all" answer here.

If someone has done something really bad (maybe murdered someone) then yes, directly blackmailing them to do something major might work.

But in general the things we are talking about are mostly things were someone lied on their clearance form and if they decided to they could get that cleared up and cause the foreign agent significant problems by reporting an approach.

So instead they escalate. They don't directly blackmail you - you just happen to meet a woman at a bar who happens to have pictures of you smoking weed at a party 5 years ago. So you are joking around about what a great party that was, and it just happens to turn out that this woman works at a defense contractor and they are waiting on this stupid proposal to be released so they can bid on it, and you don't happen to know when it will be released do you?

So you go look it up. It's not classified, maybe it's commercial-in-confidence at worst. But then this woman needs to know how long she should rent her apartment in town for, so exactly how big is the project? How many units are they ordering?

That's still not classified, but is need-to-know. But she's hot, so you tell her.

And now they have you. You might not actually realize yet you are being blackmailed, but as soon as they ask for classified info you realize she can ruin you.

[naniwaduni]

Because dealing with experienced blackmailers is not something that most humans have good intuition and fully rational responses for.

[greiskul]

> 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.

Someone being falsely accused like this would most likely immediately report it to their boss in the government asking for help. It would be very unlikely that the person would hide it and become an intelligence asset for the blackmailer.

[notch656c]

A rational person would immediately report it whether the blackmail was true or not. The penalty for revealing secrets is worse than about any crime except a few high level drug dealing or crimes involving death. If you get fired because you didn't admit to eating a scary mushroom or whatever so be it, the alternative is much worse.

[woah]

> 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.

I'm no expert on spycraft or anything like that, but this sounds overly reductionist. If they can threaten you to lose your career, then maybe doing one tiny little other thing that won't matter seems like it might be worth it. Now they can blackmail you further.

> they can just find an ex lover and blackmail that person to say you raped them or whatever

How do they find that person? How do they blackmail them? It becomes exponentially more complicated than just blackmailing one person. Additionally, someone finding themselves in the situation that they are being actively targeted with blatant lies is much more likely put up an indignant and active defense vs somebody who actually has a guilty conscience.

[acchow]

> How do they find that person? How do they blackmail them? It becomes exponentially more complicated

In a Hollywood movie, they would just locate an old acquaintance from your youthful years who is currently in debt.

[notch656c]

> somebody who actually has a guilty conscience.

If working for a murderous government that sends drones to bomb kids overseas, invade vietnam and iraq, imprisons innocuous non-violent offenders for decades, funds nun-raping militias in central america, etc doesn't give one a guilty conscious I honestly have no idea what would. It's got to make you feel far more guilty than whether you put on a form you grew a bad plant or not.

>How do they find that person? How do they blackmail them?

Finding someone's ex is not complicated. We're talking about blackmailers so I think a blackmailer knows how to... blackmail. And the example I gave was just one of a million possible scenarios I can imagine an enemy using. The point was using something fake is likely as easy or possibly even easier than using a real crime for the purposes of the enemy, and thus the ratcheting effect you describe is immaterial to whether they start with the bad plant grown that wasn't listed on the form or because they told the compromised person that they'd reveal the false criminal allegations.

[naniwaduni]

> etc doesn't give one a guilty conscious I honestly have no idea what would.

Most people care a fuck of a lot more about things that are close to them than things that are far, far away.

If you're wondering in good faith and not just trying to score stupid political points, all I can say is, uh, strongly recommend you Log Off.

[chiefgeek]

Yes, I did not particularly enjoy the two and a half years with that division!

[rcxdude]

You're assuming a level of rationality on the part of the person being blackmailed which blackmailers will do everything to avoid. Look at the reports of people getting caught giving away secrets for and it's often shockingly little given the stakes. Remember the main issue with harsh punishments as a deterrent: people generally don't assume they'll be caught.