[aurelian]

Removing enemy agents from positions is not unAmerican.

Removing people with known security risks from sensitive positions is not unAmerican.

He missed hundreds of agents, identified several agents and many more security risks, and spurred heightened security awareness that was a very good thing at the time. Expecting him to know the identity of every Soviet agent before attempting to remove any security risks is unreasonable.

[jjoonathan]

You make it sound like we're talking about a few false positives and a few false negatives.

>94% false positive rate (9/159) >95% false negative rate ((200-9)/200)

If it's unreasonable to call this a shit screening process, what would you consider reasonable?!

In any case, it seems virtually certain that McCarthy's accusations were far more effective as political tools rather than as filters against soviet subversion, in accordance with the traditional narrative.

[smutticus]

Just because some members of the American Communist party were working for the Soviets, does not mean that every member was. Guilt by association is generally not a crime under common law.

I don't know what 'unamerican' means, I know how it was used, but I don't think anyone really knows what it means. Therefore I'm bringing up common law. Whether something is unamerican or not is irrelevant. We're supposed to live in a nation of laws, not arbitrary standards.

[SamReidHughes]

We're talking about security risks, not guilt.

[dalke]

We're talking about presumed security risks, where there is a model justifying its validity but where the validity has not been demonstrated.

American citizens of Japanese ancestry were labeled "security risks" during WWII and sent to internment camps.

Do you agree that they were risks and therefore should be removed from all sensitive positions? And if so, what defines "sensitive position"?

(We know, by the way, that there absolutely were spies for Japan in the US. http://www.sccs.swarthmore.edu/users/04/sorelle/poetry/wwii/... says that 10 were found, and none were Japanese. The only one I found by name was Velvalee Dickinson. Perhaps the risk factor was actually not having Japanese ancestry?)

If there was a risk, why the lack of serious sabotage, espionage, etc. on Hawaii, where 1/3rd of the population had Japanese ancestry and therefore economically infeasible to intern them? Was it only because the islands were under martial law, and if so, how does that make a difference?

Or do you agree with the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians that there was, in fact, little evidence of disloyalty? Do you agree with U.S. legislation saying that the "security risk" label was actually due to "race prejudice, war hysteria, and a failure of political leadership"?

If the latter, how does one distinguish between a (supposed true) claim for being a security risk based on political party affiliation and a (demonstrably false) claim for being a security risk based on ancestry?

[SamReidHughes]

We're talking about people in administrative positions, not people being put in internment camps.

[dalke]

All I see in the history is "McCarthy identified several agents actively engaged in espionage. KGB records identify hundreds more that he missed. / McCarthy identified many more people in sensitive positions who were security risks, many with Communist associations."

I see nothing which says that "sensitive positions" is or was meant as a term limited to the executive branch or to administrative positions.

Wouldn't a non-administrative physicist on the atomic bomb project, like Theodore Hall, count as a "sensitive position"? Since I'm pretty sure that was the view back then.

Keeping people in an internment camp rather made it difficult to have an administrative position, so I don't really see the difference. Well, there's a different mechanism, but the same end goal - keep Japanese/Communists out of possible sensitive positions because some people who are Japanese/Communists are the enemy. No?

[jjoonathan]

A potential spy does (potentially) subvert democracy. But removing an elected official from office definitely subverts democracy. You need to be pretty darn certain of the former before the latter becomes the lesser of two evils. Assuming my numbers are correct, "security risk" is far too poor of a standard to decide in favor of removal from office.

On the other hand, it sure is a handy standard if your actual goal is to remove your opponents from office...

[SamReidHughes]

What elected officials are you talking about?

[dalke]

Consider Victor Berger, elected as a Representative from Wisconsin in 1918. The House refused to let him serve, since he was a convicted felon (he violated the horrid Espionage Act) and war opponent.

This was justified by Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment:

> No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.

Following the logic that birthed the foul Espionage Act, "not wanting to go to war" = "aiding the enemy", hence Berger wasn't seated in 1919 nor, after rewinning the election, in 1920.

He was a Socialist, not a Communist. Not that it really matters; an anti-war Communist would have had no better chance.

That said, I'm as confused as you about jjoonathan' comment, as removing (or at least preventing) elected officials from holding office was at best a contingency plan during the Red Scares.