What the wife may think of an agent having an “affair” with a foreign national is one matter. The agent is still under the obligation to disclose such a relationship (fleeting as it may be) to the proper authorities. An attempt to cover up or deceive the authorities about such a relationship is a grave violation of security, and the wife has no vote on the matter at all.
“But wait!” you say. “What if the agent discloses the relationship AND the wife doesn’t care!” Well, how many angels can dance on the head of a pin? The fact is that the agents allegedly had sex with women that they knew fuck-all about, other than them being foreign prostitutes, and committed grave violations of the responsibilities that they freely undertook as part of their security clearance. Your fantasy-land what-if scenarios do not change the facts of the situation, and that is that anyone with a security clearance knows the rules and volunteered to uphold them. These guys failed spectacularly in upholding their part of the bargain for the job, and therefore there are consequences. Again, this is not a surprise to anyone who has ever held a security clearance.
I must flag this as suspected bullshit. But if you can furnish me with a cite that, say, single Secret Service agents must and do reveal to their supervisors every one-night stand that they have and that this rule is more than minimally and infrequently enforced, I will be impressed.
You keep ignoring the part where everyone talks about associations with foreign nationals is closely scrutinized.
See page 14, line 19. Note that this guidance requires clearance holders to report an attempt to entice them into a compromising position, rather than the actual case of having a clearance holder solicit someone to put them in a compromising position. The policy also states that “Personnel who fail to report the contacts, activities, indicators, and behaviors in items 1 through 22 are subject to punitive action in accordance with section 2 of this enclosure.”
Ask anyone who has ever held a security clearance whether they believe that a sexual relationship with a foreign national is required to be reported. I guarantee you that 99 out of 100 will say that it is, and the one holdout is the guy that gets his clearance yanked. ETA: I know of one story of a clearance holder who was traveling and hooked up with a Russian woman he met on a bus or something. He lost his job, and later married the woman. When that story is told to other clearance holders, there are typically gasps and moans about how someone could be so stupid as to hook up with a Russian chick.
Look, you don’t have the like the rules. But everyone with a clearance volunteers the abide by them. The rules are clear and beaten into one’s head. Someone seriously has to be an ignoramus to spend hours filling out an SF-86 and not realize that they are signing up to have their lifestyle, financial situation, marital situation, criminal record, and many other kinds of personal information examined in detail by people who are looking for a reason to keep you from getting a clearance. It is the whole friggin’ point of filling out the SF-86. If you don’t want a stranger going through your medical records, bank statements, and tracking down foreigners you associate with, don’t apply for a clearance.
There are a whole lot of quagmires and side issues here, but to me it boils down to one thing:
These agents had minute-by-minute hardcopy schedules for the President’s visit to Columbia. They brought uncleared foreign nationals into their rooms. They slept and/or visited the bathroom, during which time those individuals had access to the room. They created a major security breach. As far as I’m concerned, the fact that those foreign nationals were prostitutes isn’t the major issue at all.
Well regrettably there’s the never-defined term “compromising position,” which I was asked if you had a cite to something that indicated the agents “must and do” routinely report this information to their supervisors.
And lo and behold,
Well, I know of one story where the babysitter was on weed and put a baby in the microwave 'cause she thought she was cooking a turkey (Who cooks turkeys in the microwave anyhow? And while they’re babysitting? “Oh hey, I’m just up in hurr cooking a turkey!”). And this was told to me by a cop. In DARE class.
Maybe there’s a human interest piece on damn-the-costs marriages that substantiates this account?
Scarelore, not just for DARE class anymore!
This, on the other hand:
Is a very excellent reason for taking disciplinary measures. Maybe GWR should become inspector general.
I can partially answer this from personal experience. In an earlier part of my life I held a top secret security clearance; my parents are naturalized U.S. citizens but were born in a country that was part of the “Soviet Bloc” during the time I had that clearance, and they lived part of their adult lives there.
As part of my background check to get that clearance, they did a background check on my parents that was almost as extensive as the one on myself. I remember I had to show the investigators their certificates of naturalization, which hadn’t been removed from the safety deposit box in several decades.
From talking to someone with a high clearance: if are really, truly 100% open with everyone, including your mother, about your brothel-attending, it’s probably not going to be a problem. Such claims are likely to get a lot of scrutiny.
Someone who values their spouse and/or children and/or half their property more than their nationality.
FBI clearance checks can and sometimes do include asking people, including single men, about their sex lives. I’d be very surprised if SS was any less thorough.
I point out two things. First, rather than split aggravation factor (d) into two parts, the factor unites them in one, speaking of “sexual behavior of a public nature and/or that which reflects a lack of discretion or judgment.” I submit that ejusdem generis should lead us to conclude that “that which reflects a lack of discretion or judgment” is assessed principally (albeit not solely) in reference to the behavior’s being of a public nature. Second, this is bolstered by mitigation factor (d) which allows the “private, consensual, and discreet” nature of the behavior to mitigate an unfavorable finding.
Group whoring is not “private, consensual, and discreet,” but if an agent, not acting in concert with others, in a jurisdiction where prostitution were permissible hired a hooker and did not compromise physical or documentary integrity by taking the hooker back to the hotel room, I put it to you that this guideline is not a slam dunk for the government.
In my job, I work with law enforcement agents from different federal agencies. At the beginning of one case involving one of the armed services, upon meeting me for the first time, the investigator introduced himself and, apropos of nothing, explained that he and his wife were swingers. He told me that they liked to go to parties where they met other couples and changed off for sex. Frankly, I wondered if I was being invited to something, but he explained that the service was trying to pull his security clearance because of his lifestyle, and he was arguing that as long as he was fully open to everyone about it, there was no basis for blackmail.
He was a good agent, and as far as I know, they’ve never cashiered him.
In the end this should and will be all that matters. As I wrote above, there is a point in seniority and responsibility where hiding behind the precise letter of the regulations ceases to be useful or justified. Members of the SS are beyond this point. They need to be smart enough to know when they are doing something that compromises their responsibilities, and if they are not smart enough to judge this - they can’t do their job. Anyone arguing about the precise terms of the rules means they have already lost. You simply cannot have people that consider that the boundaries of their judgement and responsibility is described in exact terms, and that anything they can find outside those terms is automatically acceptable, especially not in roles that specifically call for ethical judgement. It is a feature of a litigious society that many people try to use the rulebook in a manner that excuses them from taking responsibility for their actions. This just makes work for lawyers. It isn’t acceptable. These guys might fight some sort of wrongful dismissal case based on the exact rule wording. If they do they will never work in a secure role again. And shouldn’t. They might even win damages. But they will never get their job back.
Tushar Tembe was born in Bombay, Indiana and captained both USS Eisenhower and Truman. I can only presume that U.S. Navy captains in charge of aircraft carriers have security clearance.
I don’t see anyone saying otherwise; you started off with saying none of it should matter at all, and people have been explaining why it does.
As noted: if are really, truly 100% open with everyone, including your mother, about your brothel-attending, it’s probably not going to be a problem. Such claims, however, are likely to get a lot of scrutiny.
Here’s the bottom line: they’re gonna hook you up to a polygraph, and ask you a couple variations of “have you done anything someone could blackmail you over?” If you say “no,” and don’t show signs of deception, you’re probably okay.
Win what? How would an agent be blackmailed in your situation? “I’ll tell your wife you’re a swinger!” “Ok, but wait until she gets back from her orgy…” Doesn’t really work.
There’s still all of Guideline B, which covers all contact with foreign nationals. I think enough people here have conceded that frequenting prostitutes isn’t necessarily an automatic disqualifier, but it’s going to make the process more difficult for you. Likewise, contact with foreign nationals isn’t an automatic disqualifier (far from it), but it’s going to make the process more difficult for you. I’d even go so far as to say that if you asked your security manager if you could go have sex with Colombian prostitutes, and he said “Sure, I think they’re legit,” there’s a [slim] chance you’d be fine.
The bottom line is that are indeed guidelines that dictate what is and is not acceptable for cleared professionals, and the guidelines are based on practical considerations designed to protect national security, as opposed to a prudish puritanical disapproval of sex.
