Yeah I kinda get that but we’re talking about a gmail account, not a CIA account. Which Petraeus was using for personal correspondence.
I do struggle to see the deep security risk here that caused an apparently skilled man to lose his job.
Lets forget about mistresses for a moment. What about plain old wives and children? They come in many different flavours and are just as statistically likely to compromise dad’s security position. On that basis the only safe high-level government employee is a eunuch living in splendid isolation.
I cannot see why Clinton survived Miss Lewinsky but the head of the CIA had to die in the ditch. Lots and lots of secrets in both men’s heads.
No, they’re not. First, because the organisation knows who the wife and children are, which means that if they were a security risk, Petraeus would never have got the job. Keeping a potential security risk a secret demonstrates that he cannot be trusted by the CIA. Second, his betrayal of his wife further proves he cannot be trusted. Third, all else being equal a mistress is still a greater risk than a wife, because there is no social cost to somebody finding out you’re married to a woman.
Well Clinton was THE top Boss. Who fires THE Boss? Second, Clinton came fairly close to getting into deep shit himself, despite being THE Boss for that matter.
You say that, but do we know this? If he did put any secure information into that account (or if Broadwell did), that would have been a red flag to the FBI.
You do not think wives, children and other close family members are vetted during the granting of a security clearance? Yes they are, in some detail and people have been denied clearance due to things family have done. As has been pointed out, mistresses add an unknown dimension to it.
Clinton was an elected official. Patreaus was an appointed head of a government body.
Wives children et al: yes I imagine they are checked out but human frailty trumps all. What if a wife becomes quietly alcoholic and bitter over the next few years? Or the 12yr son becomes a wilful teenager at 15 with clever hacker friends and wants to show (busy absent) dad how clever he is?
These are not extreme or unusual variations in married life especially if you have 10,000 government employees with security clearances. 5 or 10 families could provide serious risks which I suggest is about the same level of risk a romantic mis-step really presents.
Clinton: so in the USA being elected grants you absolute immunity to hold secrets whilst having extra-marital liaisons, or alcoholism, being bi-polar, financially threatened? No problem? Obviously not because JFK had a wild bed-time whilst risking World War III and Bill Clinton successfully fended off impeachment.
From the outside it does look like a rather strange and puritanical/schizophrenic society. Great country I hasten to add, warm generous people…just a bit confused.
Patraeus was not a “government employee”. He was the head of the strategic intelligence service of the world’s most powerful country. Different strokes from some mid level bureaucrat in the US Department of Agriculture. As for Clinton, have you forgotten the fact that the Lewinski scandal got him impeached and nearly saw him chucked out?
And, before you judge the US too harshly, read Spycatcher. There is a whole section on how family problems as you described were things which led to persons being turned. Spycather was after all, about M15.
…I’m not sure why you are confused. This isn’t a US only thing. I was interviewed by the NZ SIS when an associate of mine interviewed for a job with the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet. If you think this is strange, puritanical and schizophrenic then you better have words with our government. Patraeus exercised extremely poor judgement that might have compromised US security and he knows it. Of course he should have resigned.
In my opinion, he should have resigned in shame for using a gmail account for his sexy emails.
I mean, this guy’s the head spook of the freaking USA. If he treats his own secrets so insecurely …
As to the “might have compromised US security”, that’s a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy that makes me question the sense of requiring everyone in a position of security and trust to resign in disgrace if they are caught in an affair. To the extent that the issue is blackmail-potential, making affairs a big deal seems to me to increase that potential.
If history shows anything, it is that some people in positions of authority can be expected, irrespective of how harshly it is punished if caught, to fool around. For whatever reasons, threats of consequences don’t seem to act as a total deterrent, no matter how clever the person is - in that very clever people still do this. Knowing that, making the punishment for affairs really harsh seems to me to act as a blackmailer’s charter.
He resigned not only because of the affair’s impact on his blackmail potential. In his own statements he said he feels his position is that of a role model for other individuals at the CIA and that his actions were not becoming of that obligation to act in that capacity. I agree with him.
Being elected means you are accountable to the voters in your district. Plenty of politicians have resigned over extramarital affairs, others have stuck it out, and some of those have been sent packing by the voters and some have been returned to office.
Bill Clinton didn’t resign, but he was impeached by the House, only to have the Senate refuse to remove him from office. Remember that? So Clinton was thiiiiis close to being kicked out of office.
An appointee is in a very different position than an elected official, since they serve at the pleasure of the executive who appointed them (with the advice and consent of whoever). So any time the President decides they should go, they go, and any time the President decides they should stay, they stay. Petreaus didn’t just up and resign in a fit of remorse, he realized that if he didn’t resign he’d be fired by the President, and the sooner he resigned the fewer questions about the affair he’d have to answer. So an extramarital affair isn’t an absolute firing offense, doing something that causes a problem for the President is. And having an affair might cause a problem or it might not, circumstances differ. But the CIA is different than the Secretary of Agriculture.
Of course, civil servants are in a whole different boat, because they can’t be fired at whim. So having an affair isn’t grounds for dismissal. However, plenty of civil service jobs require a security clearance, and having an affair could result in loss of security clearance if you, you know, lied about it.
So there is no one standard for affairs leading to being removed from your job. Sometimes yes and sometimes no. Whining “But Clinton got away with it!” is kind of silly. Lots of people get away with affairs, other people don’t. There you go.
That was his choice - the larger issue is whether such a resignation should be required.
I for one do not believe that persons in authority should be seen as “role models” for personal sexual morality - because such things vary widely among individuals.
In some professions, such as intelligence, you essentially do not have a personal life. The fact that you have been given a security clearance means that your entire life is always on trial, because you are not able to separate your vulnerabilities in your personal life from risking national security issues in your professional life. This may not be the case in all industries, but in Intel it definitely is the case.
I myself don’t see why “behaving sexually badly” necessarily = “security risk”, other than the the “potential for blackmail” issue … in which case, as noted, punishing people for behaving badly in a sexual manner increases that risk.
Now clearly it is better if people with national secrets don’t screw around, but history demonstrates expecting that is somewhat unrealistic.
It doesn’t matter if the expectations don’t live up to the results, the expectation is still a valid one. And whether or not he should be a role model is moot, he sees himself as one, I agree that people in leadership roles should be role models for both personal and professional behavior. If we can’t even expect the people in the highest ranking positions to behave with integrity, which is not only a hallmark of military service but also CIA service, then why have any expectations of them at all? It’s like the very idea of holding some people to higher standards is patently ridiculous. I’m not sure why that is the case.
Because when creating rules for public service, I expect those rules to be of benefit to the public - to have utility. If we discard military/spy leaders because we disapprove of their personal sexual morality, we lose their services; on the assumption that these individuals have unique or hard-to-replace skills, it seems that we, the public, come out the loser – unless of course a compelling public interest in such a dismissal can be demonstrated.
The one proposed is “affairs make the leader subject to blackmail”. That makes sense in that it’s a compelling public interest - but when examined closely it appears to be a bit self-fulfilling.
Now, I have no idea whether this General and CIA head was irreplaceably skillful or not - opinions differ. What I do know is that many, many famous military/spy types have been notorious adulterers. To mention just two, Admiral Nelson (who famously had an affair with Lady Hamilton) and General Moshe Dayan (who famously had affairs with, well, everyone he could). Would the British have been better off to have turfed Nelson before the Battle of Trafalgar because he’s a cheating bastard, who took up with a notorious “adventuress” like Lady Hamilton? Or the Israelis to have turfed Dayan before the 6-day War because he screwed around as much as humanly possible?
In short, the public’s reasonable expectations of such leaders is loyalty and service, and anything that impairs either is fair game - but the public has no real interest that they be nice, or that their sexual habits (within the law of course) be approvable.
I would say that you are looking at it from a private sector perspective, and assuming that the only thing a government employee does is provide a service to the organization that is quantitative. In the military, at least, that is not true at all. That’s why the UCMJ exists, to dictate a lot about the private conduct of individuals in the military because the extent of their involvement in the military is not to draw a paycheck, they also act as the public face of the organization and by extension the government itself. If you want to further this analogy, a CEO might not be fired for an affair because perhaps that doesn’t have a direct effect on shareholder value, but if his behavior damages the reputation of the company you can bet that the value of that organization will decrease and he will be encouraged to leave to save the reputation of the organization.
Keep in mind that he was not fired. He was encouraged to resign because his behavior was an embarrassment to his reputation and his organization, and by extension the government that put their trust in his integrity.
No one is questioning his sexual habits. They are questioning his integrity given the fact that he cheated on his wife with someone he was working with in a professional capacity. It’s not like he’s a swinger and goes to dungeon parties on the weekends and that is what the public is having a problem with, it’s that his integrity has been shown to be compromised. For a person who represents an organization that requires public trust to function effectively, personal and professional lives will become intertwined, and if you demonstrate poor judgment and a lack of integrity in your personal life, there is no reason to believe it won’t infiltrate your professional life and put people at risk.
Malthus, the question as you point out is linked to things different then merely sex. day an and Nelson’s screwing around was quite different as it did not leave them susepitable to being compromised and or turned and nor did it in anyway effect their ability to do their jobs. Now if Dayan had taken up with some Egyptian belly dancer or started screwing female subordinate, I am sure there would have been a very different view taken.
