Let’s suppose that Jack, Diane and Ringo are all college student friends.
Ringo starts hanging out with a chick from the Frothing Allegiance Party and over the course of a frustratingly platonic month or so he drops $10 on a membership. Mostly he just wants the card to show people.
One day, about 20 years later, Ringo is talking Diane, now his wife, on the phone and she says, “Oh I was talking to Jack on computer today.”
“Hey cool” says Jack. It’s been about 14 years since they talked either in person or electronically. There had been a stupid fight after Jack had moved to Not-Hereia and gone native (is that phrase offensive now? If so I’m sorry.)
“Do you still talk to Ringo?” asked Jack.
“Yes, we’re married.”
“Funny thing,” says Jack, “I work for SuperYummyLolCartzMegaCorp now. I had just gotten the job a few weeks before and passing through the wall of federal security checks one day they flagged me. I was taken to a room and some guy came in and asked if I’d ever known Ringo.”
So I told him that we’d been friends - years ago.
"Did you know that he was a card carrying member of the FAP?
“Oh yeah. He wanted to sleep with some girl so he signed up to the FAP for her.”
They pretty much let me go but the guy said to me on the way out, “If you do talk to Ringo let him know that he migh have a problem entering or remaining in Not-Heria.”
So if you’re Ringo do you think to yourself:
a) Jack did sometimes make shit up. This is one of those times.
b) I told them I wasn’t paranoid! Assholes!
c) How much do they know and why have they bothered?
d) Any combination of the above.
Full Disclosure: In the mid-80s I worked for a company, which was somewhat better than my current “usually don’t work for anybody, but when I do, they don’t pay me.” We had a QC inspector who had gone to school with Fidel. Tons-O-Fun to talk to, including the part where Batista had him expelled because he was French and working with Fidel. Okay, Batista woulda been satisfied with doing nasty things to him, but he made it to the French embassy first. He was let go from our company and called me a couple months later to see if I’d be interested in supporting his hostile buyout of the plant.
“Who are the other investors?”
He named a fellow.
“His surname is similar to that of a recently-appointed bigwig in Nicaragua’s Sandanista government. Any relation?” Listening to NPR leaves you more familiar with second-tier officials in banana republics than with your own town council.
“That’s his brother.”
“So, though my own government is supporting the Contras, I, with a young daughter and a mortgage, should support the takeover of my plant when Sandanista dollars are paying for it? Are you crazy?”
There’s political ambition, whether that means getting laid or getting a better position; as mine would be the latter it was a no-brainer: Commies pay shit. There’s political backbone, but that would require one to believe deeper in a cause than “it’s better than the opposition.” And there’s political expedience, AKA: “Are you fuckin’ NUTS?!?!?” I make no apologies that I chose the latter, even if his takeover had been successful and the plant had stayed open a few more years. But it was never more than a pipedream.
This means that Ringo can not:
1)work in Not-Hereia
2)Travel to Not-Hereia
3)Former acquaintances of Ringo face intertogation in Not-Hereia
4)Should Ringo’s kids need to travel to Not-Hereia because of athletics or or academics they too will face interogation and possible refusal.
All of this because about 15 years ago Ringo acted within the bounds of his own country’s laws and those of Not-Hereia.
I’m not saying that joing FAP was Ringo’s brightest moment but really, having no criminal record, having done nothing whatsoever to warrant a watch-listing, having made no threats overt or covert to his or any other nation Ringo is not a hot name.
An impetuous move 15 or so years ago with no further “radical” activity results in people only remotely connected to Ringo having to explain themselves for it and Ringo is wondering,
“Gee, you know I always thought there was someone keeping tabs on me, but I always figured I was paranoid. Maybe I wasn’t.”
Seems excessive to Ringo given that he’s harmless as a churchmouse with broken dentures.
sooo…it appears from this parable that:
–The OP just got his security clearance.Congrats!
–And that the OP has a college friend Ringo whose name appears on the FBI’s list of ex-commies/Symbanese Liberation Army/Charles Manson cult/neo-nazis,Frothing Allegience Party etc, etc, etc.
The FBI isn’t investigating Ringo, but they do keep a list of people who paid money to join nasty organizations.This is not McCarthyism, it’s legit police work.
And the FBI suggested helpfully that his friend might be interested in knowing that his name is on the no-go list for the nation of Not-here. Which implies that his name is also on a few other lists, too. So if Ringo ever needs a security clearance, he may not get it. And if he ever tries to fly to Not-here: well… he should have the sense to realize that ,gee whiz, actions have consequences.
What’s the big deal?
It’s also within the bounds of law to join the KKK. But yeah, you’re gonna get questioned about it sometimes.
(see above remark about actions, consequences, etc…)
When I was in high school I got a Democratic party card for $2 to impress my history teacher, although ironically he had brought it up by complaining that to become a member of the party all you needed was the $2 donation, not even proof you had registered to vote, much less that you’d registered as a Democrat. I guess he was cheesed about the upcoming open primary where Republicans could cast spoiler votes.
But then the same season I joined the Young Republicans, as the only club in school that talked politics, and to get my picture in the yearbook one more time.
And then when I could finally vote I went with the independent.
Later, when I ran for mayor, it did occur to me that all of those might be out there in the ether, but decided I’d just have to ignore it.
Well, excuse me for not being a citizen of TellPeopleWhatTheyWantToHere. I applied for citizenship once but my past membership in the No-Bullshit Society raised a red flag.
This is just gonna have to fall under the category of “the serenity to accept the things I cannot change.” Ringo’s run afoul of a bureaucracy and though he might be able to help his situation a little with some contrite letters to the relevant officials and/or consultation with a lawyer well-versed in this kind of thing, odds are he is (and you are) just gonna have to live with it.
This situation is actually almost identical to that of one of my dad’s coworkers in the 1980s.
BeardyHippy had joined the British Communist party when he was at university in the early 70s, because he wanted to screw a radical activist (he failed).
Fifteen years later, he met and fell in love with an American girl. They married planned to move to the US. She got tenure at some fancy university, and moved over - a job she could not refuse. He filled in the visa form to come and join her, but found to his horror had to check the same box if he was a convicted drug dealer, convicted gun runner, or had ever been a Communist.
It took BeardyHippy two years apart from his wife, to persuade the INS that he was not only no longer a Commie, but had actively campaigned against Communism since his membership, before he could join his trouble ‘n’ strife in the New World.
