The Security Post (with rant)

[neadods]

I've lost track of how long ago I promised a post about what it's like to live in a world full of security classifications and what TV (particularly RTD) gets wrong and right. Finally, I'm writing it.

Comments

[taffimai]

Yes, to all of this. I think it's something people don't quite get if they didn't grow up with friends who did not know what their parents did for a living.

[tamnonlinear]

I once quipped that living in DC meant knowing a lot of folks who couldn't tell you what they did for a living.

A friend of mine said that it's because most of them don't know for themselves anymore.

[neadods]

"The secrecy of my job prevents me from knowing what I'm doing."

Actually, I once had one of those - I was asked to write up how to connect two boxes together. When I asked what they did and how they worked, they basically said "you don't have a need to know."

[starmalachite]

My late husband (i.e., not the one you've met) was a programmer for DARPA and frequently had to write code to perform the exact same task, only with databases. Yes, without knowing any characteristics of either set of data.

Many couples around here follow a version of "Don't ask, don't tell" -- the one who doesn't work for Agency X doesn't ask, the one who does doesn't tell.

[shaggydogstail]

Yes, TV in general and DW-verse in particular doesn't pay much attention to the realities of security and working for government agencies, even allowing for a certain amount of "dramatic licence" handwaving

[neadods]

people who work for the government are always as diligent as they might be

Of course they aren't. People being people, some will take the lazy way out, some will look for a way to sell out - we've got a spy case going on right now. (But said spy didn't wake up in Gitmo either.)

I'm not saying cleared people are paragons of nobility - I know too many of them for *that* - but I am saying that I think RTD (and Chris Carter) cherry-pick the bad and then imagine the worst.

[neadods]

Amazingly enough, several employees actually gave it out!

Oh, that's so sad...

[hildy]

Oh *thank you* for this post. I grew up in this area. As a daughter of two career worker bees in said company town, I know only too well how this place works. I've also done my share of contracting in either government agencies or their subcontractors or whatever. I've had my fingerprints taken and I've been interviewed. That was just a background check. I didn't even *get* a clearance

[neadods]

*shrugs* It's the way things around here.

I seriously wish that the people who write spy stuff would spend a day just talking to the people who live that life in their country. Even if they can't talk about their work, you can learn a lot from reactions (says the person pinpointing workers in Hunt for Red October).

I also saw how much & how fast security changed in this town after 9/11

It went from a background hum to a daily thing, IMO. (Completely ruined my walking workout at NIH; the mile-long path went in and out of the facility and suddenly there were lines and checks instead of a nod to the guard.)

As far as I can tell, the people writing Bones have never even read a book about the FBI, much less talked to agents. Apparently Numb3rs hasn't either.

[teenygozer]

This is fascinating -- I just told my husband that he is going to want to read it, too.

RTD doesn't just think that governments are corrupt. He thinks they're profoundly STUPID.

Ha! That pretty much summarizes the two irate LJ posts I wrote on Torchwood: Children of Earth.

I heard (admittedly second-hand) that Numb3rs had a plot where the math genius brother was told to stop shipping the individual parts of some technical paper to a friend overseas because the information in it could be twisted to make weaponry. He refused, he got arrested, and so his FBI brother finished making the transmissions in a burst of family solidarity.Correction! The Math Genius had a friend who got arrested for sending part of a technical paper overseas for the reason you said, so the Math Genius send the final paper overseas in a show of solidarity, and lost his clearance to work on FBI cases with his brother-the-FBI-agent, who was both loud and profane about it. Math Genius had to jump through hoops to get his clearance back, but he did so partly

[neadods]

Don't even start me on Children of Earth. Plenty of others have pointed out that it starts with someone at high levels who casually hands over an all-access password (and a poor one at that) to a new stranger. 'Nuf said about grasping security right there.

I've fixed the main post about Numb3rs. This at least sounds a lot more realistic, and doesn't involve an FBI agent who is profoundly dumbass.

Hell, even Fox Mulder was trying to find the truth and make it known for the good of the public.

[starcat_jewel]

IIRC, the claim that it could have been used to make weapons was inaccurate -- a case of DHS effectively saying "because we CAN", if not "because he's brown" or "because we can't understand the math". It was friggin' agricultural improvements forchrissake.

The "family solidarity" part came in later, when the guy with the authority to restore Charlie's clearance tried to use that as a blackmail lever in his own personal vendetta against Dan. Charlie told him to FOAD, which IMO is the only correct response to blackmail attempts of any kind.

[persiflage_1]

I'm not saying that RTD hasn't got things wrong - it seems his research is done via Wikipedia sometimes. BUT baer in mind, you're in a different country - not everything's going to be the same.

[neadods]

Oh, I do know that. And considering the situation, there's no way in hell I'm going to know any other country's clearance procedures!

But it would be gobsmacking if it weren't universally true that it isn't easy to get high-level jobs and that in the process of getting them, some decisions about what's important remain the same. I can't imagine that Britain doesn't have the equivalent of someone in a black suit who would stand between the Queen or the Prime Minister and an attacker.

[persiflage_1]

Well, yeah - all the Royal Family have minders - even the kids. And same for the PM and his family.

[neadods]

Now I'm dying of curiosity - do they wear black suits?