With almost a decade under its belt, our multi-front war on a vaguely defined notion of terrorism targeting never-really-defined enemies across the world and here in the newly rephrased ‘homeland’ has come to define the state of our nation. Even the meager limitations on presidential powers of the last six decades have in effect been nullified and replaced with a newly declared and interpreted authority mirroring those of past emperors and kings, and of any classic authoritarian regimes’ rulers. One look at the last decade’s successfully won legal arguments on behalf of the executive, the presidency, is enough to establish the common theme that ‘the war on terror is global and indefinite in scope, and that it effectively removes all traditional limits of wartime authority to the times and places of imminent or actual battle.’

Whether it is illegal domestic eavesdropping or unlawful detention and torture, these newly claimed and boldly practiced presidential entitlements rely on one factor, and that is the extraordinary claims of presidential war-making power. Here is a perfect example of the new permanent wartime presidency in action; boldly, loudly, and unfortunately thus far successfully:

On occasion the Bush administration has explicitly rejected the authority of courts and Congress to impose boundaries on the power of the commander in chief, describing the president’s war-making powers in legal briefs as “plenary” — a term defined as “full,” “complete,” and “absolute.”

The current status of our nation’s president’s war-making powers is defined, recognized, and has been practiced as ‘plenary;’ complete and absolute. Now, let’s add to this the fact that our multi-fronted war on terror is global and indefinite, a war open-ended in time and with no national boundaries. What do we have with this equation? A permanent wartime presidency with absolute powers. The Constitution indeed granted the president the power to fight with any resources Congress makes available in wartime, and accordingly the executive is expected to do whatever it takes to protect the nation, even if it leaves some room for abuse of this power. But did our founders factor in the notion of indefinite, open-ended, perpetual wars, and with them, a permanent wartime presidency status? The Constitution gave presidents the freedom to defend the nation, but what about the nation’s need to protect itself against the abuses of this freedom, including the creation of perpetual wars accompanied with indefinite and absolute presidential powers?

The following excerpts are from the Devil’s Advocate, John Yoo:

Critics of presidential war powers exaggerate the benefits of declarations or authorizations of war, and they also fail to examine the potential costs of congressional participation: delay, inflexibility, and lack of secrecy. Legislative deliberation may breed consensus in the best of cases, but it also may inhibit speed and decisiveness. In the post-Cold War era, the United States confronts several new threats to its national security: proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, the emergence of rogue nations, and the rise of international terrorism. Each of these threats may require pre-emptive action best undertaken by the president and approved by Congress only afterward.

…

The Constitution creates a presidency that can respond forcefully and independently to pre-empt serious threats to our national security. Instead of demanding a legalistic process to begin war, the framers left war to politics. Presidents can take the initiative and Congress would use their funding power to check him. As we confront terrorism, rogue nations, and WMD proliferation, now is not the time to engage in a radical change in the way our government has waged war for decades.

…

Mr. Yoo considers a thorough congressional review and authorization based on findings and careful review as tending to ‘exaggerate the benefits of declarations or authorizations of war.’ If put in an appropriate context, this exaggeration could probably have prevented a preemptive attack on Iraq based on false and made-up intelligence on nonexistent WMD, and we may have saved thousands of American soldiers’ lives, tens of billions of dollars of taxpayers’ hard-earned money, and would have prevented the loss of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians’ lives. Only in John Yoo’s book of ‘cost & benefits analysis’ would this make it to the ‘exaggerated cost column.’

As for ‘Congress would use their funding power to check him,’ his pretend innocence would not get a pass from even the most naïve or ignorant. Considering where the real funding of the inhabitants of our congress comes from, taking into consideration the old adage ‘thou shall not bite the hand that feeds you,’ and understanding the power of ‘bacon sent home,’ who is Mr. Yoo kidding here; really?

Let’s look at it from the other side of the fence. What executive office wouldn’t want to possess this level of power? How many presidents would resist gravitating towards the enormous powers granted to a Commander in Chief in practice? How many of today’s ‘viable’ presidential candidate’s bread is heavily buttered by the war industry? Here is how Richard Norton Smith put it during an interview:

However you define national emergency, whether it’s a foreign war, whether it’s a civil war, whether it’s an economic depression, whether it’s a Cold War or the current war on terror, the fact is power gravitates towards the president…It’s a tug of war, Jim, that’s been going on, a constitutional tug of war between the executive and the legislative branch. And what I was picking up off what Ellen said I think the last 75 years has, if anything, distorted what the founders intended. Because of the Great Depression, because of World War II, because of the Cold War, now the war on terror, the fact is that that tug of war has actually been very one-sided. I don’t think this is the presidency that the founders really envisioned.

…

A Little Bit of History

On November 19, 1973, the Special Committee on the Termination of the National Emergency presented Senate Report 93-549 at the first session of the 93rd Congress. The Introduction to the report, an examination of existing War and Emergency Powers Acts, states:

Since March 9, 1933, the United States has been in a state of declared national emergency. In fact, there are now in effect four presidentially-proclaimed states of national emergency: In addition to the national emergency declared by President Roosevelt in 1933, there are also the national emergency proclaimed by President Truman in 1950, during the Korean conflict, and the states of national emergency declared by President Nixon in1970 and 1971.

These proclamations give force to 470 provisions of Federal law. These hundreds of statutes delegate to the President extraordinary powers, ordinarily exercised by the Congress, which affect the lives of American citizens in a host of all-encompassing manners. These vast ranges of powers, taken together, confer enough authority to rule the country without reference to normal Constitutional processes.

Under the powers delegated by these statutes, the President may: seize property; organize and control the means of production; seize commodities; assign military forces abroad; institute martial law; seize and control all transportation and communication; regulate the operation of private enterprise; restrict travel; and, in a plethora of particular ways, control the lives of all American citizens.

With the melting of the Cold War-the developing détente, with the Soviet Union and China, the stable truce of over 20 years duration between North and South Korea, and the end of U.S. involvement in the war in Indochina-there is no present need for the United States Government to continue to function under emergency conditions.

As we all know the establishment did not let the ‘melting Cold War’ argument stand. During the Reagan era the Cold War reached new heights, with a massive military buildup in an arms race with the USSR, before it came to an end. It wouldn’t be difficult to imagine the panic experienced by the real powers as the Berlin wall and with it the several-decade Cold War came crumbling down. How could the massive Military Industrial Complex, and those feeding upon it, survive this ‘ending,’ and find a way to sustain itself? How about maintaining the role and power of the Executive Intelligence Complex? The creation, existence, and practices of these agencies were based on and justified by the ‘Evil Empire,’ and with it gone, so was the justification sold to the public for the existence of many dependent upon it here in the States.

Sure there were other wars; Gulf War, Kosovo… But those were mini-wars; peanuts. What was needed, that is for the sustainability, survival, and even the fantasy of expansion, was another long-lasting war. Not a dingy little country or two, and certainly not a clear-cut enemy and pinpointable target to hit and be done with. No. In fact, learning from experience, it had to be something that could not end with some darn wall coming down, or a massive regime being taken out. An open ended war; a war with undefined enemies in many colors, with many tongues, and scattered across the world; a war that could be pointed at one place, then at another, and yet another without having to fit any military definition of target or strategy; a war with no boundaries; a war with no possible end. A war that couldn’t even be defined as a war, yet could act as the mother of all wars – a Perpetual War.

If anyone laughed at even the fantasy of such an absurd objective, they certainly weren’t the ones who had the last laugh. All that was needed to make it happen was the creation of a state of emergency. After all, it had been done for a long time, and done so very successfully. People were used to it – living under various degrees of a state of emergency for many decades. Just take it up a notch or two, then sit back and watch the panic take root and spring into full bloom. Jazz it up with a disaster-loving and panic-driving media, and the state of emergency will go into full effect. And from there – hello Perpetual War.

Here is more on the report by the Special Committee on the Termination of the National Emergency:

A majority of the people of the United States have lived all of their lives under emergency rule. For 40 years, freedoms and governmental procedures guaranteed by the Constitution have, in varying degrees, been abridged by laws brought into force by states of national emergency. The problem of how a constitutional democracy reacts to great crises, however, far antedates the Great Depression. As a philosophical issue, its origins reach back to the Greek city-states and the Roman Republic. And, in the United States, actions taken by the Government in times of great crises have-from, at least, the Civil War-in important ways, shaped the present phenomenon of a permanent state of national emergency.

…

Because Congress and the public are unaware of the extent of emergency powers, there has never been any notable congressional or public objection made to this state of affairs. Nor have the courts imposed significant limitations … the temporary states of emergency declared in 1938, 1939, 1941, 1950, 1970, and 1971 would become what are now regarded collectively as virtually permanent states of emergency (the 1939 and 1941 emergencies were terminated in 1952). Forty years can, in no way, be defined as a temporary emergency.

‘Forty years can, in no way, be defined as a temporary emergency;’ really? Obviously it can, and it was. Not only that, it actually got worse. Today they don’t even bother adding ‘temporary,’ and leave it out completely. How could you win or lose, and declare the end of the ‘war on terror’? Is it possible to capture and neutralize that one last boogie man, announce that the last of the terrorists has been terminated, and then go about dissolving Homeland Security, Motherland Security, Fatherland Agency, Intelligence Czars, Domestic Eavesdropping…? How about the entire industry, the thriving many trillion dollar industry, with the ‘war on terror’ as their sole reason for existence? Obviously this would not fit the vision put in place by the few who matter, and the many grown dependent on them.

The Mother of all perpetual wars, War on Terror, followed by unjustified and undeclared wars: Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Iran… Who are the enemies? Bad Taliban, Semi-bad Taliban, Al-Qaeda, Al-Qaeda Supporters, Possible Al-Qaeda, Islamists, Fanatics, semi-fanatics, fanatic-looking dudes, Iran-ists, and with them all the civilians ‘just our collateral damage.’; babies, women, elderly…Kidnapping, torture, assassinations, black sites, black operations, black budgets…

Here at home: airport security check-points, no-fly list, semi-no-fly-list, many secret lists, tapping all phone calls, monitoring all e-mails, billions of secret documents, thousands of secret operations & plans.

For the winners in the Perpetual War, the military-intelligence-surveillance industrial complexes, the empire presidency and its advocates, and the parasitic class who lives beneath and off of them…the state of Perpetual War is a long-held dream coming true.

For the losers, we, the public majority, the mothers losing their sons and daughters to wars, the spouses left to deal with their returning amputated loved ones, many in need of medical care but with no coverage or assistance, the hard-working class dutifully parting with needed dollars and foregoing all expectations, the seekers of liberties…the realities of these made-up emergencies, and the real consequences of these vague wars are either not registering, or are being accepted and paid for silently.

This applicable quote comes to mind: “Inter arma silent leges: in time of war the laws are silent.” And, I feel like extending the line by adding”…for as long as the people wish to remain silent.”

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Indeed, the interests of the oppressors lie in ‘changing the consciousness of the oppressed, not the situation which oppresses them‘- – Paulo Freire

The illegal domestic wiretapping of all Americans, the invasive search practices at every airport directed at every single US passenger, the compilation of all data on all citizens in not only one but multiple government databases, the unreasonable and warrantless search and seizure practiced on US masses facilitated arbitrarily by the FBI, are among many known and unknown government practices directed at the entire population of the United States of America.

Despite the current futility, many constitutionalists, legalists, analysts, and activists are writing, talking, and arguing about the legality or illegality, constitutionality or unconstitutionality, practicality or impracticality, of these surveillance and search practices of our ‘National Security State.’ There is a plethora of material out there for you to read or listen to on those points, so there is no need for me to cover all that has been covered already; over and over. I am not going to discuss the tedious and ambiguous laws, nor am I going to waste time on the vague and irrelevant notion of and argument on security. No. I intend to focus on the subjects of these practices; the people; the masses, in fact, the entire population as the willing recipients who have come to view and accept themselves as suspects. Isn’t this what we have become; a nation of suspects?

No one any longer questions the fact that our government has been engaged in domestic surveillance of our communication systems. The news came out. The practitioners admitted to it, in fact, proudly. These activities were challenged in courts and the challenges overridden, thus making the legality or illegality, constitutionality or unconstitutionality, all irrelevant; moot.  Several years have passed and it has become, it is, a fact of life; a fact in every American’s life. And for the majority, not a painful or aggravating fact of life; just ‘a fact’ of life. Why?

Many say ‘look, there are these bad guys out there called terrorists. The government is out there looking for them; everywhere. I ain’t doing nothin wrong, and I ain’t got nothin to hide. So why should I be concerned? My government is doing it to keep me, to keep us all, safe; to protect us against those bad terrorist people lurking here and there…’

If you were to ask most ‘but why do they tap your phone line and capture your data or conversation? You the good citizen?‘ The common answer would be along these lines, ‘I don’t know. They must know something. I don’t understand how intelligence and police stuff like this works. They must know something, if they think tapping my phone and listening to my conversation helps to fight terrorists and keep us safe…I just do my own thing and since I don’t have anything to hide it doesn’t bother me. They’ve got to do what they’ve got to do to protect us…’

Most of you know that the above dialogue is more or less what we get everywhere with almost everyone. I have had that exact same conversation with tens if not hundreds of people, and I can assure you that the above rendition is in no way exaggerated or downplayed. It is the general attitude. It is the common thought and response process. It is a fact of today’s life expressed by today’s people in our country. And to recognize these common beliefs, to draw the most logical conclusion, takes neither a genius nor a philosopher nor a psychologist…But let’s move to the next related fact, and see that same logical conclusion.

Starting immediately after the September 11 terrorist attacks, we began to see, and of course become subject to, jacked up security check points and searches in our airports. First, they already had us all going through big complex metal detectors. Then, they had us do the same thing but remove our belts and other metal containing garments and belongings. Then, they had us bend over like servants before kings, remove our shoes, and humbly walk barefoot through the big complex metal detectors. After that, they prohibited us from carrying our drinking water or any other liquid, and they made our lactating women open up their stored breast milk and sip it before the eyes of the traveling masses passing by…

Meanwhile we learned of their massive databases on fliers, where over one million people were divided into no fly lists, almost no fly lists, and maybe no fly lists, with further division into high-risk fliers, medium-risk fliers, and low-risk fliers…But, despite all these massive, complex and secret multiple lists and databases, we all had to go through those same detectors, with no shoes, no liquids, supposed random but all too frequent pat downs…So we never understood the rationale for having all those lists and databases anyway. No worries. We, most of us, said, ‘we may not understand, it may not make the slightest sense, it can defy all logic…but that doesn’t matter. The government must know things we don’t, and they are protecting us against the big bad terrorists…’ So we went on, kept putting up.

Recently, they said all those practices were not nearly enough, so they’ve been erecting body-scanner temples at security checkpoints, and asking us to step in them to be viewed naked-breasts, penises, arses and all. To be technically correct, they are not forcing us to go through the scanners; in fact, they are giving us options:

-You either step in the scanners and let us view you, all your private parts naked, or,

-You go through grabbing, groping, patting, and worse one-on-one searches.

They have been proudly justifying these invasive procedures by presenting them as reasonable options for people to choose from. Think of a rapist saying the following in court:

‘But I gave her a choice, and I made it clear. I said you either submit willfully and quietly while I rape you, or, you can fight and I’ll beat the hell out of you while I’m raping you….’

We’ve been complying with all that. We get to the checkpoints, and as one woman told me:

‘I just go into this auto pilot mode. I remove my shoes and other items. I move forward towards the screening machine while looking into empty space and avoiding any eye contact. I step in there, slightly spread my arms and legs, pause, and step out on the other side. I then let out a deep breath for making it, without sounding off any alarm bells, and without having to be touched, groped and patted everywhere…Then I walk away quickly and try to wipe away all the memories of those long minutes…It’s the best way to deal with these things…’

Again, this sounds very familiar. Just read through documented victim accounts on dealing with highly traumatic experiences. I used to read about and listen to such victims. A woman telling the story of being molested and raped by her father:

‘I used to pretend not being there…you know, almost like an out of body experience. He’d quietly come to my room, his breath reeking with alcohol…I’d close my eyes when he pulled down my panties…I’d spread my legs, close my eyes, and imagine not being there…imagine it was not happening…It was quicker that way. He’d be done and gone. And I would go on trying to forget, pretending I forgot…trying to erase all the memories and the feeling of being violated…’

Doesn’t it feel that way? Don’t we feel violated? Don’t we feel powerless? Doesn’t it feel like total submission to a force greater than any one of us, and obviously the total of all of us?

Think about it. Many elementary schools bring in law enforcement or psychology experts to educate our children about abduction, molestation, rape, etc. One of the things they try to teach our children, in simple and easy to understand language, has to do with recognizing ‘danger’ or ‘criminal’ or ‘wrong’ behavior, approaches, and requests, and to say ‘no,’ or walk away from predators who initiate them. One of the main things they teach:

It is not right or good if people, even friends and family, ask to see your private parts. That’s why we call them ‘private parts.’ They are private. We say ‘no’ if someone asks us to see our private parts. We don’t let people touch our private parts. We run and report to our parents if someone tries to touch our private parts. It is not right. No one should be asking you, or do to you, things like that…

Now, with all the transportation procedures, security screening rules, shouldn’t they add a qualifier to above lecture-training points? Something like:

It is not right or good if people, even friends and family, ask to see your private parts. That’s why we call them ‘private parts.’ … We say ‘no’ if someone asks us to see our private parts. We don’t let people touch our private parts… However, if it’s TSA screeners at the airports, if it’s the security police in front of the congressional building, if it’s the …then all bets are off. You have to let them do whatever they ask you to do. It is okay for TSA men and women to see your private parts. It is perfectly okay, if they pick you for random additional search, and touch your private parts; grope, pat your private body parts. Then, it is okay.

Let’s use common sense here my friends. When put in writing it may sound disgusting or outrageous to some of you, but isn’t it true? Don’t they view us and our children, and all our private parts with their new body-scanner temples? Don’t they give us a thorough pat down, everywhere, including our private parts when we say no to their temples, or, when we become the chosen random one for one-on-one pat down?

What will you tell your kids when they say, ‘But daddy, they told us at school not to let people touch us down there! How come this guy is touching me here?’ No, you tell me, what will you tell your kid when he or she innocently, but far more rationally, asks you that question?!

Now let’s go back to our submission to total surveillance in the name of vague and irrational security. Most people I know, in fact everyone I know in this country, has a reasonable expectation of privacy. Even with our spouses we adhere to respected privacy ethics. You certainly would not like or tolerate it if your partner were to go through your private mail, open and read it. No matter how innocent, worthless or trivial the content of the envelopes. You would be livid to find out your partner has discovered your password to your personal e-mail accounts, and has been reading your correspondence with others. No matter how innocent or unimportant the nature of those communications. You would be outraged if your spouse picked up the phone upstairs and listened in to your conversation with a friend. No matter what the nature or importance of that particular call. Then how is it that all these expectations of privacy, the sense of being violated when that privacy is invaded, and the swift and firm response to these violations, all go out the window when the violators happen to be total strangers hidden in secret castles of our government?

Somehow the same justification, ‘Oh, I’m not doing anything wrong, and I don’t have anything to hide…’ does not wash away the justified feeling of being violated. For some reason, lines like ‘he/she was doing it for my own good, to protect me better, or, to just make sure I wasn’t engaged in anything nefarious or dangerous…’ would seem utterly irrational or stupid. Yet, we’ve been practicing this irrational distinction with far more outrageous violations of privacy inflicted upon us on a daily basis, and by those we don’t even know – to know the extent of the damages they may be able to bring down upon our lives.

When did we make these decisions? When did we decide to put in place and live by these distinctions? When did unreasonable search practices somehow come to be accepted as reasonable? When did we accept being watched, being searched and patted down, being treated, and simply living as suspects?

Whether it’s carrying out a conversation over the phone,  whether it’s writing a quick e-mail to a colleague, whether it’s flying home to Milwaukee to see your grandmother for one last time, we, every single one of us, are being listened to, watched and read, and invasively searched as suspects. No matter how clean our background and criminal history, no matter how virtuous our daily lives and conduct, no matter how exemplary our citizenry…no matter; we are all suspects.

Are we witnessing our transformation into Orwellian masses? Because these incremental applications of indiscriminate government surveillance and warrantless-reasonless searches and seizure targeting the entire population, are geared to desensitize, degrade, and ultimately and inevitably, to dehumanize us all.

One of the notions we once tried to live by and be proud of was ‘innocent until proven guilty.’ Now, it seems we are all guilty until…well, until the end of time? Until the end of the last terrorist on earth has been announced? Until we say enough is enough and stand up for our own rights, privacy, dignity, and freedom?

Here is an excerpt from an article published in 2005:

Metro police officers are using new behavioral profiling techniques as they patrol subway stations, identifying suspicious riders and pulling them aside for questioning.

The officers are targeting people who avoid eye contact, loiter or appear to be looking around transit stations more than other passengers, officials said. Anyone identified as suspicious will be stopped and questioned about what they are doing and where they are going.

As part of their preparations for tighter security during the presidential inauguration, the officers have been trained by the Transportation Security Administration to take notice of the same behavioral characteristics and patterns that airport security officials watch for.

Orwellian, isn’t it?

It was terribly dangerous to let your thoughts wander when you were in any public place or within range of a telescreen. The smallest thing could give you away. A nervous tic, an unconscious look of anxiety, a habit of muttering to yourself—anything that carried with it the suggestion of abnormality, of having something to hide. In any case, to wear an improper expression on your face … was itself a punishable offense. There was even a word for it in Newspeak: facecrime …- – George Orwell

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The Quest for Clearance

It was late spring 2007, and I had arrived right before sunset at Centerville’s new ‘in place’ for the 30 something techie crowd. I was supposed to meet two friends there, have a drink, and then head to the restaurant next door for an early dinner. As soon as I walked in I spotted both of them, and a third person, a man in his early thirties whom I’d never met before, I’ll call him ‘Joe,’ and headed towards their table. After brief introductions the trio resumed their conversation where they’d left off. The topic had to do with current hot jobs and the latest career trends in the area, which caters to the federal government…

I was listening only half-heartedly until one of my friends, a woman in her mid thirties who worked for a midsize travel agency, started talking about how she’d been waiting for the completion of the process to get her security clearance, and that she couldn’t wait to get ‘the darn thing,’ and with it her promotion and a 15% salary increase. Now that perked up my ears and grabbed my full attention. After all, I’d been intimately familiar with security clearances and related issues for several years and dealt with them extensively, working with hundreds of national security whistleblowers, and networking with attorneys. What I couldn’t understand was this:

Why in the world would a travel agent working in a private travel agency need or want to have a security clearance?!

So, I asked: ‘What do you need the clearance for?’

And she responded: ‘The agency I work for has a contract with the federal government. We provide airline tickets, rental car and hotel reservations for some federal employees…’ 

I asked again: ‘So why do you need clearance to do that?’

She said: ‘Well, the government agency requires that only those employees with security clearance handle their account, and since it is a fairly large account the travel agency I work for assigns several travel agents.’

After a brief a pause it dawned on me, ‘Oh, I guess your account is with one of THOSE agencies…DOD, CIA… gotcha…’

My friend interrupted: ‘No, actually it’s not. It’s the Department of Commerce. And it’s not even for their executive level people…just regular employees.’

I kept asking myself why in the world the Commerce Department would require travel agents with security clearance to handle their good ole ordinary travel arrangements.

I guess I was thinking out loud because my friend tried to justify, well, at least her end of this deal: ‘The point is they pay much bigger bucks to my employer, and my employer pays those of us with clearance who handle this account 15% more in salary than the travel agents with no clearance who  have regular accounts…’

I guess it made sense; perfectly. Government agencies don’t pay from their own pockets; they have at their disposal unlimited access to taxpayers’ dollars. So someone in The Department of Commerce apparently made this ridiculous rule – padded their civil servant status and importance – treated their inferiority complex from being placed much lower in the chain of civil servants (waaaayyy below the CIA, DIA, FBI…, ),and made it a requirement to have cleared travel agents handle their travel. As for the travel agency’s perspective: Hallelujah!!! They get a contract with the feds where they can pad their prices and never worry about having to give the best deal in terms of price/value. In fact pad it enough to pay 15% increased salaries to those on the fed account, and still have plenty of profit left.

…………

TSC Compliance & Disclosure on Banging

As I was processing the above information and reasoning, the man, Joe, straightened his shoulders, and if I’m not mistaken, kind of puffed up his chest…you know the body language I’m talking about; right?

He said: ‘I’ve got TSC; Top Secret Clearance. I’ve had it for almost a year now. My pay went up 25% the day I got it.’

Since the other two were obviously familiar with his line of work I was the one with the first question: ‘So who do you service?’

He put on the coolest and most aloof expression he could manage, which ended up being neither cool nor aloof: ‘I can’t talk about it. All I can tell you is that I’m a software programmer and we’ve got big contracts all right…’

I decided not to press ‘who for or why’, and instead, try to find out how much he understood of the significance of having TSC as a private sector employee, both positive and negative.

Obviously he considered the 25% increase in salary as the major positive; well, obviously. And considering his body language and tone he appeared to regard his clearance status as something ‘cool,’ ‘important,’ and ‘ego-boosting.’ He was single, so maybe he thought it made him more of a chick magnet…So I decided to see if he perceived any downside to having a TSC.

I asked him bluntly: ‘There are bunch of things you end up giving up for TSC; some would even say ‘they get you by the …’ don’t you think?’

Joe, already on his third drink, nodded: ‘Yeah.’ And then he said something I was neither expecting nor prepared for, ‘It complicates everything in the banging department.’

After a brief pause I recovered:’ How so?’

Joe: ‘Well, basically, you have to report who you sleep with and all the details if the girl is not a citizen, or has an accent or something.’ He continued, ‘About 8 months ago I met this hot woman with a cute accent and we hit it off right away…stayed together that weekend…and that Monday I had to go and report the entire thing…’

I probed for more details: ‘You mean report in writing? – Orally?’

Joe:’ Both! First, I had to fill out this form, and then I was called in to answer questions and give more details…’

I interrupted him: ‘No kidding! They have a form for this??! What’s it called, ‘Banging Disclosure Form? BDF?’

If he got my sarcasm he didn’t show it, instead he continued very seriously: ‘Just a standard form to fill out general information on foreign persons you come in close contact with, name, nationality, etc. But once in the office for follow up, then they ask you all these details ‘What was her full name?’ ‘What’s her nationality?’ ‘Where does she live?’ ‘How many times did you do it? Over how long?’…you know!’

I nodded understandingly, and he went on: ‘I mean you don’t ask for your new woman’s exact date of birth! How am I supposed to know? Go through her bag for ID while she’s in the bathroom?!…They ask me where she’s from and I can’t even remember; Greece? Lebanon?… Anyway, I’m done with foreign or foreign sounding women…’

This was getting a bit too much for me; trying not to laugh at the absurdity. The man could only come up with, could only think of, one downside and that had to do with ‘chicks.’ And obviously to him Greece and Lebanon were almost the same, either geographically or linguistically. I couldn’t detect in him even a minute trace of political or legal understanding. So, I didn’t bother bringing up issues like:

What happens when you decide to publicly oppose the current butchering of our civil liberties and speak up about it? Won’t they use your TSC and threaten its removal, thus your employment? Or maybe you’ll decide on your own against speaking out; thinking self-preservation. Because in 2005 I received many e-mails/letters from people who told me they wished they could sign a certain petition against constitutional abuses, but they feared for their clearance and job security, so they felt and believed they couldn’t.

What happens when you or your spouse or your partner joins a rally, albeit a peaceful protest, against war(s) or other human rights abuses committed in our name? Won’t they use that constitutionally and democratically sanctioned action against your ‘clearance,’ your job, thus, against you? Because just last month when I called a good friend, who also happens to be antiwar, to join me in an antiwar rally in DC, she was almost in tears and told me she couldn’t because her husband had a clearance, and that they feared her participation in a rally might jeopardize that clearance and their livelihood.

What happens when you witness a criminal or fraudulent act related to your work, and since a contractor to the feds, one with consequences to citizens and taxpayers, and you rightfully feel obligated to report or disclose it to the public? Won’t they come after you with criminal prosecution threats for violating your clearance? Because many whistleblowers have been through this exact experience, and been left with no employment and almost no course of action.

No, I couldn’t tell him all that and more. Even if I did, what would my lone voice accomplish toward raising this guy’s awareness, when the media, the government, and all their related tentacles are doing the exact opposite? He believed he was cleared, he believed he was one of the chosen ones, and unless one day, even if by chance, he faces the dark realities of his valuable rights being substituted for being ‘cleared or chosen’, he’ll hang on to these beliefs.
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The Nation of Cleared & Not Cleared

Based on GAO’s July 2009 data, about 2.4 million persons currently hold security clearances for authorized access to classified information. And this figure, 2.4 million, does NOT even include some of those with clearances who work in areas of national intelligence.

In fiscal year 2008 the Office of Personnel Management and the Defense Department processed about 450,000 requests for confidential, secret and top-secret clearances. According to bits and pieces of data here and there, there are over three million federal employees who require security clearances for jobs. These jobs range from:

Routine computer system maintenance to sensitive analysis of spy satellite photos. All require at least a background check of personal and work history, foreign travel and finances. Top-secret clearance currently requires interviews with neighbors, references and current and former spouses.

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Contractors pay a premium for workers with current clearances, often offering higher salaries and signing bonuses. That can cost an extra $10,000 to $40,000 per employee per year, all of which gets passed on to taxpayers, Davis says.

And here is an example of how having clearance is advertised and glamorized:

Job candidates with security clearances are hotter-than-ever commodities in the Washington area and elsewhere, due to higher demand, tighter security requirements and a wave of baby-boomer retirements, according to recruitment officials.

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ClearanceJobs.com, based in Des Moines, Iowa, recently released a survey that found that those with security clearances earn an average 25 percent more than similarly skilled workers who lack them. That gap has been widening, too.

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“It’s the hottest ticket in town,” Paul Villella, chief executive of the Reston-based recruitment firm HireStrategy, said of the security clearance. “It’s in many cases better than having an MBA.”

Security clearance has always been the weapon of choice for the federal government when it comes to covering up malfeasance or criminal deeds and dealing with and silencing whistleblowers. The paragraph below summarizes this weakness granted as a privilege and later used and exploited to threaten and silence:

The voices of some of government’s most conscientious and competent employees are routinely silenced by managers who threaten to revoke their security clearances. While most of those with clearance work in defense and intelligence roles, by no means is the problem confined to CIA, NSA, DHS, DOD and the FBI. Many employees at agencies like the Department of Agriculture also hold clearances. Many of those required to hold clearances have little if any real need for them. But, agency managers find security clearances a handy way to make an end run around laws that protect workers from discrimination, whistleblower retaliation, politicization, cronyism, and other abuses. Under the rules established by Executive Order, agencies can fire an employee with a clearance for virtually any reason. Employees who appeal a revocation or suspension have almost no due process protections – and even those are not guaranteed because there is no external review of the agency’s decision

Mark Klein, the AT&T whistleblower, has been emphasizing the importance of not having clearance in his ability to disclose NSA’s illegal wiretapping facilities being housed in, run through, and operated from AT&T facilities. I suggest you listen to our Podcast interview with Mr. Klein if you haven’t already. Here is a quote from Klein on why he decided to do the right thing and disclose the illegality that was/is being committed against Americans:

So I figured I’m it, because see, I don’t have a security clearance. They can’t do anything to me about that.

And here is some information on those with Top Secret Clearance at AT&T who felt bound and tied, and so remained silent against the constitutional abuses committed against their nation:

The former network technician said he knows at least three AT&T employees who have been working in the room since 2002. “It took them six months to get the top-security clearance for the guys,” the network technician said. “Although they work for AT&T, they’re actually doing a job for the government.” He said that each of them underwent extensive background checks before starting their jobs in the room. The vetting process included multiple polygraph tests, employment history reviews, and interviews with neighbors and school instructors, going as far back as elementary school.

Aid said that type of vetting is precisely the kind NSA personnel who receive top-secret SCI (Sensitive Compartmented Information) clearance go through. “Everybody who works at NSA has an SCI clearance,” said Aid

Another example of how security clearance provides the perfect weapon for threatening, silencing and firing the inconvenient voices:

In its lawsuit, the ACLU charges that the DOE took away El-Ganayni’s clearance to retaliate against him for publicly criticizing U.S. foreign policy and the FBI. The agency sought to cover up its retaliation against El-Ganayni, a foreign-born Muslim, for his constitutionally protected speech by invoking “national security.” As a result of the revocation, El-Ganayni was fired from his job.

“After eighteen years of dedicated service working to improve America’s national-defense capabilities, the U.S. government thanked Moniem El-Ganayni with a pink slip instead of a blue ribbon,” …”The Energy Department knows it cannot admit that it revoked Mr. El-Ganayni’s clearance because he has been an outspoken critic of the U.S. government’s treatment of Muslims here and abroad, so it is hiding behind ‘national security’ to avoid having to explain itself.“

The Subservient States & Local Governments