Just FYI - when I try to TB - maybe you turned them off.

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I certainly don't understand it. When I got my security clearance, I felt like I was being raked over the coals. And it wasn't even top secret. I think the more appropriate question would be who do you have to blow to get a slap on the wrist verdict like this.

I was a contractor and had a Q clearance for work with the dept of energy. I was later investigated and told that I would likely lose my clearance because, and I am not making this up, i plugged one of DOE's printers (an HP inkjet, of all things) into my laptop to print something off in a hurry.

Shortly thereafter, I told them I'd had enough and resigned.

I am still interested in knowing if Berger acted alone, or else might have known he was going to do this (or, for that matter, who might have asked him to do it).

Scrappleface has a good satire of the Berger situation today.

What happens after the security clearance suspension period is over?
Does Berger have to re-qualify for clearance? Is it automatically restored?

SayUncle -

I was later investigated and told that I would likely lose my clearance [... ] Shortly thereafter, I told them I'd had enough and resigned.

I know what you mean. When I got outta the Marine Corps last year, about the only job my military training pointed to was NSA at Fort Mead. (I had language/intel training and and a TS-SCI clearance.) But the atmospere of paranoia in the intel community was just too much for me to bear. The paranoia is justified I believe... just not my thing. Hell, I do real estate now. A better fit for my temperment.

SarahW -

What happens after the security clearance suspension period is over? Does Berger have to re-qualify for clearance? Is it automatically restored?

The rules say that if your clearance is jerked, it's game over. No clearance for you, ever again. Frankly, I've never even heard of a "clearance suspension." It's an all or nothing deal. While under investigation for a possible security violation, you retain your clearance, but are denied access to material, pending a ruling. The press may be adapting the peculiar language of the intel world to be more understandable to their lay readers.

Just a guess.

Oh well. Once again, everybody who ever served in the Clinton Admin skirts by with the double standards.

I pretty much figured that the whole security clearance thing was a sham after John Deutch got off with having classified material on his home computer. So I'm not suprised that Berger is getting off too.

What's so frustrating is just how valuable these things are to people in my line of work. They can take absolutely forever to get, especially in DoD. And if you ever run into any trouble, they can be very hard to keep. And don't even get me started on that pseudo-scientific B.S. that is the polygraph.

Bottom line: I protect my clearance like it was my *life*, because in a sense it is. Sure, from a patriotic standpoint, there's a "right way" and "wrong way" to treat this responsibility, but even aside from that, there's a major economic incentive at work. Were I to lose my clearance for any reason, all my education and work experience up to this point (not to mention my professional interest) would go POOF!

I'd be flipping burgers in no time.

Yet, someone like Berger can just kinda joke the whole thing off, like it's no big deal. Hey, he's not going to jail, he ain't losing his livelihood. There will always be a DNC puke willing to pay this yokel money for his opinions ("I say we tell Sudan to pound sand about this Bin Laden guy.").

Arrrrgggghhhh. . .
Dave at Garfield Ridge

Kandine -

I was nonplussed by the final paragraph of this news article:

While the plea agreement requires Berger to give up his secret security clearance for three years, it allows him to have his clearance reviewed and restored within that time if the government asks him to serve on a panel or in another position with access to secret material, associates said.

What do you make of it?

Yeah, I guess I see your point.

I always forget that I must think. . . in Russian!

Cheers,
Dave at Garfield Ridge

SarahW -

I was nonplussed by the final paragraph of this news article:

While the plea agreement requires Berger to give up his secret security clearance for three years, it allows him to have his clearance reviewed and restored within that time if the government asks him to serve on a panel or in another position with access to secret material, associates said.

What do you make of it?

Yeah I figured that was the paragraph you were talking about.

I'd guess he'll be denied access to the buildings where classified materials are kept. There's always a guard at the door with a short list of people who can enter. He's now off the list, but could be given a temporary entry badge to attend classified meetings when the need for his presence arises.

You're right in any case, it is a confusing paragraph.

Doesn't it just mean he no longer has a general security clearance, and therefore the right to review confidential materials, but for specific panels and inquiries he can be given specific clearance after review?

Which is fuckin' dumb as all-get-out, because that's where he committed this crime in the first place.

But I imagine, at least, that he will be watched. And maybe forced to strip down to his fuckin' underwear. Won't that be a sight for sore eyes.

He should be in jail.

I can tell you this, after serving 23.5 years in the Navy (retiring in September 2004), I remember a young Yeoman Seaman (Michael Walker) who stole classified documents for his dad (John Walker). The documents that kid took were mostly classified confidential or secret (but usually perishable within 30-90 days).
The stuff Sander Berger took (and destroyed) would have given any Soldier, Sailor, Airman, Marine or Coastie a life term if not a dance with the death penalty. This is a sad day in America when, during war time, a political operative had admitted to not only perjuring himself, but also admitting to stealing national secrets and JUST GOT A SLAP ON THE WRIST!!!
This paves the way for others who have conducted espionage a chance to reduce their sentences....donh't think it won't happen, don't say it is different because Sandy didn't sell it to a foreign entity - we don't know what he did with those documents - he just says they're destroyed.
I say he be tried in military court under the rules of war time espionage and locked in Levenworth with the Walkers, Lonetree and the others!

Believe it or not - you can't have your clearance suspended......what is being done is called removal of access - not suspension of clearance. They may have told you that, but it wasn't true (I also maintained a TS/SCI and several NATO clearances as well. The clearance just gives you the ability to possible see material up to a certain level. The access granted by your agency/department determines if that chance is actually granted.

RodgerH is exactly correct.

Berger's had his access revoked. If, say, congress holds a classified, behind closed doors meeting about something that, say, happened back when he was National Security Advisor, than they can give him temporary access in order to let him into the room and pick his (tiny) brain.

In the end, he oughta be behind bars. Wish I had friends as powerful as his.

I had TS/SCI. After military, got a job with a company branching out into DOD work, mainly 'cause they paid 100% tuition. Clearance was a royal pain and the company dropped DOD work because it was such a pain and sold anything having to do with the military off to TRW.

But I do know that if any of us had been caught smuggling TS even Q level documents out of the National Archives and cutting them up with scissors because they were embarassing to our company, long prison stretches awaited.

Sandy Berger just got as much as they dared to give him, without fucking him so much he would have gone nuclear and did shit like reveal NSC intercepts of John McCain, Bush I, Bush II, Jesse Helms figuratively sucking Saudi cock in return for Saudi gravy (the green kind, not the wadd). And the other side has good dirt, ensuring Tom Delay can only be targeted by the MSM not by leading Demos that lots of juicy dirt exists on.

He'll be good to go again in 2008. Just in time to continue his fine work for the next dem candidate--Hillary?

Sandy Berger ought to be getting his ass raped in a dark prison.

http://godgunsanddrugs.blogspot.com/2005/04/sandy-berger.html

Readers of this 'blog' who might have interest in security clearance obtaining matters should be interested in the following information. A recently constructed psychological-type 'test', the Personnel Security Standards Psychological Questionnaire (PSSPQ), has been shown, through repeated research, to be able to accurately predict success/failure to be eventually granted high-level security clearance status for those being processed (or planning to be processed) for same. The PSSPQ was developed by a seasoned psychologist who, several years ago, retired from federal service when being the Chief Research Psychologist in the USA's largest intelligence agency. Information about the PSSPQ (including the arrangements to be made in order to be administered the instrument) can be found at: http://www.home.earthlink.net/~lastone2/psspq.html