Posted on 10/17/2008 5:37:59 AM PDT by vietvet67
The lowest-ranking enlisted persons in the Armed Forces of the United States who are expected to handle sensitive matters in the scores of jobs involving classified equipment or written material must be investigated before obtaining their security clearance. Could Barack Obama gain such a clearance?
To begin, the clearance applicant would have to complete a detailed personal history form that includes, if necessary, government access to all health and education files. This is the starting point of all security investigations. Top Secret clearance involves a field investigation rather than the Secret version that is usually limited to a "name check" that is a basic police and public information file review. For the TS clearance an investigator will visit the home neighborhoods and work place sites of the applicant in search of supportive and/or derogatory references.
If the clearance is extended further into the handling of information of such importance that it requires a compartmented distribution, the field and document investigation is pursued with considerable vigor over a lengthy period of time. Nuclear and other sensitive technical or political matters fall into this category.
In all cases, whether on the lower level or up to the most sensitive intelligence, the background of the applicant's personal and business involvement forms the nucleus of the initial phase of the investigation. The people with whom the applicant associates lead the investigator to personal connections and matters relative to the individual's character, beliefs and past acts appropriate to matters of security.
Eligibility for clearance at all levels is directly influenced by the people with whom one associates. Yes, who your friends are and have been does count -- a great deal. This is true, of course, in many types of police investigations where suspicion is adequate reason for further inquiry.
(Excerpt) Read more at spectator.org ...
Obviously. I know of someone who was interviewed because someone they know needed a clearance. The investigator interviewed everyone in this person’s past. The process took months.
IN my most cynical moments I wish that Obama and a 60 Dem senator congress win. The things they'd do would drive most of the country wild with anger. Think Dumpsterunderground and Daily psyKOSis are bad? As the new Dem government imposes "The Fairness Doctrine," we'd see an explosion of other technologies that would keep conservatives in touch and furious. 2010 and the Dem congress would be just a bad memory.
When I was going through the drill to get my clearance in the 70’s for the army, I had a “glitch” that slowed things up. It seems that when I was in high school, one of my “associates” was arrested for protesting the war in a rally at Cal State Fullerton in 1970. They wanted to know the extent of our friendship. (I think we went surfing a couple of times during high school, but I never launched a campaign out of his house nor was i on a political board with him)But that fact that i knew him almost disqualified me. The FBI acted like this was the end of the world for me. Imagine the field day they would have with Obama. No birth certificate, voter fraud, terrorist friend, friends with criminals, etc.
My first 2 jobs required Top Secret clearances with DoD. It took 6 months and a pile of paperwork. I can imagine that DoD, the FBI, CIA, and other alphabet bureaucrats are as scared as hell what will happen to their jobs when Zero gets into office.
Zero will turn this country upside down. My guess is he won’t last past the first 100 days.
he’ll need that birth certificate
When they were reviewing my records for my clearance, they left no stone unturned. The investigators questioned everyone, and I do mean everyone, they pulled my High School Science Teacher and Mentor out of the middle of class, they questioned the 85 year old lady who was my neighbor, my friends and their friends.
Getting a TS is no joke, if I had a friend who...I don’t know killed someone or was a terrorist, I’d be lucky if they let me clean the latrines, much less anything sensitive.
IIRC, there are questions on the application for security clearance that ask specifically, if one has ever been involved with subversive groups against the United States. I’m not sure that Obama could say that he hasn’t.
My TS was held up for 8 months.
My step brother had gone to the USSR on a class trip(Russian language) and my father has some business dealings with the China. When MI and the FBI came to talk to my Dad he’d thought I been killed when he saw the Gov. car pull up in the driveway and Army officers got out.
Actually BHO would not pass the security requirements to be a member and play in the Marine Corps Band because it plays at the White House.
My first 2 jobs required Top Secret clearances with DoD. It took 6 months and a pile of paperwork.
With Iraq and the ‘stan going on, takes a good bit longer than that now to get cleared, my friend.
The people who vet applicants and give out security clearances are not superior to the People, and they work for and at the pleasure of the President.
This line of reasoning is ridiculous.
That right there should disqualify him from being POTUS.
No they wouldn't.
Any "law" which purports to restrict or impair the President's Article II powers is facially unconstitutional.
No exemption is necessary. The Office of President IS an exemption, by definition.
Let’s not forget Obama’s trip to Pakistan when he was in college, and the two Pakistani’s he lived with for two years during that time..... add to that his relationship with that Communist in Hawaii.....
And his admitted cocaine use.... we’re not even talking about all of the shady characters he worked with when he was a community organizer....
Obama would clearly fail any background check for security clearance.....
By the way.... Lt. Col. Allen West brought this up a few days ago, and Michael Steele mentioned it on Hannity and Colmes the other night:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2100606/posts
I was interviewed regarding a friends daughter who was going to USAF Flight School. They asked character questions, finances, did I know her friends, etc.
Yep. I was interviewed for a security check for a friend of my son. The friend was applying to be a USMC Embassy Guard. The interview was not contentious but they certainly asked in a variety of formats, whether there was anything in his past that would cause me to question his allegiance and integrity.
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