It’s called the NSA. They already know which levers to push to get any government employee to comply with their wishes.
Only in the comic books.
The NSA doesn’t to my knowledge investigate all government workers, only those; both active duty military service members and civilians, civilians working directly for the DOD or for those working DOD contractors, but AFIK, only those with sensitive and high level security clearances. It’s not like the NSA is following USPS workers or VA or SSA or IRS workers to make sure they are not slacking off on the job or stealing office supplies.
Many years ago I worked with and was friends with a guy who later went into the Navy and was stationed on a submarine. Joe used to occasionally send me post cards and pictures from his various ports of call and short letters. I was pretty oblivious at the time that the guy had a big crush on me (only found out much later from a mutual friend) – he was pretty shy and sort of nerdy and never indicated he liked me in that way - I thought we were just in the “friend zone” : (
But anyway, he was back state side on leave and called me up, and I was having a Christmas party and invited him to come, which he did.
About two weeks later, two guys in dark black suits came to my work and after flashing their ID’s to my boss, asked to speak with me. They were from the NSA and evidently Joe had put me down as a personal reference (or maybe not) and they were there to ask me questions about Joe as he was up for a promotion or duty that required some sort of high level security clearance – of course the details about which, I was not told but I did guess it might have had something to do with cryptology since Joe was quite the math whiz.
They asked me about my relationship with Joe, “where and how I met him, how long I’d known him, what he’d been like as a co-worker, was he in your opinion dependable and trustworthy, did he ever steal items from work”, and things like “have you even known him to have any mental issues”, “has he to your knowledge ever been involved in any subversive organizations”, “has he ever written to you and divulged any sensitive information”, “do you have any knowledge of him ever using drugs or drinking to excess.”
I did know that when we worked together that Joe was somewhat liberal on some social issues, perhaps leaning more libertarian, somewhat conservative on others, not as conservative as I was as we used to sometimes spiritedly debate on politics, but nothing that would give me any pause or alarm as being a “subversive type” and he was pretty much as far as I knew, a pretty straight arrow sort of guy and very, very smart and I was happy to give him a good but honest reference to the NSA guys.
As to him using drugs, I told the “Men In Black” that no, I’d never seen him use drugs or ever had any indication that he ever did so. And when it came to drinking, I told the one NSA agent, “No, I’ve never known Joe to drink if much at all and never to excess and in fact I had a Christmas party two weeks ago and Joe came and I think he had no more than one beer the entire time he was there” and then the one NSA guy said, “Yes. We know”.
And yes. That comment sort of more than freaked me out!
I had images of the NSA sneaking around the bushes outside of my apartment on the night of my Christmas Party or someone being on the inside – did I really know everyone who came, it was a rather big party…..had my apartment been bugged?....
But on seeing my rather alarmed and shocked reaction to the other NSA guy’s “Yes. We know” comment, the other NSA guy clarified by saying, “Your and Joe’s former boss was at your Christmas party too and she was also one of Joe’s references and she told us the same thing, “that Joe only drank one beer the entire night”, when we interviewed her yesterday.” That sort of made me somewhat feel better – LOL!
Many years later, after my divorce I was dating a guy for about a year who was a USN Commander and stationed at Ft. Meade. I knew that he was part of a unit at the NSA called something like “Information Warfare” and that he had a very high level security clearance and all he ever told me about but his “job” and all I wanted to know, probably more than I wanted to know, was it something along the lines of “sometimes we wear the white hats and keep the bad guys out of our sensitive systems and sometimes we wear the black hats and try to break into the bad guy’s systems.”
I never got a visit from the NSA while we were dating but shortly after we started seeing each other, one night after a romantic movie and dinner date, we were walking and holding hands and suddenly out of the blue, he asked me, “So where were you born and what was your mother’s maiden name?”
I smiled and told him, “I know you have to give your bosses at the NSA information about all your close personal relationships, and they’d want to check my background for security purposes, so if it makes it easier for you, what if I just give you my SS number?”
He sheepishly smiled back and said, “No that’s not necessary. But your mother’s maiden name would be helpful”.