[ExI] Wikileaks.

[Darren Greer]

Dan wrote:

>Sexual preferences have often been used to blackmail people -- and, in
terms of security, has often been seen as a liability because someone might
be blackmailed. In other words, if you were gay and in the closet, this
might be seen as a way that foreign agents might manipulate you -- even if
you were not, say, on their side ideologically, in their pay, or perhaps had
a desire to change history.<

This was an issue in the 90's but not anymore, at least not in my country.
Here's a quote from website I just googled that deals with security
clearance issues in the U.S.

Of the approximately 1160 cases decided by administrative judges at Defense
Office of Hearings and Appeals (DOHA) in 2009 only 36 cited “Sexual
Behavior” as a security/suitability issue. Almost all of these 36 cases
involved criminal conduct, and about half involved criminal convictions for
sexual offenses. Only 2 cases cited extramarital affairs, and both of these
cases involved current sexual relationships about which their spouses were
unaware. Involvement with prostitutes was cited in 4 cases, 5 cases cited
possession of child pornography, and 15 cases cited sexual acts with
children. The remaining cases involved voyeurism, exhibitionism, and
compulsive, self-destructive viewing of pornography.

It goes on to say that:

sodomy, promiscuity, adultery, group sex, cyber-sex, swinging, pornography,
sadism, masochism, fetishism, bondage and degradation, homosexuality,
bisexuality, transsexualism, and transvestism are not disqualifying
conditions for a security clearance.

Full article here.

http://www.clearancejobs.com/cleared-news/117/sexual-behavior-and-security-clearances

The irony with the policy even when it was in effect was that the majority
of gay men and women I knew in the 90's with high security clearance in
federal positions stayed in the closet not because of their fear of public
exposure but because if they did come out they would lose their clearance
and jobs.  If  you did come out, you lost your clearance because it was said
you could be black-mailed. If you didn't, you kept the clearance but then
you really could be black-mailed, depending on the level of your fear of
exposure. If you admitted to being gay in the job interview or if it turned
up in your security back-ground check, you got neither the job nor the
clearance.

The whole thing was simply bigotry disguised as policy, in my opinion.
Although it's not polite to say it, and no-one ever does, a long-time friend
in the Canadian diplomatic core informed me that the bronze statue of Sir
Lancelot in front of the peace tower in Ottawa was cast in the likeness of
Prime Minster Lester B Pearson's young male lover. And he won the nobel
peace prize. Pearson, I mean. I don't think the young guy won anything. To
my knowledge.

Darren

2010/12/9 Dan <dan_ust at yahoo.com>

> I don't think that's true. Sexual preferences have often been used to
> blackmail people -- and, in terms of security, has often been seen as a
> liability because someone might be blackmailed. In other words, if you were
> gay and in the closet, this might be seen as a way that foreign agents might
> manipulate you -- even if you were not, say, on their side ideologically, in
> their pay, or perhaps had a desire to change history.
>
> Regards,
>
> Dan
>
> *From:* Darren Greer <darren.greer3 at gmail.com>
> *To:* ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
> *Sent:* Thu, December 9, 2010 12:36:32 PM
> *Subject:* Re: [ExI] Wikileaks.
>
> Anders wrote:
>
> >No, nutters are common. It is just that most of they do not matter. (proud
> recipient of two crazy missives today)<
>
> Since 2001 it's been very difficult to determine who may be nutters and who
> may not. Someone mentioned the likelihood of people on this group being on
> enemy lists (can't find the post now but I know I read it.) I can say from
> experience it doesn't take much to make them. After the U.S. invaded Iraq I
> began writing some unflattering essays on U.S. foreign and domestic security
> policy and published some of them in a book of essays released in 2005 in
> Canada. It was then that I began to notice some unusual traffic on my .ca
> website -- U.S. government agencies, including the FBI, were regularly
> crawling it. Hardly anyone read or bought that book, but someone apparently
> noticed it. I took the site down eventually.
>
> A few years later when living in California I became friends with an
> infamous gay pornographer who had been called by a Tuft's University
> professor in a lecture on 21st century morality "the embodiment of the
> post-human." Because of this friendship, I again went on the U.S.
> intelligence radar. I am now the proud owner of an FBI file. I would not
> even have known this much if I hadn't been introduced in San Francisco to an
> ex-FBI agent who was a friend of a friend. I really don't understand the
> world of intelligence and enemy lists and national security anyway. The
> lines between what is considered subversive activity, and even thinking, and
> what is civically acceptable are so blurred that the whole thing has become
> one big, sinister mess.
>
> It was easier in the old days, when you could be black-listed for carrying
> a copy of Das Capital across the border but the kind of sex you preferred
> would only affect your chances for getting elected to public office.
>
>
> Darren
>
>
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>


-- 
"In the end that's all we have: our memories - electrochemical impulses
stored in eight pounds of tissue the consistency of cold porridge." -
Remembrance of the Daleks
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