I’ve decided to wade into the security clearance debate occurring inside Washington, D.C. I’m sure various people will attack me, but what the hell—let’s give it a try! Members of the intelligence community don’t usually like to make public statements. The public outcry from officials in this instance is a cause for great concern. First, a disclaimer: I do not currently hold a security clearance. I held one while in the CIA and a couple of years afterward, but I have not held security clearance for several years—I have no dog in this fight. I do, however, care about the idea of punishing individuals for speaking out or being involved in a policy that a current administration doesn’t like.
There are many different types of security clearances: Secret, Top Secret, Codeword, etc. The really good clearances are hard to get and involve very detailed and highly intrusive background investigations. For some agencies, like the CIA and the NSA, the clearance process involves a polygraph exam. Once you have the clearance, you are subject to regular re-investigations and polygraph exams. In the national security arena, a security clearance is indeed worth money.
Your job depends on your ability to obtain and hold that clearance. This doesn’t solely apply to a handful of people you see on TV, but to millions of Americans—both government employees and contractors. Everyone in the White House’s National Security Council holds a clearance. Those staff wouldn’t be able to hold their jobs without clearance. Are people in the national security community making money from their clearances? Yes. But that is no different from making money off your MBA or your plumber’s license. All the people in the current Administration criticizing former officials for monetizing their clearances are going to make money from their security clearances when they leave government.
The reality is 99.9 percent of people who hold clearances, and therefore earn a salary from those clearances, are regular people trying to do their jobs. They include Trump supporters and Trump oppositionists. Senior officials like John Brennan, Michael Hayden or James Clapper don’t really monetize their clearances. News shows hire them or bring them on because of their experience or stature. With or without clearances, they would get airtime because they are knowledgeable on various topics.
This attack on people monetizing their clearances is a distraction, an effort to draw your attention away from the real issue, which is punishing critics by whatever means necessary. Revoking Brennan’s or anyone else’s security clearance because they criticize the President is wrong and un-American on so many levels. America has always tolerated dissent, criticism, and opposing opinions. It is called Freedom of Speech. While it would be right and correct for Trump to revoke Brennan’s clearances if Brennan were a serving CIA officer who publicly criticized the president, it is not right to do so as a punishment to a private citizen. These actions of revoking clearances only serve to push further the trend of divisiveness in this country.
And let’s not forget that many individuals in the Trump administration will be interested in keeping their clearances when they leave government—and using these clearances to make money.
It’s not just clearances that are being weaponized. A State Department officer of Iranian descent was accused of being an Iranian agent and demoted simply because she was one of the individuals working on the Obama administration’s Iran nuclear agreement. There was no evidence of any wrongdoing on this officer’s part, and as soon as she was removed from her position, all discussion of being an Iranian agent mysteriously disappeared.
The President is now making threats left and right about revoking clearances for those who criticize him or involve themselves with the Mueller probe—a naked effort to stifle any type of opposition. What next? Security clearances based on loyalty, rather than competence? In the government, including the military, we take an oath to uphold and defend the constitution, not the president. This is for a very specific reason: we owe our loyalty to the nation, not an individual. As part of my work for the US government, I lived in a lot of places that we would call Banana Republics. The type of behavior we are witnessing now would make any Banana Republic dictator proud!
Let us not forget that we are a nation based on precedent. Once something is done, it becomes the standard. If administrations are allowed to revoke an individual’s clearances for being critical of the government, a Democratic administration can just as easily revoke the clearances of conservative individuals who criticize the government. It’s a slippery slope.
