Arctic Acorn
Full Member
- Reaction score
- 3
- Points
- 230
Certain trades do require clearances, and officers in the regular force are SUPPOSED to have a Level II. Reason being is that not having one can limit employability. Case in point: a public affairs officer gets posted to a headquarters, and she does not have a security clearance. Even though she has no normal day-to-day need to access classified information, she cannot enter the command area, as it is a secure area, and you need a clearance to enter. She has to leave weekly staff meetings whenever anything sensitive comes up. In short, it's a huge pain in the ass. A secret clearance is not a big deal, and I'm pretty sure they don't even interview folks for it.
As for the article about CSIS interviews, I've been used as a reference for a buddy who needed his Level III. I met with the CSIS guy at my office for a coffee, and they do ask some personal questions. It's not hard to agree with the view that the interviews are a little outdated when the guy asked me if my buddy."Liked girls..." (good thing he didn't subject me to the horrors of the Fruit Machine). However, all those left-wing privacy 'Ethnocultural Council' nuts don't seem to understand that human rights legislation needs to be more flexible when it comes to investigating people for security clearences. CSIS doesn't give a rats ass if you're gay, and usually being in debt isn't a problem. They're trying to ascentain if there is anything about your past that could be used as leverage. They want to know if you're co-optable, bribeable, or if you can be threatened. If you're from a country of concern, or have family still resident there, expect more scrutiny. If privacy crusaders think that an authoritarian regime won't harm a persons family if an intelligence agency in that country is after a targets tasty tasty secrets, they live in a warm, fuzzy dreamworld.
As far as I'm concerned, the "government has no business in the bedrooms of the nation", but when you want to work for the government, and you're applying for a job that will put you in contact with sensitive information, loss privacy is a fact of life. If you don't like it, don't apply.
As for the article about CSIS interviews, I've been used as a reference for a buddy who needed his Level III. I met with the CSIS guy at my office for a coffee, and they do ask some personal questions. It's not hard to agree with the view that the interviews are a little outdated when the guy asked me if my buddy."Liked girls..." (good thing he didn't subject me to the horrors of the Fruit Machine). However, all those left-wing privacy 'Ethnocultural Council' nuts don't seem to understand that human rights legislation needs to be more flexible when it comes to investigating people for security clearences. CSIS doesn't give a rats ass if you're gay, and usually being in debt isn't a problem. They're trying to ascentain if there is anything about your past that could be used as leverage. They want to know if you're co-optable, bribeable, or if you can be threatened. If you're from a country of concern, or have family still resident there, expect more scrutiny. If privacy crusaders think that an authoritarian regime won't harm a persons family if an intelligence agency in that country is after a targets tasty tasty secrets, they live in a warm, fuzzy dreamworld.
As far as I'm concerned, the "government has no business in the bedrooms of the nation", but when you want to work for the government, and you're applying for a job that will put you in contact with sensitive information, loss privacy is a fact of life. If you don't like it, don't apply.