Once upon a time I took a seminar with someone who was formerly a top interpreter at the State Department. He was talking one day about the quite minimal clearance process to be a State Department escort interpreter. I asked some question I do not remember about what happens if that turns up anything. He said, "Well, there would be that small matter of the whorehouse you run in San Francisco?" I said "I beg your pardon, it's not in San Francisco; it's in Santa Monica." The class roared.
These days I am kind of sensitive and even blunt about automated job applications that automatically screen out applicants for reasons not related to the essential job functions listed in the job description. I suppose I would not necessarily expect anything less than a "let us Google your entire internet presence" request from someone who voted the way O did on FISA. It seems possible that asking is intended to deter anyone with anything controversial from even applying. However, I remember a few years ago when someone else in the Stranger wrote about one of the members of the UN weapons verification teams involved in checking for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. This guy was a VERY well-known figure in the BDSM community; both his employer and the BDSM community knew well of each other and it seemed not to cause problems on either side. So I wonder what kind of interesting applicants this request would screen out.
DC
On Thu, Nov 13, 2008 at 8:47 PM, Joseph Catron <jncatron at gmail.com> wrote:
> My favorite:
>
> "Do you recommend Matt X. to be a guerrilla commando jungle warrior, or
> some
> goddamn thing?"
>
> OR
>
> "Do you you have any reason not to recommend him?"
>
> OR
>
> "Do you not recommend him?"
>
> I had no reason not to recommend him, and he got whatever goddamn thing he
> was shooting for.
>
> And then he quickly lost it, by having a few drinks and giving his CO his
> honest opinion.
>
> And so it goes....
>
> On Thu, Nov 13, 2008 at 11:34 PM, andie nachgeborenen <
> andie_nachgeborenen at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> > Not standard.
> >
> > I have participated in a number of these things. My favorite story was
> when
> > a friend and fellow lawyer applied for a job as an a DoJ Antitrust
> > prosecutor, don't know why that would require a security clearance but it
> > does.
> >
> > A youngish presumably newish FBI SA came around and asked me a number of
> > desultory questions, my fave being, Do you have any reason to doubt X's
> > patriotism or loyalty to the United States? (Very important than your
> > antitrust guys and gals are patriotic.
> >
> > I said, truthful, No.
> >
> > "Oh thank God," said the SA. "You have no idea how much paperwork it
> > involves when the answer is anything else."
> >
> > She didn't get the job anyway for an unrelated reason.
> >
> >
> > --- On Thu, 11/13/08, Joseph Catron <jncatron at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > > From: Joseph Catron <jncatron at gmail.com>
> > > Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] "FemDomDem" and "ObamaGirlSeeksPissSlave"
> Aren't
> > Going to Get Those Ambassadorships
> > > To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
> > > Date: Thursday, November 13, 2008, 10:14 PM
> > > On Thu, Nov 13, 2008 at 6:14 PM, shag carpet bomb
> > > <shag at cleandraws.com>wrote:
> > >
> > >
> > > > The application also asks applicants to "please
> > > list all aliases or
> > > > 'handles' you have used to communicate on the
> > > Internet."
> > >
> > >
> > > Which is to say that it's a standard security clearance
> > > application? Or have
> > > I missed something?
> > >
> > > --
> > > "Hige sceal þe heardra, heorte þe cenre, mod sceal
> > > þe mare, þe ure mægen
> > > lytlað."
> > > ___________________________________
> > > http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > ___________________________________
> > http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
> >
>
>
>
> --
> "Hige sceal þe heardra, heorte þe cenre, mod sceal þe mare, þe ure mægen
> lytlað."
> ___________________________________
> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
>