[Basic] Advantage of the Week: Security Clearance

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by Prince Charon

Security Clearance is going to be fairly important for the alt-SGC characters in the Stargate: Fantasy - Worldbuilding thread.

Security Clearance is specifically designed for "private citizens with access to serious secrets," like Teal'c and Daniel in the Stargate Franchise.* It works well in that context. Realistically, it's less than realistic.

*

Spoiler:  

Somewhere in the SG universe, there are counterintelligence officers getting ulcers over the fact that some cowboy special ops Colonel read a high-level enemy operative into just about all of Stargate Command's secrets during the course of the command's second mission. Their drinking buddies are the operations and intelligence officers who are freaking out over the fact that their best operational intelligence source is a long-haired, crackpot, former academic civilian.

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by Pursuivant

Consider that this might have been a function of a small Reputation on your part (+1, "Reliable," Immediate superiors (Small Group), All the Time). Effectively, the senior NCO was betting his career that you were actually worthy of Top Secret clearance.

Well he was a Chief Master Sergeant (E9) so I doubt there was any risk to him :) You do have a point about Rep though, he knew me personally from some earlier stuff and though I was not in his immediate area still under his hierarchy (Chief of all Maintenance, which was most of the base)

Originally Posted by Pursuivant

Security Clearance is specifically designed for "private citizens with access to serious secrets," like Teal'c and Daniel in the Stargate Franchise.* It works well in that context. Realistically, it's less than realistic.

Yeah there was a lot of sketchy stuff in that series but I can see it happen. Field ops have a lot of latitude, at least for a short time though they may get in trouble later. However once done it cant be easily undone as the guys have the info. Your choice is then to clear them or arrest them and penalize the officer who told them. But certain things are valuable enough that rules can be bent.

[thrash]

Originally Posted by Pursuivant

Security Clearance is specifically designed for "private citizens with access to serious secrets," like Teal'c and Daniel in the Stargate Franchise.* It works well in that context. Realistically, it's less than realistic.

Once upon a Cold War, maybe so. Things got a lot fuzzier during the Global War on Terrorism, what with needing civilian translators to accomplish just about anything. Back during the Jedburgh days and into the early years of the CIA, Ivy League ivory-tower types were pulled in off the streets and made into intelligence personnel because (a) the Powers That Be were drawn from those sources as well and trusted their own, and (b) there basically wasn't anybody else.

So far as I can tell from open sources, some Special Mission Units take civilians seconded from other agencies when they need particular expertise, so it's not entirely unreasonable.

[The Colonel]

...and of course, if we look at a setting like The Laundry there can be the odd civilian ... some of them very odd ... who either read themselves in to the facts of something highly secured, or have to be read in to prevent something much worse and then, in either case, need to be cleared and secured at the end of a (often less than voluntary) recruitment process.

[Prince Charon]

Originally Posted by The Colonel

...and of course, if we look at a setting like The Laundry there can be the odd civilian ... some of them very odd ... who either read themselves in to the facts of something highly secured, or have to be read in to prevent something much worse and then, in either case, need to be cleared and secured at the end of a (often less than voluntary) recruitment process.

Then there's the issue that some of them may have connections outside the agency, that the agency either does not want to offend, or worse, cannot afford to offend. That can likewise make things interesting.

[dcarson]

There was a case in WW II where the captain of a US submarine knew about our cracking of the Japanese codes, he was the commander of a multi sub task force. When the sub was damages it surfaced and the crew abandoned ship after opening the valves to flood it. He stayed on board.

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by Refplace

Your choice is then to clear them or arrest them and penalize the officer who told them. But certain things are valuable enough that rules can be bent.

And given that SGC 1 was saving Earth/the Universe on a weekly basis, the USAF was inventing the manual for anti-Goa'uld operations* as they went along, and that a Major General was backing the team to the hilt and getting outstanding operational results by doing so, the Counterintel guys were probably told to sit down, shut up, and take notes.

While it's not germane to the basic Security Clearance rules, it seems like there is lots of room for extra info on why a sketchy character might get a Security Clearance, who is likely to have SC as part of Rank/Courtesy Rank/Status, and what happens if you screw up once you have SC.

(Obviously, for realistic military officers or civilian intel ops it's kiss your career goodbye and maybe spend a fair bit of your remaining life in prison. For historical or high status people, the rules might be different. And what do you do about superheroes who effectively are an intelligence secret and can't be cashiered or locked up, regardless of their behavior?)

*

Spoiler:  

AFDP 3-23 rev 9/97 [Redacted]

[Extrarius]

Originally Posted by Refplace

I do not like how this advantage is written.

For reference I joined the USAF right out of high school and was cleared for Top Secret, though most of my time in service I held a Secret level clearance as that was all I needed.
This is a very common circumstance.
When you are initially cleared for a clearance your background is checked accordingly. It will go up or down as needed, sometimes it can go up for one meeting and regardless you only get access on a "Need to Know" basis.
That Need to Know requirement means if you don't need it to do your job you should not have the information. I had a Top Secret upgrade for one meeting for example. No new investigation or anything (as far as I know), a senior NCO just called me in for a meeting where certain things were discussed.

[...]

Note that only government organizations have any freedom with this stuff. If you're working for a company with a government contract and you have a secret clearance, and somebody at the company tells you something top secret, it's a security violation that has to be reported and will at best result in lost money (usually via reduced reward on a contract).

If they want you brought in on something at a higher classification, they get to shell out for you to go through another process to get your clearance upgraded and you might be waiting a year or more to find out whether you actually got the upgrade. Even just getting permission to give you access to a different program can occasionally take months and it's literally just a couple of signatures.

Another consideration is that the space where information is shared has to be accredited for that level of information. Getting space accredited for top secret is expensive, so it's not uncommon for satellite offices to lack such spaces unless their contract requires it. This can lead to awkward meetings of carefully talking around topics because everyone present has the right clearance and knows but the space is insufficient.

[The Colonel]

Originally Posted by dcarson

There was a case in WW II where the captain of a US submarine knew about our cracking of the Japanese codes, he was the commander of a multi sub task force. When the sub was damages it surfaced and the crew abandoned ship after opening the valves to flood it. He stayed on board.

Mind you, there were a variety of incentives to stay on the boat in his case ... Japanese hospitality was at a famous nadir at that point in history.

[Phil Masters]

Originally Posted by The Colonel

...and of course, if we look at a setting like The Laundry there can be the odd civilian ... some of them very odd ... who either read themselves in to the facts of something highly secured, or have to be read in to prevent something much worse and then, in either case, need to be cleared and secured at the end of a (often less than voluntary) recruitment process.

The order in which these things occur may of course be prone to modification by circumstances. Dramatically, I guess this sort of thing will often take the form of the Arrival/WandaVision "back of the helicopter/bus" scene, with some variations of "What are we doing here?" "It's obvious what we're doing here if you've been watching the news", and "What did you say your PhD was in again?"

GM Voiceover: "Your character point value has just increased by 5. They've given you Security Clearance. Try not to break it."