On Wed, 24 Dec 2003 20:34:30 -0800, Mary Shafer
wrote:

On Wed, 24 Dec 2003 23:12:31 GMT, Ed Rasimus
wrote:

Well, although you may have good reason for what you say, in my
experience, both in the military and in industry, there was never any
problem in the statement that one possessed a security clearance. In
fact, in industry, your company ID badge displayed stars to quickly
identify the level of your clearance. Two stars = secret, three stars
= TS.

NASA stopped doing that a while back. We used colored borders on the
badges, so we all had to get new badges without that information.

NASA may have stopped doing it where you worked but not where I work -
the guidelines aren't followed the same way all across the agency.

I's actually bad security form to identify clearance level via
color-coded badges, because it makes specific people identifiable to
hostile intelligence services. In many cases though the ease of
using color-coded badges overcomes the hassle of doing it in some
other way. Also, it's the first thing people think of when designing
badge systems, i.e. "Hey, why don't we use different colors to
designate access levels?".


And, your access to specific compartmentalized programs (i.e.
"black") was displayed with a letter and number code in an "egg crate"
at the bottom of your badge. It was easy to determine if someone had
access to a program by looking at your badge and theirs--same numbers
and in a cleared location, OK to discuss if they reasonably had "need
to know".

NASA uses lists of people briefed onto programs (i.e. having the need
to know for that program), rather than putting it on the badge. We
used to use badge coding, with a little YF-12 planform indicating
access to Senior Crown, for example. We stopped doing that when we
stopped coding clearance levels. I think we were told to stop.


People who are cleared into compartmentalized systems should be known
to each other. Everybody else should be escorted, or challenged.
There are some places where the badges can only be worn within the
compartment and are never seen by anybody on the outside.

Seriously, there's nothing magic about security clearances. The
security issue is not who has one, but what is accessible after the
fact. There is little to be gained in status by possession of a
clearance and nothing to be added by ascribing some sort of "bad juju"
to the system.

Exactly, although possession of an active security clearance right now
can significantly add to your job prospects.

John Hairell )