[OT] USA - TSA Obstructing Armed Pilots?

On Wed, 24 Dec 2003 22:43:18 GMT, "Dudley Henriques"
wrote:


"Ed Rasimus" wrote in message
.. .
On Wed, 24 Dec 2003 18:23:28 GMT, Mike Marron
wrote:

"Dudley Henriques" wrote:

I don't have a clue what DH is alluding to.

Basically, what I'm "alluding to" is that although there's no problem at all
discussing security clearances in the generic sense as you have done here;
if you personally have a security clearance, or even HAD a security
clearance, discussing that clearance, and anything associated with it's
relationship to you personally is bad juju! In fact, I would even go so far
as to say with all due respect, that although the generic information you
gave is fine, I would not have included the fact that you personally had a
clearance, even though the fact can be assumed. A quick call to any local
FBI office will I'm sure confirm this for you if you have any question about
it.
Dudley Henriques

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. 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".

The FBI had nothing to do with security clearances for active duty
military and AFAIK, nothing to do with industrial access which was
handled by an NSA sub-office called "DISCO".

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.



Ed Rasimus
Fighter Pilot (USAF-Ret)
"When Thunder Rolled"
Smithsonian Institution Press
ISBN #1-58834-103-8

"Ed Rasimus" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 24 Dec 2003 22:43:18 GMT, "Dudley Henriques"
wrote:


"Ed Rasimus" wrote in message
.. .
On Wed, 24 Dec 2003 18:23:28 GMT, Mike Marron
wrote:

"Dudley Henriques" wrote:

I don't have a clue what DH is alluding to.

Basically, what I'm "alluding to" is that although there's no problem at
all
discussing security clearances in the generic sense as you have done
here;
if you personally have a security clearance, or even HAD a security
clearance, discussing that clearance, and anything associated with it's
relationship to you personally is bad juju! In fact, I would even go so
far
as to say with all due respect, that although the generic information you
gave is fine, I would not have included the fact that you personally had
a
clearance, even though the fact can be assumed. A quick call to any local
FBI office will I'm sure confirm this for you if you have any question
about
it.
Dudley Henriques

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. 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".

The FBI had nothing to do with security clearances for active duty
military and AFAIK, nothing to do with industrial access which was
handled by an NSA sub-office called "DISCO".

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.

Depends entirely on the clearance.
I'm sorry to learn you feel this way. You are mistaken. It has nothing at
all to do with status or higharchy. People have been killed for security
identification. Speak on these things as you like Ed, but where I travel,
people don't discuss security issues......period...ESPECIALLY with the
country at war!! I'm sure I don't have to remind you that it's scraps of
information innocently put out here that can add up to just exactly the
scrap that's missing for someone.
I have no desire to discuss this issue any further and will not do so. If
and when we get back to everyone arguing about how many rivets there are in
each square foot of wing on the airplane, call me! :-)
Dudley Henriques
International Fighter Pilots Fellowship
Commercial Pilot/ CFI Retired
For personal email, please replace
the z's with e's.
dhenriquesATzarthlinkDOTnzt

On Thu, 25 Dec 2003 01:28:26 GMT, "Dudley Henriques"
wrote:

If
and when we get back to everyone arguing about how many rivets there are in
each square foot of wing on the airplane, call me! :-)

Do we count the rivets down inside the wing, that got pulled out when
we spun the airplane, too?

Mary

--
Mary Shafer Retired aerospace research engineer

"Mary Shafer" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 25 Dec 2003 01:28:26 GMT, "Dudley Henriques"
wrote:

If
and when we get back to everyone arguing about how many rivets there are
in
each square foot of wing on the airplane, call me! :-)

Do we count the rivets down inside the wing, that got pulled out when
we spun the airplane, too?

Mary

I used to know a guy who thought you hadn't over g'd an airplane unless you
broke it. He owned a Globe Swift. Cute little airplane; built like a
fighter. He actually thought it WAS a fighter the way he flew it.
Rolls....spins.....you name it! It was the Snap rolls that got him I
think.....multiple snap rolls at that!!
I never flew it, but I had to move it one afternoon to clear a parking space
for a Bearcat. I started it up and began to taxi it. There were noises
coming out of that thing that would have terrified a sane person, let alone
ME!! :-) After I parked it I tugged on the tips. It was flexing so bad
something HAD to be broken in there. Later we discovered the airplane had
two broken panels inside the wings. Most of the wing was stressed and
twisted; little bits and pieces of metal (AND a full pack of Lucky Strikes)
bouncing all around in there. To my knowledge, after we told him what we had
discovered, he never flew it again. I believe he junked it after he trucked
it off the field.

It's amazing what gets down inside an airplane isn't it? In the old AT6, if
you were giving dual and either the guy in front forgot and left the canopy
cracked open, or you forgot to tell him to close it, on takeoff, every bit
of junk that had accumulated under the floor rails was sucked up and blasted
you in the face :-)

We used to yank the inspection plates once in a while just to see what the
hell was in those dark foreboding places :-) It was sort of like when you
take the cushions off your old stuffed couch and find all sorts of goodies
buried in there.....loose change.......old stale popcorn........that blue
sock you lost five years ago.......and of course a stuffed animal or two!!!!
:-)))
Dudley

On Thu, 25 Dec 2003 05:37:40 GMT, "Dudley Henriques"
wrote:

It's amazing what gets down inside an airplane isn't it? In the old AT6, if
you were giving dual and either the guy in front forgot and left the canopy
cracked open, or you forgot to tell him to close it, on takeoff, every bit
of junk that had accumulated under the floor rails was sucked up and blasted
you in the face :-)

Back in the dim recesses of time when we were flying the F-8 DFBW, we
had some Navy pilots come fly it as guest pilots. They uniformly
remarked in the post-flight on how clean the airplane was; they'd
rolled inverted and nothing had fallen onto the canopy. Apparently
operational planes get a little cluttered. Or maybe a lot cluttered,
according to stories I've heard.

Our ground crews would laugh and the project test pilot would say that
the guys didn't let the pilots make a mess. The cockpits were really
clean. I remember one of the mechanics stopping by to give one of the
pilots the crystal from his watch, which he'd lost the day before.

We used to yank the inspection plates once in a while just to see what the
hell was in those dark foreboding places :-) It was sort of like when you
take the cushions off your old stuffed couch and find all sorts of goodies
buried in there.....loose change.......old stale popcorn........that blue
sock you lost five years ago.......and of course a stuffed animal or two!!!!

When I worked at McAir on the F-15, we had a snake find its way into a
cockpit and take a flight. I have always suspected that snake of
having help. (There was another snake that was flown deliberately, by
the way.) However, the kitten in the Navy trainer managed all by
itself, according to the article in last month's Approach.

Let's see if I can produce a reference:
http://www.safetycenter.navy.mil/media/approach/issues/feb03/feline.htm

Mary

--
Mary Shafer Retired aerospace research engineer

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.

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.

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.

The status, such as there is, comes with the need to know, with being
cleared onto a program. Getting a clearance is a lot easier than
getting cleared onto a program.

Mary

--
Mary Shafer Retired aerospace research engineer

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 )

Ed Rasimus wrote:


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.

Ed Rasimus

A cool breath of reason in this silly thread...this paragraph is
exactly correct. Everyone who ever flew (or sailed) in the
military ASW world (among many others) has (or has had) one, and
there are thousands.
--

-Gord.

In message , Ed Rasimus
writes
On Wed, 24 Dec 2003 22:43:18 GMT, "Dudley Henriques"
wrote:
Basically, what I'm "alluding to" is that although there's no problem at all
discussing security clearances in the generic sense as you have done here;
if you personally have a security clearance, or even HAD a security
clearance, discussing that clearance, and anything associated with it's
relationship to you personally is bad juju!

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.

Agree almost completely, though in my experience it's a colour code
rather than a star count to define clearance levels. Still simple easy
at-a-glance option of "is that person allowed in this area? Escorted?
Unescorted?"

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.

I might be cleared to UK RESTRICTED (which isn't even recognised as
'classified' by the US, IIRC). I might be cleared to SECRET, or TOP
SECRET, or hold no clearance at all. Doesn't matter a damn - if I give
away classified information I'm eligible for a quick trip to and long
stay in jail, regardless of how cleared or not I was.

(FWIW I've got a cabinet full of SECRET stuff, but for this forum it's a
big 'so what'? I've also got good access to assorted unclassified
sources which is _much_ more useful)

--
When you have to kill a man, it costs nothing to be polite.
W S Churchill

Paul J. Adam MainBoxatjrwlynch[dot]demon{dot}co(.)uk