You're a zombie with strong opinions and no knowledge

Why do former employees still need security clearance or clearance eligilbity for years after they are no longer at those positions?

I understand some keep them to act as in a consultary role to thier successor, but there are also potential security risks with that.

Trump is no doubt playing politics with these particular revocations. I'm just curious what y'all think about this concept in principle.

I say once you are no longer employed or working for the government, you lose your security clearance. It could be a hassle for a lot for contractors, but I believe most of them already have to re-obtain clearance every time they enter a new position, anyways.

It's time we roll back the power of some of these executive branch figures and intelligence agencies. They should have no special access after their appointed or elected duty has concluded. I get the sense that they believe they are more powerful and influential than they actually are.

In this context, I don't really care how shitty or treasonous this president could or could not be. We should minimize the opportunity for politicization. They aren't elected or appointed by the people to serve the government anymore, no special access.

If we want to establish a culture of keeping the competent and/or exceptional directors at the CIA, FBI and etc through different presidential terms, that could be a good idea. The goal is to have the most qualified and least politicized individuals in these positions while also minimizing security risk.

While I mostly agree, I think there is a difference between "access to classified material" and "having a clearance". High-level security officials and experts can keep their clearance if you ask me, but they themselves should no longer be able to access classified material. They should only get their hands on it, only be able to make use of their clearance, if there are special circumstances and some high-ranking currently-employed official decides to share specific material with them for good reason. Such instances of "sharing secrets with ex-employees" should be logged strictly and overseen by an independent body.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Aug 15 2018 06:36pm

#maga
http://thehill.com/policy/finance/international-taxes/401943-illinois-manufacturer-closing-doors-moving-to-mexico-over

sounds like yet another case where a company had been considering the move to Mexico for quite some time and Trump's tariffs were just the straw that broke the camels back, not the sole reason for moving away.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Aug 15 2018 06:39pm

Nobody ever really leaves the CIA. Not just leaving for private contractors. They retire, but their expertise and knowledge will keep being consulted for years to come. Thats how it is in the whole intelligence community
Those security clearances have been useful in keeping the IC circles benefiting from previous generations and older agents instead of needlessly bogging down operations in red tape as they get cut out entirely.

But as Trump laid out in his statement, there's a point where the costs outweigh the benefits, where someone deranged enough to cause a stink is going to harm their country more than they help it.

For real... Brennan was completely unhinged, he was only days away from publicly calling for "a good guy with a gun take care of a bad guy with a twitter account" or something along those lines...

These are fair points. I see more use to security clearance extensions and consultations now. I'm just weary of abuse. It seems like a delicate cost/benefit type situation, and I usually prefer to err on the side of caution when it comes to elected/appointed officials.

In principle, I think the chief executive should have the authority to disagree with their intelligence community without it being deemed treasonous. JFK did it in 1962...and W. should have had mores sense to do it in 2002. Admittedly, hindsight is 20/20, but we shouldn't worship intelligence and/or the military as some ultimate, pseudo-religious authority, lest we want to dissolve into some bizarre form of statocracy where vast amounts of governing power lie within the FBI, CIA, etc, and the President is forced to play along.

For better or worse, the American people elected Donald Trump to be the Head of State and conduct our foreign policy. American intelligence is at his disposal...but he doesn't necessarily have to listen to it if he doesn't think it best serves American interests abroad. Though, we are certainly well within our right to label him as a fool for doing so.

So the james bond movie plots are all accurate

Lol