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0 pointsfalk12y ago0 comments

Steve Jobs went through a background check for a top-level security check in the 80s. I wonder if he ever received it?

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/06/steve-jobs-security...

I find it hard to believe that the NSA didn't see one of the most valuable and popular companies in the world as a priority until 2012. I bet they were salivating as soon as the first iPhone launched.

0 comments

mr_spothawk12y ago

With a public record as a LSD user, I wonder how they could have justified giving him clearance.

falkOP12y ago

I don't think that would effect his chances. All of our latest presidents have admitted or have been proven to do illegal drugs of some sort. Not to mention that the U.S. government has done some crazy things with drugs, especially LSD.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_MKULTRA

http://www.cracked.com/blog/five-fun-facts-about-the-cia-and...

jbri12y ago

As I understand it, getting a security clearance doesn't especially care about whether you've done anything illegal, it cares about:

1. Whether you're likely to voluntarily leak any secure information.

2. Whether someone who dug up some dirt on you could blackmail you into leaking secure information.

Or as the saying goes, it's fine to have a mistress, but having a mistress that your wife doesn't know about is a problem...

2 more replies

vacri12y ago

I remember an Australian talking about the various levels of clearance - confidential, secret negative (anything stand out in your history), secret positive (in-depth active examination of your history). He said that the process wasn't about finding dirt on you, it was about finding out if you had any dirt that could be leveraged against you. For example, if you were gay and being outed would be a problem, then that's leverage. If you didn't care and were clearly open about it, that's not leverage.

pnathan12y ago

That harmonizes with my experience. I was interviewing for a "top secret" job with the US and spent some time studying the system and looking over the appeals rulings of the clearance process.

Generally, the key things were, "are you a crook? are you liable to be bribed/coerced?".

E.g. one chap was a transvestite, but the appeals court ruled that since his wife and minister knew, it wasn't something that could be leveraged against him.

snowwrestler12y ago

If the record is public, then it actually provides a lot less leverage for blackmail than a history of secret use of LSD.

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