[HN Gopher] What not to write on your security clearance form (1... ___________________________________________________________________ What not to write on your security clearance form (1988) Author : blegh Score : 722 points Date : 2023-01-19 08:18 UTC (14 hours ago) (HTM) web link (milk.com) (TXT) w3m dump (milk.com) | pachico wrote: | I browsed the website and found this gem https://milk.com/wall-o- | shame/body_odor.html | Communitivity wrote: | Some of the advice in the other comments is dead wrong ('don't | mention it', 'lie', 'fudge things'). | | Have you done any of the things in the past 10 years if Top | Secret, 5 if Secret (keeping in mind you might have to go TS | before you've worked there 5 years)? Don't apply for a clearance, | because they will find out eventually. | | If you apply then, be honest and fully truthful, and disclose | everything. They are looking for signs of bad current judgement | and things you are trying to hide that could be used to blackmail | you. | | Also, "Have you considered X?" should be taken to mean 'Has you | given more than a passing thought to X?'. If you had a relative | die and thought 'I wonder why people commit suicide' that's one | thing. If you thought 'Maybe I should kill myself', that is | suicidal thought, even for a moment. Doesn't mean you're likely | to do it. Does mean you should probably seek professional therapy | to help you cope with your situation (doesn't mean you have a | long time thing, just means at this moment you need some help | coming up with coping mechanisms that work well enough). | foobarbecue wrote: | Did he ever publish the juicy sequel alluded to in the last | paragraph? | [deleted] | airesearcher wrote: | I often answer the doctor office intake questionnaires with a | glaring mistake just to see if anyone checks. Where it says "have | you ever been pregnant?" I answer yes. I also mark that I am a | male. No doctor's office has ever mentioned this to me after I | turn in the forms. | dsfyu404ed wrote: | Realistically what's gonna happen is that the doctor will | ignore it and the insurance company or some other bureaucracy | (insurance, state regulator, etc) will use your errant answer | as a pretext to do something that is advantageous for them at | the expense of some other party (you, your doctor, etc). | hotpotamus wrote: | Those aren't actually considered to necessarily be in conflict | these days. I think sex assigned at birth or something like | that would probably be the relevant medical question. | paulmd wrote: | modern medical forms do indeed ask for sex assigned at birth | (or some variation on that) rather than gender, unless gender | is specifically what they're after. And there really is very | little variation since almost everyone is part of a hospital | system nowadays and literally everyone does state/insurance | interactions that require specific questions/etc. | | OP is just being colloquial. But you are correct that there | is a difference between sex at birth and gender and the | medical system does handle that. | javawizard wrote: | This exactly: gender and possession of a uterus are two very | different things. | ectopod wrote: | Medical forms tend to ask for sex, not gender. | tuyiown wrote: | Why would you think someone would check ? This information is | only consulted if it's needed, or for later cross checks. | | Nobody cares if it's correct or not until your health is in the | line. | xboxnolifes wrote: | When I go to a new doctor, they read the intake form | information. | szszrk wrote: | The pregnancy is usually the one thing that is promptly checked | when a young man fills a form as a blood donor where I live. | The form is a table, most questions are yes/no with a separate | column you mark with X. The pregnancy row has a twist, it's | "fill if you are a women" type. | | Thankfully nurses know that well, check it instantly and ask to | actually read the form. Blood donations are usually fun. | noisy_boy wrote: | Alternative explanation is that they do check it and after | reconciling the checkbox and gender inputs against your | (presumably) obvious appearance, choose to attribute it to a | mistake and ignore it. | berkes wrote: | But which entry then is mistaken? | kayodelycaon wrote: | These are fun. I got told very clearly to not check any of the | boxes related to mental health shortly after being diagnosed | bipolar. | | If I was suicidal but under treatment for it, I wasn't suicidal | for the purposes of the form. | | Apparently I triggered some mandatory reporting law abd made a | headache for everyone involved. | | Oops. | ckastner wrote: | It's a great story, but didn't the author confess to a felony by | publishing it? He lied on an official document, even if directed | to do so by the person across him. | | I know this is pedantic, but that's exactly what I would expect | from a security clearance vetting process. | jemfinch wrote: | He wasn't investigated by the FBI. The FBI was investigating a | hypothetical Japanese spy; since he wasn't a Japanese spy, any | follow-up that led to him was merely incidental. | | If the FBI investigates a spy seen driving a silver Honda Civic | with license plate ABC-1234, and looks into an unrelated | civilian who drives a silver Honda Civic with license plate | ADC-1234 in case their witness misremembered the license place, | that doesn't mean the unrelated civilian was "investigated by | the FBI". | apricot wrote: | I don't buy it. The FBI found his code sheet that he made, | and tracked him down, and asked people about him. This is an | investigation, and it's about him. The fact that they thought | he was a Japanese spy simply means that they made the wrong | assumption about _the person they were investigating_. | albrewer wrote: | The investigation was about the document, not the person. | If, after they had met with the guy, they started | interviewing family, friends, and digging into his life - | THAT would constitute an affirmative answer to the | question. | [deleted] | ckastner wrote: | This isn't a case of a mistaken identity, the FBI found | exactly the person they were looking for. It just turned out | that said person wasn't a threat, after all. | | I'd say determining that is exactly the point of an | investigation. That fact that it ended well doesn't change | the fact that the process happened, and was triggered by said | person. | gnfargbl wrote: | It is true that the FBI found the person they were looking | for, and that person was the terminus of their | investigation. It is not true that the article author _was | investigated by the FBI_. He was nothing more than a | MacGuffin in the overall plot. | | In this specific case, the security officer made the | correct decision in having him leave out this detail from | the clearance form. Makes for a good story, though. | ckastner wrote: | > _It is true that the FBI found the person they were | looking for, and that person was the terminus of their | investigation. It is not true that the article author was | investigated by the FBI; he wasn 't_ | | To me, these are the same, so I guess that's probably | just my layman's view then. | kayodelycaon wrote: | They aren't the same. There is a legal distinction. They | were attempting to identify the source of a document. | | After they found and identified who created it, the | investigation was dropped before they investigated any | particular person. | mixmastamyk wrote: | That's what the word means. If they mean convicted, they | should ask that instead. | emn13 wrote: | I kind of _hope_ any statutes of limitations would have expired | 35 years ago for events then 45 years ago. There's not much | point in retaining liability for events that long ago; it's not | like you'll ever catch the "crooks", nor likely have the | ability to really judge events reasonably anymore by that time. | | 'course, with the general urge to be "tough on crime" and the | inevitable occasional horror-story of truly heinous behavior | discovered many decades later there probably isn't a lot of | political will to support reasonable statutes of limitations, | so I wouldn't be surprised if some of this stuff never expires. | gr4yb34rd wrote: | i felt like it might be an embellishment. mostly because i | interviewed so many infosec people in the early 2000's and | like a quarter of them had some similar story from when they | were 10-12 about contact with 3-letter agencies or other | nonsense that "got me started on this path at an early age". | FpUser wrote: | Or maybe get a life and go catch actual spies. When the law | makes innocent suffer fuck it. | ckastner wrote: | Determining whether you're dealing with an actual spy or an | innocent person is the entire point of such investigations. | FpUser wrote: | The investigation was already concluded. Why should person | suffer in the future when nothing wrong was done ? | ckastner wrote: | The person wasn't really suffering though, this was just | about getting a security clearance. Most people don't | have one. | | I don't think it's entirely unreasonable for a special | vetting process to have stricter standards. | FpUser wrote: | Not getting a job and clearance in general over some | stupid stuff is "suffering" and if he was not advised to | lie he would've left without job / clearance. Basically | paying for some stupid course of events. In my opinion | shit like this should be automatically wiped out in | normal society. | mcv wrote: | The event happened 80 years ago. I don't know what the statute | of limitations is here, but I would guess that it's passed by | now. | | Edit: it's a story from 1988, so at the time it was only 45 | years ago. | ckastner wrote: | True. I admit that I just assumed that the statute of | limitations for these national security-related kinds of | things were indefinite. | AnimalMuppet wrote: | It might be - for an actual spy. For omitting that detail | on a security clearance form? After 45 years, no, nobody | cares. | jobs_throwaway wrote: | > On another occasion much later, I learned by chance that | putting certain provocative information on a security clearance | form can greatly speed up the clearance process. | | Gotta know this piece! | DoctorOetker wrote: | I was about to post the same. | | Is this person still alive to tell the other story? | gdavisson wrote: | I have an example of the opposite: When I was quite young, I | got into model rocketry as a hobby. Buying engines required a | pyrotechnician's license, and I was too young to get one, so I | talked both of my parents into applying for licenses. My dad | had been in the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos in WWII, so | when he got to a question on the form that asked if he had any | previous experience with explosives, he put something like | "Yes, conventional and nuclear." His application took | significantly longer than my mom's to process. | metadat wrote: | Also discussed back in 2010: | | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1444653 (99 comments) | [deleted] | zabzonk wrote: | i was once sitting in coach class (never again) flying from | heathrow to chicago when they handed out the visa waiver forms. | for those of you that don't know, this enables people from the uk | to enter the us on business or holiday, without a visa, and asks | all sorts of incredibly inane questions, such as "have you ever | attempted to overthrow the government of the usa by violence?", | with yes/no checkboxes. the correct answer to all of them is | "no". | | glancing over at the idiot boy sitting next to me, who had been | somewhat annoying me during the flight, i noticed that he had | checked "yes" to all of them. i had a moments pleasure thinking | what would happen to him once he got to immigration, but being | basically a nice person, i suggested he got a new form from the | cabin crew. | pc86 wrote: | Two points this brought up for me. One, I'd love to hear about | the provocative information that would speed up clearance | approval. I bet there's a story or two there. | | Two, I had a similar (much less impactful) experience as a high | school freshman donating blood for the first time. One of the | questions on the health questionnaire was "have you ever had | headaches?" I remember being confused at the wording as I checked | yes because surely everyone has had a headache at some point in | their life. The (astonishingly rude) person reviewing the | paperwork got to that question, stared at me for a few seconds | then just said "well?" After a brief back and forth she taps the | question a 4-5 times. "What's this?" "I've had headaches before." | She sighed and said "that's not what it means! go get in line" | bell-cot wrote: | Sadly, the moral of the story seems to be that the 1943 FBI had | loads of zealous (performative?) plods on staff, but ~zero law | enforcement professionals. In '43, the US had plenty of highly | competent professional cryptographers, who were quite experienced | with current Japanese, German, Italian, British, etc. codes. | _Before_ an entire local FBI office spent even a day on this case | (let alone 6 weeks), _maybe_ they should have asked some of those | professionals to look at the supposed "Japanese code key" page? | If it turned out to be a known code that (say) Canada used for | low-security consular messages, that'd quickly narrow down or | close the case. | | EDIT: If they believed the "Japanese code key" page might be | genuine, why didn't they pass it up to the professional code- | breakers ASAP? Sitting on it, while the Japanese used the code to | plan an attack on the US, could make that local FBI office look | like a bunch of idiots and traitors. So perhaps they did pass it | up, were told that it was a waste of time...but didn't want to | accept that answer. | greggsy wrote: | It's important not to fall into the trap of hindsight. At the | time, they very well thought it was important, but it of course | seems silly once you hear the full story. | bell-cot wrote: | Note my edit, above. If they suspected it really was | important, then they should have passed it up to the code- | breakers ASAP. | tiagod wrote: | It was probably just a random key, one-time-pad type. No | way of figuring out much out of a typewritten random | number, especially if it was truly random (generated with | dice, for example) | bhelkey wrote: | My reading was that the FBI ended up with a key not an | encrypted message. | mauriciolange wrote: | This was a code key, not a codified message, so there was | nothing to break, but only the indication that messages could | have been exchanged using this key. | adastra22 wrote: | Which is gold material for the code breakers. The people | trying to decrypt messages having to do with the ongoing war | at the time. | quietbritishjim wrote: | Yes but if the codebreakers also came across a (real!) coded | message, wouldn't they want to have the key already to hand | so that it can be decrypted? | pjc50 wrote: | That was Hoover's FBI, the peak of hunting for anyone suspected | of being a communist, gay, dissident, or anti-segregationist. | bell-cot wrote: | Also - "Working for the Evil Overlord" is no excuse for gross | incompetence. By late 1943, there seem to have been at least | 4 independent communist spies inside the uber-secret | Manhattan Project. Most of them with communist connections | which _competent_ zealous plods, perhaps eager to be heroes, | could have uncovered. | bell-cot wrote: | True-ish. But in 1943, it sounds like they'd gotten badly | distracted by some less-important "Japanese" stuff... | petesergeant wrote: | > Before an entire local FBI office spent even a day on this | case (let alone 6 weeks), maybe they should have asked some of | those professionals to look at the supposed "Japanese code key" | page? | | That sounds far less exciting than scrambling to find a fifth | columnist and potentially being hailed as a hero. | bell-cot wrote: | True. But most people, after they've been grown-ups for a | while, figure out that "find the winning lotto ticket on the | sidewalk and get rich" is not how life actually works. And | with a war on...the FBI's kids, simpletons, day dreamers, and | glory hounds should have been closely supervised by real | grown-ups. Or transferred to lines of work better suited to | their talents. | rjsw wrote: | Maybe the grown-ups were doing something else during the | war. | koliber wrote: | > most people, after they've been grown-ups for a while, | figure out that "find the winning lotto ticket on the | sidewalk and get rich" | | True, but it's not completely bleak either. I once wanted | to take out $40 from an ATM, and it gave me $60! I never | told anyone and this is the first time I am sharing this. | If a time comes to fill out a security clearance | application, should this go in there? | | Moral of the story: it takes money to make money. :) | felipemnoa wrote: | Your secret is safe with us ;) | skissane wrote: | > True, but it's not completely bleak either. I once | wanted to take out $40 from an ATM, and it gave me $60! | | One time, I wanted to take $40 out of an ATM, it gave me | $80 instead. I checked my Internet banking - they had the | ATM withdrawal at the expected location, but only for | $40, which is all I'd asked for. Then, a few days later, | I got another $40 debit transaction, but of a strange | type I'd never seen before - it was labelled something | like "MANUAL ADJUSTMENT". I assume someone at the bank | had worked out that the ATM screwed up and manually | corrected it. | bell-cot wrote: | Guess: They screwed up in loading or configuring the ATM, | so it believed it was (say) giving you $10 bills, when it | was actually giving you $20 bills. I've seen that happen | - as an insider, to hear more of the (dull) detail. | skissane wrote: | From what I recall, it gave me 4x $20 bills instead of | 2x. I attempted the transaction, it made this "flipping | bills" sound for an unusually long time, then gave me a | "dispense" error message. But obviously the cash had | partially made it through the machine and got stuck | somewhere, because when I retried the transaction, it | gave me both the cash from the successful transaction, | and that from the earlier failed one. Only the successful | transaction ever appeared on my bank statement as a | proper ATM withdrawal, but obviously they somehow | detected the previous one and processed it manually. | sixbrx wrote: | Many ATM's can actually detect that too much was given | and report it as part of their communications protocol, | it's called a "mis-dispense". Some used to even be | configured to not allow opening the door to get the money | on mis-dispense, requiring someone from the bank to come | out to clear it. Source: I used to work on the bank | software side of this communication, on IBM AS/400's. | rvba wrote: | Well maybe the local office didnt have anything else to do. So | they followed this lead as a top priority since they had no | other leads. | | Money would be spend on the wages of those agents anyway, even | if they had nothing to do. | dwighttk wrote: | >If it turned out to be a known code that (say) Canada used for | low-security consular messages, that'd quickly narrow down or | close the case. | | It was made up by the two kids, so maybe they did that but it | didn't narrow down their case... | flavius29663 wrote: | I don't understand your point here. He lost the cypher itself, | not an encrypted message. So the code breakers would have said: | yep, that's a cypher alright, it can be used for anything by | anyone. | | Being at war, you want to make sure it's not an enemy using the | code. | washywashy wrote: | The illegals drugs question never made sense to me. It's asking | you to admit to something that won't necessarily show up on a | criminal background check if you haven't ever been caught. | Assuming you have been caught or are still using, other | preemployment screens will catch that. So why not ask other | questions like: "Have you ever murdered someone?" "Have you ever | stolen?" | paulmd wrote: | pretty sure there is indeed a "are there any felonies you've | committed for which you've never been convicted/indicted" | question to cover that base | notch656c wrote: | It's been awhile since I read it but I believe they ask you | about all felony convictions whereas the use / non-convicted | felonious activities itself only goes back like 7 years | (perhaps not coincidentally is also statute of limitation for | many federal crimes). | dotancohen wrote: | My email sig for years: > This electronic | communication has been processed by the United > States | National Security Agency. | | I've had lots of people tell me about this as if they're | informing me about something nefarious. I've stopped responding, | because no matter what I answer _I_ appear to be the one with | some kind of problem. | 082349872349872 wrote: | Avalanche rescue dogs are rewarded for their accurate reports, | whether they find bodies or not. | | Once upon a time, out of mechanical sympathy, it used to be | popular to add keywords (eg. DNR LNR SSBN-731 Long Po Hai Jun | Ji Di etc.) in .sig files, to give the descendants of | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_7950_Harvest#Usage something | to report. | | (and back when I was tangentially involved with impedance | matching crunch with high-capacity/high-bandwidth datastores, I | wondered how "dual use" nominally civilian scientific programs | like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_Earth_Science might | be.) | drfuchs wrote: | Les Earnest's original 1986 "bboard" posting of this story, and | other related ones, are to be found in the dump of the Sail | backup tapes archived at https://www.saildart.org/BB.MSG[MSG,LES] | | Search for "Finger flex" / "e-t-a-o-i-n Spy", "Kick the Mongrel" | / "White Faces in New Places", and "The Missed Punch" / "Mongrel | in a Star-chamber" for the the F.B.I. and security clearance | entries. | | As one might imagine from these stories, he's quite a character, | and still alive at 92 (according to Stanford and Wikipedia). | ceautery wrote: | Yep, still alive. He plans on being shot in the back while | fleeing from a jealous husband in 2043, according to his | Stanford bio[1] | | 1 - https://web.stanford.edu/~learnest/ | neilv wrote: | This is great. From one of those pages: | | > _Now with 55 years hindsight I realize that both our study | group and the government nuclear safety committee overlooked | other possibilities such as that a malevolent programmer | might have been able to launch a missile all by himself. | There was no certainty that such a scheme would have worked | inasmuch as the SAGE software was reviewed by multiple people | who might have questioned any odd-looking code. Nevertheless, | we should have considered that possibility and taken steps to | ensure that it didn't happen. The reason we didn't was that | there was no such thing as a malevolent programmer in that | era (1950s and '60s) - we were all honest, upright, and | altruistic, so the idea that a programmer might sneak in evil | code was inconceivable. Later experiences on the Internet | have revealed other possibilities._ | | IIRC, Bertrand Russell had an observation about Western | philosophers on a related question: they had a blind spot, in | that they extrapolated too much from themselves, who weren't | representative of everyone. | NikolaNovak wrote: | When I moved to Canada, at age 16-17 I initially failed a lot of | job applications at places like Staples, Future Shop, Best Buy, | Radio Shack, etc. | | For some reason, many of them had a type of "Corporate | Personality Test" on their application, and asked the same "Have | you ever considered stealing from your employer?" to which I | would cheerfully answer "Yes". | | Apparently this was an automatic deal-breaker; there was no | follow-up - no "HAVE you ever stolen" or "WOULD you ever steal | from your employer", or "why were you considering it" or anything | like that. My mind never stops and there's virtually nothing in | the world I have _not_ "considered" (as in, thought about, | crossed my mind, evaluated, etc). Similarly, years later it | actually took my Canadian therapist a little while to adjust as | well when he asked if I ever considered suicide and I cheerfully | replied "Yes!" (I'm not suicidal, in the least, by any of the | normal metrics; but I genuinely don't understand people who have | "never considered" it - how do you block & limit your mind? What | mental fences do you have that you have never "considered" such | an obvious course of action in the likely billion of seconds of | thinking?). | | I don't know what other people do with their brains; my wife | falls asleep within 30 seconds of her head hitting the pillow, my | mind insists on spending an hour or three "considering" things I | apparently shouldn't put on a job application lol :-) | werdnapk wrote: | In a similar vein... while driving down the road, have you ever | "considered" just pulling into the opposing lane? I'd never | ever do that, but I've considered others driving into my lane, | which leads me to consider myself doing that to their lane. | | Lots of other similar "I'd never do that" situations I've | definitely considered. | | I admire your honesty though. 99% of people would lie. | Jerrrry wrote: | The call of the void is a natural instinct evolved to help | judge possibly (dis)advantageous choices. | | As long as you label it as an "intrusive thought," and it | isn't incredibly (daily) common, that is perfectly normal. | im3w1l wrote: | I always figured that the "call of the void" was to | illustrate to us what a careless movement could lead to. So | that we will shy away from the edge or constantly second | guess our movements for danger while we remain. | devin wrote: | At a family gathering we were all sharing we've considered | this while driving. Not specifically veering into oncoming | traffic but "what if" things like letting go of the wheel, | intentionally driving into a ditch at high speed, etc. | | One person in my family claims they've never had this thought | _ever_ , and it truly baffles me. | ShroudedNight wrote: | "Uh-uh-uh - Turning the car into oncoming traffic ... is | counter productive!" has been a Jim Carrey tag-line for | decades: https://youtu.be/4YnslaUd4VY | jat850 wrote: | L'appel du vide in one of its more commonly manifested forms. | Tangurena2 wrote: | One book that describes these tests, and how they've come to | dominate low-level jobs is titled _Punching In_ [0]. The | philosophy is that what sort of personality that would be | successful at, say, Home Depot, would be completely different | from American Eagle. At many retail companies, you cannot get | into the payroll system unless the personality test system | approves your application. | | My experience with the same sort of personality tests that | you've described is somewhat similar. When trying to get hired | (I was desperate for _anything_ at that time) at WalMart, the | personality tests seemed to ask 3 basic questions - but about | 20 different ways to approach each question - (a) _do you get | into fights at work?_ (b) _do you steal?_ and (c) _do you care | if your boss steals?_ | | 0: - https://www.amazon.com/Punching-Frontlines-New-Brand- | Cultu-e... | nkrisc wrote: | This gave me a good chuckle, and definitely speaks to the | imprecision of language and how shared cultural context and | understanding does a lot of heavy lifting. Context and | understanding that everyone takes for granted but may not be | apparent to some, even those in the culture. | | Almost certainly HR and your therapist were not interested in | every infinite possible though you may have ever had, but | whether it was something you seriously considered or planned | and may have even made intent towards actually completing. | | > but I genuinely don't understand people who have "never | considered" it - how do you block & limit your mind? What | mental fences do you have that you have never "considered" such | an obvious course of action in the likely billion of seconds of | thinking?). | | Having an intrusive though pop into my head ("You could totally | just jump in front of the train!") is not the same as actually | considering the steps towards actually planning suicide. I have | had intrusive thoughts, but I would say I've never "considered" | suicide. | sleton38234234 wrote: | just be very careful with how you respond to questions from a | therapist. they're "legally" required to report certain things. | You have to know, what you're allowed to say and what you're | not, if you don't want govt institutions getting involved. | duped wrote: | I think you're misunderstanding the difference between | answering questions truthfully and how your answers are | received. | jemmyw wrote: | There's a difference between thinking about something and | seriously entertaining it. Like you, I think about a lot of | things, but I'd take "considering" to mean more than that. I've | thought about all kinds of ways to commit fraud, but I'd never | consider doing it. I think you've misunderstood the word in | context. | peeters wrote: | When I was in the security clearance process, the first step in | the process was a 500 question multiple choice psychological | exam (randomized order). The test is designed to have some | level of error checking to make sure participants are taking it | seriously (e.g. questions that would be expected to correlate). | Near the start of the exam was a question "do you have back | pain", I answered "no". Near the end was the same question | phrased slightly differently, I answered "yes". When in my | subsequent interview to discuss the results, the interviewer | questioned why I didn't answer consistently. She seemed to | accept my answer of "I had been sitting in an uncomfortable | chair for 2.5 hours by the time I got to the second question". | the_af wrote: | > _My mind never stops and there 's virtually nothing in the | world I have not "considered"_ | | One piece of advice my mom gave me which I always follow is: | don't tell them (a company/job/boss) anything that could be | used against you. There's no need to be truthful here, this | isn't a consultation with your doctor. So lie, tell them you're | healthy, you never had any problems with anyone ever, never | admit to anything. Truth is for your doctor or your therapist | (and your mom!). | | (There's also a fun related video that sometimes makes the | rounds, "never talk to cops" | (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-7o9xYp7eE). I suppose it's | specific to US law, but I find it interesting nonetheless). | 3-cheese-sundae wrote: | And if you've ever applied for life insurance, you may also | know that consultations with your doctor should also be | treated similarly, lest they use a casual mention of smoking | a cigar 17 years ago as grounds to increase your rate or deny | coverage altogether. | heavyset_go wrote: | > _There 's no need to be truthful here, this isn't a | consultation with your doctor._ | | Even then, depending on your demographic, being honest about | things like pain might get you labelled as a drug seeker. | NikolaNovak wrote: | I've watched that video several times; as somebody "largely" | honest, I need it to pragmatically re-adjust my perspective | every few years - because I TOTALLY am the person who would | inherently monologue for 3 hours when asked a simple question | by a cop :) | | The other piece of advice is trickier, and I personally do | not follow it too closely (everything in life is | circumstantial:). Two aspects to mention: | | 1. Often, a lie is more harmful than a slightly harmful | truth. And opportunities to get caught in a lie start with | the application process - some applications have multiple | seemingly unrelated or different questions that aim to | reinforce the validity of your claims; this will also | sometimes be reinforced with interviews, reference checks, | etc. And then if you get the job or grant or whatever, | there's still the risk of getting caught at virtually any | point in the future. | | My wife and a few of her friends have been HR managers at | quite varied corporations, and universally they lament that | people get fired over an insignificant lie. What they lied | about might've been a verbal "Hey don't do that" or a formal | reprimand, but lie got them immediately fired. | | 2. Variation of that but, perfection and/or fakeness can | stand out. Not to say there aren't people who can lie/fake | perfectly, and sometimes many of us think that we can pull it | off better than we can. But while I cannot claim that I have | never fibbed or concealed in my life, last few decades I've | been lucky enough that I didn't need to. | | And luck is an important word; I've been lucky professionally | since I came to Canada, which _enabled_ me to have good | success going counter to that advice: e.g. to every new | manager, I proactively indicate explicitly that I "Attended | university but have not graduated", I came extremely upfront | when I started photography business even though it had | nothing to do with my IT dayjob, etc. I find one's experience | at large companies is partially shaped by formal policies | written by people far away from you, but also hugely by the | actual people surrounding you, and I've been lucky / chosen | well over the years. Milleage most definitely WILL vary, and | I've been in sufficiently different / more precarious or | dangerous situations to be fairly aware of my current | privilege. | dwater wrote: | I believe you should have the same attitude when giving an | interview e.g. to a member of the media. They will make it | feel like a personal conversation which is intended to get | you to share your story and views, but in the end they are | really telling their story and their views, and will use | what you say to support that whether you agree with what | they are saying or not. | the_af wrote: | Agreed about not outright lying. I think my mom's advice -- | the way I interpret it, anyway -- is more "don't volunteer | information". Sometimes you have to answer honestly if they | ask you a direct question about a concrete fact they can | doublecheck in alternative ways, but otherwise: don't | volunteer information. Don't be a "completionist", if they | ask you "have you ever considered [something naughty]" the | truth is only for your therapist; for HR it's always "no, | never!". | jrochkind1 wrote: | > I TOTALLY am the person who would inherently monologue | for 3 hours when asked a simple question by a cop | | Then for you especially, but really for everyone -- don't | talk to the cop without a lawyer. Just don't. (at least if | you are in the USA). | | For all the reasons you mention. Lying to the cops can be | committing a crime in itself. Trying to think it through | and figure out exactly how much of the truth to tell in | what way -- can either leave you accidentally committing | the crime of lying to the cop, OR accidentally | incriminating yourself (even if you don't think you've done | anything wrong). The cops have way more training and | practice and experience at this interaction than you, you | will not outsmart them. | | In the USA (and probably other places, but I know the USA), | you have the right to not talk to the cops without a | lawyer, and you should exercize it, even if you think | you've done nothing wrong. (Plenty of people who think | they've done nothing wrong end up screwed by the cops). | the_af wrote: | The video I linked to, which frequently makes the rounds, | is essentially a defense attorney explaining that you | should never speak to cops, even if you're innocent, and | gives plenty of examples of innocent people that ended up | convicted of something just because they thought they | were safe (because they didn't do anything). For example, | he explains even an innocent person making an innocent | mistake while recollecting the facts to the cops can get | screwed, whereas an innocent person who simply won't talk | to them cannot get screwed as easily. | | I'll repost it here for emphasis. I'm sure this applies | mostly to the US, and _also_ that the attorney is | overstating his case a bit for comedic effect, but I 'm | also convinced that what he's saying is mostly right (at | least, for the US legal system). | | Again, for emphasis: he recommends that even _innocent_ | people never talk to cops! | | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-7o9xYp7eE | bityard wrote: | Yep. | | I am good friends with police officers and firmly believe | that _most_ of them are good people trying to do good | work. | | But the most succinct way to put it is: if you are an | innocent person, you simply have nothing to gain by | talking to the cops without a lawyer. And potentially | everything to lose if they choose to pin something on you | somehow. | flatline wrote: | For those of you who are like I used to be and are just | honest in an unfiltered way that sometimes caused you | trouble: don't think of it as lying, think of it as keeping | secrets. You can also view it as maintaining a personal | boundary, which is not something people of my generation were | brought up with. We all keep secrets to some extent: shameful | memories we do not readily recount; job confidentiality; | things we only share with our doctor or therapist. Just be | like that more, it's okay to be a bit of a mystery to others, | and you can do this while still divulging a ton of stuff | about yourself. Lying just feels stupid and wrong. Pretend | you are a spy in this life, and you can consciously choose | what face to present to anyone. | the_af wrote: | Yes! Like I clarified in another comment, I didn't really | meant "lying" but "not volunteering/selectively withholding | information". | trifurcate wrote: | > You can also view it as maintaining a personal boundary, | which is not something people of my generation were brought | up with. | | Which generation do you belong to, out of curiosity? | flatline wrote: | I am presently 46 years old. | Natsu wrote: | People are using a different version of 'considered' where it's | not just a passing fancy, but something you would be likely to | do. | nlnn wrote: | Many people use "considered" to actually mean "seriously | considered acting upon", rather than "idly considered | hypothetically" in this context. | | Plus when screening many applicants with few differentiators, | this might be an easy question to reject on. | foobarbecue wrote: | I'm like you. An ex of mine claimed that most people never even | think about committing suicide. It's hard for me to understand | how anyone could avoid such an obvious thought, but I have | since seen a lot of evidence that some people's minds really | don't explore the possibility space, and when they do it's only | along prescribed paths... So I guess it's possible? | derbOac wrote: | FWIW, this sort of issue is a serious problem for many people | with severe OCD. Basically a thought comes into their minds, | about something disturbing or taboo, and they start obsessing | over the fact they had the thought, because they're so | distraught about the idea it would even come into their mind. | In most cases, they are so far from actually doing anything | related to the thought, and that's why they are so | distraught. This leads to penitential behavior, and | compulsions, etc. | | Sometimes figuring out if they're just obsessing because | they're worried about a thought, versus actually | perseverating over a potentially actionable drive, is really | really difficult. | | Not saying you have OCD, it's just a whole area that can lead | to seriously debilitating problems for some individuals. | justsocrateasin wrote: | I actually feel like this is a good argument _for_ | normalizing the fact that probably everyone has thoughts | about suicide (as OP said, thinking about the implications | versus considering). | | I remember a period of my life where I was struggling a bit | more than normal with anxiety, and my creative / intrusive | brain was like "how about you think on the concept of | suicide?" to which my brain responded "wow now you're | thinking about suicide, you should really seek help". | | In reality, it was just an intrusive thought. But the fact | that my brain jumped on that thought, and ruminated on it | as "if the thought popped into my head, maybe I'm not OK", | that was the thing that caused problems. | foobarbecue wrote: | Interesting; that makes a lot of sense. This insight makes | me think there's a continuum between brains set to "control | all thoughts" and brains set to "autmatically explore all | possibilities." | | I think I'm pretty neurotypical and fall somewhere in the | middle, but I can see how a minor change in that "setting" | would have a big impact on my behavior. | rhacker wrote: | That's the main difference between OCD and not. | kibwen wrote: | It boils down to a semantic argument. People have differing | definitions of what it means to "think about committing | suicide". If you're up on top of a tall object and happen to | imagine yourself plummeting over the edge even without any | intention to do so, some people will consider that "thinking | about it", and some people won't. | | The useful interpretation is to exercise empathy and put | yourself in the mind of the person writing the questionnaire, | and ask what definition _they_ are likely using. For example, | your therapist doesn 't care if you had a random intrusive | thought thirty years ago, they care if you presently have | actual designs of self-harm. Likewise, in the OP, the person | interpreting the security clearance doesn't care if you were | accidentally caught up in a silly witch hunt when you were | 12. | foobarbecue wrote: | I agree that one should attempt to answer the /intended/ | question. | | In this case, however, it wasn't semantic. My ex and I were | on the same page as to how we were using "think". She was | claiming that by our shared definition of think, most | people didn't, and we did. | Atheros wrote: | It's impractical for everyone and impossible for some | people to interpret every question through the lens of the | person asking the question. The use of American euphemisms | is constantly changing and it is unreasonable to expect | non-native English speakers or neurodivergent people to | keep up. | | Practice empathy. Guess at others' intent in order to do | your best to give others the information that they want. | But then insist that they use plain English in the future | and that doing otherwise is wrong. | | https://sneak.berlin/20191201/american-communication/ | bityard wrote: | > if you speak directly, what will be heard by your | listeners is whatever your statements are presumed to | imply, not what is actually stated--regardless of whether | or not those implications are intended or not. | | This pretty well sums up my experience of the HN comments | section. | photochemsyn wrote: | That might be related to why it's such a taboo subject - | people fear that even mentioning the word 'suicide' will | cause some people to starting making deliberate plans to end | their own life. (It's certainly a rather depressing topic, | not suitable for small talk or dinner conversation, and | people who are always bringing it up probably could use some | therapist time.) | | The effect is similar to the statement, "don't think of a | blue elephant" - it's pretty hard to not immediately think of | some kind of a blue elephant (Dumbo the Disney character? A | wild African elephant that got blue mud all over it? A | painted elephant in a Indian potentate's parade? Etc.) | | Psychologists use the term 'ideation' to distinguish between | merely thinking about a topic, versus obsessing over a topic, | making plans related to a topic, and so on. | SpaceL10n wrote: | I find this concept fascinating, where can I read more? | foobarbecue wrote: | [Fox News joke removed since upon further reflection it | wasn't funny] | | Seriously though, I suppose I was misusing the word | "evidence" here... I haven't actually studied this beyond | observing and talking to people I know. I would also be | interested in reading on the topic if anyone can suggest | something! | foobarbecue wrote: | I'm sad that Slava_Propanei's comment below is dead. I'm | stoked to learned the word "keyfabe." | dang wrote: | You can vouch for [dead] comments. When enough users do | that, it will come back to life. See | https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html#cvouch. | Slava_Propanei wrote: | Ah yes, Fox News. The source of all bad thought is not | the global liberal hegemony, but rather its kayfabe | opposition. | foobarbecue wrote: | Vouching for this. It's off-topic and a little | inflammatory but I started that, and it taught me the | word kayfabe. Thanks to dang for introducing me to the | vouch feature. | PuppyTailWags wrote: | I think it is possible and I think it helps to explore what | you don't think about. Everyone has things that never/rarely | occur to them to consider performing as an action, even | people with significantly broader consideration-spheres than | others. For example, I've considered suicide but never going | pro in ballet. I've considered stealing from my employer but | never becoming an opera influencer. I'm less athletic than a | sibling of mine, so things like vaulting over fences/climbing | trees aren't things I that would even occur to me to perform | but my sibling is always thinking of ways they can get over | and around physical obstacles with their body. | | I don't think that it's some people follow prescribed paths. | I think everyone has familiar and less-familiar paths, and | some paths are totally out of the way. And I think the | overlap of what's considered familiar and what's considered | out of the way have much less overlap than is commonly | understood. | dsr_ wrote: | Unfortunately, now I have considered going pro in ballet | (result: not going to happen), becoming an opera influencer | (result: highly unlikely but not absolutely impossible; can | I reasonably work towards the return of the comic operetta? | Probably not without writing one. I could manage the book | but not the music. Who do I know who might want to write | the music?) and I have frequently considered but discarded | the likelihood of vaulting over most fences and climbing | most trees. | | Thanks. | PuppyTailWags wrote: | But that's the thing, right, you didn't consider those | things before. There's no difference between not having | considered suicide and not having considered pro ballet | and it doesn't reflect anything about you in particular. | That's why I'm saying I don't think it's incomprehensible | that some people just haven't thought of things you've | considered before. Because obviously you also haven't | thought of things to consider until someone else (myself) | brought them up. | [deleted] | MisterBastahrd wrote: | Probably because you were overthinking it. | | You're thinking in terms of grey while they're testing to | ensure that you have at least a basic understanding of black | and white. | CapmCrackaWaka wrote: | I can't pretend to know what the original test writers had in | mind. However, I actually think this question serves a | different purpose than to determine if you had actually | considered stealing from an employer. These types of questions | are better suited to determine if someone can walk the | corporate walk and talk the corporate talk. They don't want a | low level employee to go off on a customer, or make rude | remarks, or otherwise say "between you and me, fuck this | company lmaoooo", because that opens them up to litigation. On | that front, I would say they achieved their goal. | | The _obvious_ answer to this question, if you want a job, is | "no". Anyone that answers "yes" is a liability, regardless of | their actual intention to steal. | tejtm wrote: | So they are filtering for a ethic that accepts boldface lying | to them is necessary to cover essentials. | | I can not see how this paradigm could end well. | aeturnum wrote: | I mean - all ethical systems favor boldfaced lying in some | situations? Even Kant's Categorical Imperative simply says | that, if you lie, you should do so in a situation where | anyone in that situation should lie (i.e. hiding Jews from | the Nazis, etc). Even within a Kantian framework, you could | argue that in this context (a formal job application) it is | moral to lie because no one believes your answer represents | your most deeply held beliefs - but rather represents your | willingness (and ability) to perform a role (the role of | the Good Employee). If you can't be a Good Employee you | should reveal it by not lying - but if you can be you can | reveal it by lying on the form (which reflects the lying | you will be expected to do in the job). | idopmstuff wrote: | Yeah, seems like if you're hiring for a low-level retail | employee, it's not necessarily a plus if they're the kind of | person who deeply analyzes this sort of question instead of | giving the superficially correct response. Particularly if | this was in an employer-friendly time from a hiring | perspective, and they had an endless supply of candidates. | applejacks wrote: | > they're the kind of person who deeply analyzes this sort | of question | | Clearly they didn't deeply analyze the question in the | relevant context. Answering "yes" to this is high school | level "edginess". | | One needn't condescend, as there are equivalent questions | at all levels of hiring, all with equally obvious | (in)correct answers. No, you shouldn't answer "what is your | biggest challenge" with "not showing up to work drunk", | even if it is indeed your biggest challenge, _and_ one that | you work hard to successfully overcome every day. | | Another commenter refers to this as "walking the corporate | walk" but I think it's more "having an understanding of | context and appropriate levels of sharing" and it applies | _at all times in life_. | notch656c wrote: | Some cultures, and strongly correlated thus | nationalities, are more brutally honest than others. So | it may just be a test to see if you're an apple pie white | American, which could be unlawful discrimination. | CapmCrackaWaka wrote: | I think you have this backwards - Apparently, Americans | are considered more brutally honest and direct in | negotiations than other cultures: | | https://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-negotiate-around- | the-... | lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote: | That doesn't mean that Americans are more brutally honest | in social interactions. In my experience, Americans | commonly (admittedly, not always) avoid topics and | observations which they think a listening party would | find uncomfortable. | [deleted] | quocanh wrote: | This actually reminds me of something I've been thinking | about lately. What we call honesty is actually two | different things: truthfulness and openness. Americans | are probably truthful and not open. | ipaddr wrote: | Like Canadians are polite but not friendly | BrandoElFollito wrote: | No s**t, my g*d these Americans are really ***** | | (who would have thought it is so difficult to beep out | words in HN, I had to escape each *) | lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote: | Reminds me of the time I said the fuck word kinda loudly | in public in Provo, Utah. Had people looking at me like | I'd just grown a second head. | | That's kinda why I always say "the fuck word" instead of | "the eff word". I've had too many interactions where | somebody felt comfortable correcting my word choice for | me to be polite about it. ("Fuckin' heck!" is pretty fun | too; people just don't know how to respond.) | yamazakiwi wrote: | It's common in most roles for employers to check if you are | flexible, teachable, and ready for cool-aid. | NavinF wrote: | *kool-aid | | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drinking_the_Kool-Aid | alasdair_ wrote: | *Flavor Aid | | They didn't actually use Kool-aid in the Jonestown | massacre, people just think they did. | NavinF wrote: | "drinking the Flavor Aid" doesn't sound nearly as good. | It sounds like a knockoff | entropicdrifter wrote: | Just because the saying is apocryphal doesn't mean the | spelling "cool-aid" was correct. The saying is "drinking | the Kool-Aid" regardless | yamazakiwi wrote: | Sounds like you're drinking their cool-aid. | davidw wrote: | Reminds me of the scene in Cryptonimicon, again: | | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1866629 | wedn3sday wrote: | Many things remind me of scenes from the Cryptonomicon, | especially things that rhyme with "torpedo." | shagie wrote: | A retail company that I worked for (I worked in the general | office and we got a bit of a chuckle talking about the test) | had a test that was very much in the same vein - though it | wasn't a "have you ever considered" but rather put on a "agree | to disagree" spectrum. It is ok to get into | fights during your break as long as you aren't at the store | It is ok to take office supplies home if they aren't valued | more than $10 It is ok to not clock out for a smoke | break if it is less than five minutes long | | There were other questions that were ones you were supposed to | agree with too - just those weren't as memorable. | | Apparently, there were people who failed the test. | | The _other_ part of the test is that it is on record. So when | someone _does_ get into a fight during their break the GM can | pull the test out and say "see, you knew this." | m3047 wrote: | I mean, there's a whole book that's popular dedicated to saying | "yes" to every opportunity you're offered to improve your | "luck"... | FireBeyond wrote: | I had to write a letter in support of my immigration | application, explaining my situation and circumstances. | | I gave it to my attorney and she read over it and handed it | back to me. "You already have an attorney. My letter will read | like an attorney wrote it. Yours should instead look like a | human wrote it." | voisin wrote: | Mindfulness meditation may help calm the racing mind. | geomark wrote: | I did that while taking a polygraph administered by a | representative of a three letter agency. He said I was being | deceptive. | brookst wrote: | Did you explain that you were just _pretending_ to be | deceptive, b it were in fact fully cooperating? | geomark wrote: | It was clear the examiner had no sense of humor. So no. | But when he said I was being deceptive I asked "In what | way?" And he said "You tell me." And so we ended in a | standoff. | NikolaNovak wrote: | Thanks, I've heard that over time; I've tried a bit of | mindfulness over the years and I see the value in it, I just | haven't been able to harness it yet. I've tried some guided | audio body focus mindfulness/meditation and 1. Most of it | tries too hard and loses me with "Third Eye" and "Spirit | world" "and chakra energy frequency balance" 2. Most of it | starts from toes and turns out I need to start from center | (ridiculous preference but apparently true for me:) and 3. | Most importantly, unsurprisingly, I _suck_ at it. I keep | trying every now and then; maybe I 'll give it another go :) | hackingthelema wrote: | Abandon guided meditations and audio-based meditations, and | focus to a simple programme of breath-focus. You just: | | 1. sit quietly and comfortably | | 2. breathe through your nose | | 3. find the feeling of air moving in and out of your nose | | 4. observe that feeling of air | | 5. if your mind starts observing other thoughts instead of | the breath feeling -- 'I have an itch', 'this sitting | position is uncomfortable', 'what about my meeting | tomorrow' -- you notice your observation has left the air- | in-your-nose feeling, and you gently redirect it back to | focusing on that instead of the thoughts. | | 6. Repeat. You'll slowly increase from 2-3 seconds of focus | to minutes at a time. | | > 3. Most importantly, unsurprisingly, I suck at it. I keep | trying every now and then; maybe I'll give it another go :) | | You're better off with 3-5 minutes daily, _regularly_ , | than with longer sessions sporadically. It's a matter of | practice and getting the knack of concentration down. | Slowly increase to 10-15 minutes a day over a month or two, | and really focus on getting the technique mastered more | than anything. | | The book _Mindfulness in Plain English_ is both available | freely online, and my favourite guide to getting it right. | ufmace wrote: | This is basically the idea. Exact techniques vary, but | the point is to keep gently re-focusing on something | minor and physical. It doesn't really matter what it is, | scan direction vs breath flow vs something else, none of | it matters, just pick one and work on focusing. | j33zusjuice wrote: | The app "Balance" is decent, and they give a year free on | it (or gave, anyway). I primarily use it to go to sleep | when my mind is racing (I fall asleep within 10 minutes | every time, even if I've been laying and thinking for an | hour or two), but I've listened to a few here and there, | and I haven't heard any mysticism. | frogpelt wrote: | On the word "consider": A friend of mine tells a story about | his dad and his appreciation for the practicality of a brick | house. | | Someone once asked him "Would you ever consider putting any | other siding on your house besides brick?" | | His answer: "I'd consider it. And then I'd brick it." | robocat wrote: | Bricks have bad failure modes in earthquake prone areas. | | Worst case: falling over and killing people in an earthquake | (happened especially with many commercial properties in my | hometown, Christchurch, in 2011 earthquake). | | Even with very minor damage you end up with fine mortar | cracks so sealing fails, and wind blows water through cracks. | Nobody fixes cracks properly so the problem is hidden by the | repointing and painting over, and also cracks reopen on minor | aftershocks years later. | | I like bricks, but I would avoid them in say California. | IIsi50MHz wrote: | Tangent: Some historic brick-built structurer in Cali are | reinforced by apply fiberglass resin (just the resin, no | fibers) to the surface of the bricks. This usually | manifests as a glossy clear layer completely covering | brickwork of the ground floor, followed by narrower and | narrower strips of resin for the next floors. It can be | applied to interior, exterior, or both surfaces, depending | on assessment of the structure. | gr4yb34rd wrote: | that's how i knew 'voice stress analysis' tests were trash. | when i was a teenager, it was all the rage for companies to put | candidates through these and i'd sit there lying all the way | through it and still get the job every time. | | now, any of my ex's can agree, i'm the worst liar in the world | and if that test thought i was being honest, there's definitely | something busted with it. | ALittleLight wrote: | Personality tests aren't about a test of your personality, but | your ability to project the ideal personality for an employee. | That has some value because it shows you'll know how you're | supposed to act on the job. | giaour wrote: | Did you methodically weigh the pros and cons of stealing from | your employer? Was there a real possibility that you would have | emerged from the consideration having decided to go ahead with | the theft? | | If not, what you're describing sounds like "theft ideation," | which I'm sure employers wouldn't be thrilled about but | wouldn't warrant a question on the application. | harpiaharpyja wrote: | > _What mental fences do you have that you have never | "considered" such an obvious course of action in the likely | billion of seconds of thinking?)._ | | Honestly I think it may just be semantics. When I think about | the usage of the word "to consider," there does seem to be two | different and distinct meanings. When people use it in the | sense of "to consider a course of action" it actually has a | different meaning than when the same word is used in other | contexts. | [deleted] | kadoban wrote: | > how do you block & limit your mind? What mental fences do you | have that you have never "considered" such an obvious course of | action in the likely billion of seconds of thinking?). | | I don't think people block their minds. I think they just lie | on forms more. I also sometimes struggle with which lies are | expected. | gpcz wrote: | Instead, the companies want people willing to lie on forms. | myself248 wrote: | 5+ years experience in a language/technology that only | appeared 2 years ago! | | Congratulations, you will only hire liars. Which I think | describes 90% of hiring these days. | anticensor wrote: | No, that actually means they want a specific person, indeed | not mentioned in the listing. When the right person | applies, all those unsatisfiable requirements are suddenly | ignored. | AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: | Indeed. If you insist on only hiring people who answer the | question a certain way, don't be surprised when you hire a | bunch of liars. | screamingninja wrote: | I would think that you have been using the word "considered" | rather lightly. To me, it means careful thought and | deliberation, not just "the thought crossed my mind at some | point". | threatofrain wrote: | And there are many who do use "considered" to mean that a | thought crossed their mind. Surely this does not shock you. | | The problem is not the interpretation of a word. The problem | is how the ocean of other people answered this question. | There comes a point when being honest is completely stupid, | and when most people use the word honesty they don't mean to | cross into the completely stupid territory. | | That being said I'd consider such a person to be a fine | candidate for friendship. | cm2187 wrote: | Perhaps filtering out stupid people is the goal of the | question. | | No one is completely honest. Courtesy is the art of lying. | oxfeed65261 wrote: | In this context, I think "considered," here, is best | understood as: | | "Have I deliberated over whether or not to do this?" | | Not: | | "Have I thought, in the abstract, about how I might do this, | or what it might be like?" | davchana wrote: | Yes, more like, "wanted" (to do) it. | NikolaNovak wrote: | Yes and No. | | I have "Considered" stealing from my employer several times. | When I was 15 I was a refugee and worked in a Radio-Shack- | like store in Croatia. We built PCs in back and sold them in | the front. The front and back were separated by a curtain, | and highest value items (ram sticks) happened to be stashed | on the shelf on the side of the entrance. I realized it would | take literally 5 seconds for a customer to reach through the | curtain and grab them. That got me thinking on whether as an | insider I would have higher or lower risk than a random | customer. How could I reduce the risk? What's a simple, non- | overly-elaborate method that would let me accomplish this? So | I did spend some time considering this problem space (and | then next day suggested to my boss to move the RAM further | inside:) | | Similarly with suicide. Everybody's life is hard and has ups | and downs. I've "considered" suicide in several different | ways many times in my life, sometimes at "obvious" times of | hardship, otherwise at simply slow, boring times. I'm largely | a cheerful optimistic person FWIW, but I find everything | interesting even fascinating, including that particular life | (ending) choice. | | Talking to couple of my closest oldest friends, who are most | similar to me, they have few mental taboos. But talking to | most other people, at least as far as they're willing to be | honest with me and/or themselves, they have never considered | _SO MANY_ topics, virtually regardless of how light or heavy | we define the word. | toss1 wrote: | Yup. "Considered" is certainly ambiguous enough to be a | failure in the context of a job application. | | When I was working at IBM, a my manager introduced me in | passing to one of his peers who was getting a huge | promotion, about three levels up. Why such an unusual | promotion? He'd noticed a way that 4 people could conspire | to exfiltrate $25 million on a Friday and be in some non- | extradition country before it was noticed. He had reported | this flaw, and they were promoting him for alerting them. | He had _certainly_ "considered" quite deeply stealing from | his employer, and was being rewarded for doing the right | thing. | | And, of course, an honest answer on his BestBuy app would | have disqualified him. | | We can quibble about the meaning, but this is an absolute | fail on the job application, unless the goal is to filter | out intelligent people who have naturally curious minds. | | There is a huge difference between thinking about something | and taking action to do it. You have brought us another | great example of utter cluelessness in corporate HR. | erehweb wrote: | Nitpicking that thinking about a vulnerability is not the | same as considering exploiting that vulnerability. | toss1 wrote: | exactly the point -- that nit falls well within the | ambiguity of the wording | | (and yes, if you're reasonably sharp and not a super- | stickler, you should be able to suss out the screening | intent of the question, constrain the current meaning of | "consider", and answer "No" regardless of your previous | thoughts and understanding of the word -- it's not like | thoughtcrime is prosecutable ...yet) | afarrell wrote: | My hunch is that this is a third of the reason why | politicians give "politician answers" to things that most | people believe are straightforward yes-or-no questions. | mason55 wrote: | > _but this is an absolute fail on the job application, | unless the goal is to filter out intelligent people who | have naturally curious minds._ | | Not sure why you think this is a crazy goal for a retail | job. If you can't figure out that you should say "no" to | the stealing question, no matter what the truth is, then | you're probably not a good fit to work retail. | | In fact, I'd bet that most of the "yes" answers to this | question are people who are curious but have poor social | understanding. I imagine that someone who really would | steal is also dishonest enough to lie on the question. | im3w1l wrote: | Don't underestimate how stupid criminals can be. It's not | like the prisons are empty because no one ever gets | caught. | toss1 wrote: | >>I imagine that someone who really would steal is also | dishonest enough to lie on the question. | | Bingo! | | I do expect that there are attempts to filter out overly | intelligent people for some jobs. There was a lawsuit in | Connecticut by an applicant who scored too high on the | police exam and was denied a job. He lost the case, and | established the right for police to reject people for | being too smart as they might get bored or something | (sorry, I don't have a link on hand). | | But, as you point out, this question filters out only the | honest and intelligent people. | | It leaves you with the pool of people who are either dull | or dishonest. Classic HR fail. | what_is_orcas wrote: | Found this because I was curious (and this was the first | non-paywall link that I knew the domain from, sorry if | there are other, more reputable sources): | https://abcnews.go.com/US/court-oks-barring-high-iqs- | cops/st... | | Looks like the reason is: we refuse all smart people | equally and it's a means to reduce turnover... | | What a joke. | rcfox wrote: | I'm not so sure about that. If you spend a lot of time | mentally disengaged, (walking, exercising, commuting, etc.) | you have lots of opportunities to deeply consider many things | that you have no intention of doing. | dang wrote: | Related: | | _What Not To Write On Your Security Clearance Form_ - | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1444653 - June 2010 (98 | comments) | FpUser wrote: | From what I remember many kids go through the stage devise | various codes for "secret" communications. I "invented" one and | used it to send messages to my school buddy when we were like | 10-12 years old, do not remember exactly. And I was not alone. | petecooper wrote: | I did a tour of IT distributors & resellers around Johannesburg | back in the early '00s. I was the tame tech, the sales guy was a | good dude. It was standard issue for all visitors to fill out a | paper form with name, company, occupation, and car registration | details as a lot of parking lots were secure compounds, given the | atmosphere in South Africa. As the week went by, and the sunshine | got to us, we ended up providing our occupations with increasing | absurdity: serial killer, axe murderer, escaped drug lords, etc. | The only one that raised any response - from a very burly | Afrikaner - was me stating I was a "6ft invisible bumblebee". | Daub wrote: | This quote... | | > When I handed the form in to the security officer, he scanned | it quickly, looked me over slowly, then said, ``Explain this''-- | pointing at the FBI question. I described what had happened. He | got very agitated, picked up my form, tore it in pieces, and | threw it in the waste basket. | | Reminds me of this scene from Starship Trooper... | | https://youtu.be/Le-uDcNlJO4?t=118 | ant6n wrote: | This sort of thing happened a lot with East Germans in the 90s | etc. After unification, we of course all became Western | Germans, with the right to travel to the US on the visa waiver | program. You just had to fill out the I-90 form (and pay 6$ | when crossing a land border). It's a relatively small form, but | it does ask whether you're criminal, used to be a nazi, | terrorist... or member of a communist party. Well, most East | Germans had to be member of the party, just in order to | participate in society, so of course some would later put a | mark there when travelling to the US. Border agents would | usually just hand them a new form and tell them ,,you're | supposed to leave this blank". | psychphysic wrote: | > It's a relatively small form, but it does ask whether | you're criminal, used to be a nazi, terrorist... or member of | a communist party. | | Not that different today, includes are you a war criminal or | wanted by Nuremberg and are you a islamic terrorist no? | Similarly there's still increased rules if you have been to | particular places | watwut wrote: | > Not that different today, includes are you a war criminal | or wanted by Nuremberg and are you a islamic terrorist no? | Similarly there's still increased rules if you have been to | particular places | | Those are widely different questions. These people were | affirmatively not war criminals nor wanted by Nuremberg. | And they were not equivalent of islamic terrorists either - | the equivalent of that would be membership in stasi or so. | | This would be analogical to "was you muslim" or "did you | had membership in Mosque". | Symbiote wrote: | Nowadays there's the question "Have you ever violated any | law related to possessing, using, or distributing illegal | drugs?" [1]. | | As late as 2018, they were asking about communist party | membership [2] | | [1] https://www.nnuimmigration.com/esta-questions/ | | [2] https://papersplease.org/wp/wp- | content/uploads/2018/05/DS-01... | psychphysic wrote: | Seems similar to me, people perceive questions | differently I guess | watwut wrote: | This is not about subjective perception. This is | literally about what words mean. You being performatively | against communist party does not make "member of a | communist party in eastern block" the same situation as | "islamic terrorist". | | And it does not make them war criminals either, you need | to engage in war for that in the first place. It does not | make them wanted by Nuremberg either, because Nuremberg | never asked for them. | el_nahual wrote: | > On another occasion much later, I learned by chance that | putting certain provocative information on a security clearance | form can greatly speed up the clearance process. But that is | another story. | | Talk about burying the lede! | | Charming story nonetheless. | 51Cards wrote: | Bit of an aside story but I'm in the process of renewing a US | work Visa (travel into the US for work often from Canada). I was | reminded going through the online form last week that there are 3 | full pages of questions like: "Have you ever participated in | child trafficing?", "Have you participated in terrorist | activities?", "Have you participated in overthrowing a | government?", etc. etc. All of the most extreme international | crimes you could think of. | | I later realized that they don't expect any one to answer these | truthfully, however if in future you are caught doing (Edit: or | having previously done) any of these things the "lied on Visa | application" is grounds for an instant revocation of the Visa | without all the other possible complications. | philwelch wrote: | > "Have you participated in overthrowing a government?" | | This must be an awkward question for Iraq War veterans. | freedomben wrote: | Yep that's a favorite US government method. They do the same | with the form you have to fill out to buy a gun. | notch656c wrote: | 4473 doesn't ask most those. Attempting to overthrow a | government doesn't make a prohibited possessor. | eldaisfish wrote: | I never understood the legal justifications for that. If i | answer a visa-related question now, the context for me is the | present and past. How can laws cover retroactive lies that were | not lies at the time? | 51Cards wrote: | I should have noted that their intent is to cover your past | and present, so that if in future they find out that in your | youth you trafficed/postituted humans and farmed drugs to | fund over throwing a goverment through terrorist | activities.... even if all of those were outside the US | jursidiction, they can still yank your Visa for having lied. | [deleted] | smugma wrote: | Previously (2010): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1444653 | | His hijinks remind me of Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman, which | I happen to be re-reading right now. | raindear wrote: | The date of the post is April 1st. | everly wrote: | _" Lady, this case has cost the government thousands of dollars. | It has been the top priority in our office for the last six | weeks. We traced the glasses to your son from the prescription by | examining the files of nearly every optometrist in San Diego." It | apparently didn't occur to them that if I were a real Japanese | spy, I might have brought the glasses with me from headquarters._ | | First of all, absolutely hilarious - second of all, pretty | intrigued by the old-school, brute-force method that actually | ended up working. | JamesSwift wrote: | What makes you think that type of thing is old school? This | kind of brute forcing is still very much in use [1], but | usually we are better at having computers do a lot of the | filtering these days. | | [1] - https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/white-sedan-police- | found... | floatrock wrote: | Just the other day Italian police announced they found some | old mafia boss who was hiding for 30 years because they got a | tip he was sick, so they scoured the national health records | for clinics treating someone around the right age with the | same conditions. | adonig wrote: | "It apparently didn't occur to them that if I were a real | Japanese spy, I might have brought the glasses with me from | headquarters." | | I'm not a criminologist but I think they might have classified | the glasses and the glasses case and maybe found enough | evidence indicating that the glasses have been made in the U.S. | or maybe even in San Diego. | | Even if they didn't, then it's still their job to do exactly | what they did and they were successful. They found the real | owner of the glasses and were able to confirm, that the person | isn't a potentially dangerous enemy spy. That case can be | closed and they can do something else. | adrianmonk wrote: | Also, it's plausible that a Japanese spy would buy new | glasses in the US. It would probably be smart. Why take a | chance that someone will notice your slightly unusual-looking | glasses? Just get new ones that look normal. | Asooka wrote: | Third of all, it's the government's own fault they lost their | mind over a child's toy. | WesternWind wrote: | This is the first of three stories available at | https://yarchive.net/risks/mongrel.html | mcv wrote: | I'm so that guy. Not for security clearance, but medical | questionaires. I always fill them in with total honesty, listing | the most minor and irrelevant details if they fit the question. | My wife keeps telling me not to fill that stuff in, and she's | quite the opposite, giving the preferred answer everywhere, even | when I think: "but shouldn't you mention that thing?" | | Of the two of us, she's the one who has tons of experience | navigating and running bureaucracies, and does so quite well. I'm | terrible at it. | Agentlien wrote: | Sometimes you just can't win, though. | | I used to work for a Swedish company making training | simulations for surgeons. There are of course special rules | regarding customs declarations of medical equipment. | | Our salespeople often complained that when entering the U.S. it | was basically a coin toss if the customs agent would be angry | with them for declaring our simulator as "medical equipment" | and wasting their time, or get angry at them for trying to | sneak this medical equipment through customs without declaring | it. | mynameisvlad wrote: | I had the same problem with something so much more benign | than that. | | I was a Green Card holder. Technically, you need your card | and foreign passport to enter the country. | | I got yelled at for giving them my passport once, with the | guard claiming it's useless and not needed. So then I started | having it on hand but not providing it on the spot, at which | point I'd get yelled at for not providing the needed passport | upfront. It's almost as if they like yelling more than | consistently following rules. | jkaplowitz wrote: | My understanding is that the passport is not actually | required at the CBP checkpoint if you present a valid | unexpired green card. But yeah, there's no way different | officers should be yelling contradictory things at you. | | Side note: A passport may still be required to board an | inbound international flight even if I'm right about it not | needing to accompany a green card at the CBP checkpoint, | depending on the rules of the airline and the departure | country. | mynameisvlad wrote: | Is it? I've been yelled about doing or not doing it so | much that I can't keep track anymore. | | That part of my life is behind me so now I get the next | fun challenge: Which passport to use when going up to | Canada and back as a dual citizen. | jkaplowitz wrote: | That one is clearer, at least. TL;DR for the easiest | experience - bring both passports, enter and leave each | country on the respective passport, and if anyone is | confused, show both passports and explain that you're a | dual citizen. | | To enter and leave the US, you're supposed to use a US | passport and not a Canadian one. To enter Canada, it's | smoothest and fastest to use your Canadian passport, but | they do have an exception for US-Canadian dual citizens | that allow you to use a US passport. | | If you use a US passport and claim to be a Canadian | citizen at a CBSA checkpoint, they might send you to | immigration screening to verify your claim, especially if | you don't also show some evidence of citizenship like | your citizenship certificate. If you use a US passport | and claim to be a Canadian citizen to a commercial | transportation company like an airline on the way into | Canada, they're advised to do "due diligence", but there | is no specific set of documentation required. The | citizenship certificate would probably satisfy them, and | in practice many times maybe the US passport by itself | too. | dwighttk wrote: | Yeah I think the lesson I took out of the story was DO put | that you have been investigated by the FBI and let the guy | you give the form to tell you to leave it off... | adastra22 wrote: | > My wife keeps telling me not to fill that stuff in, and she's | quite the opposite, giving the preferred answer everywhere | | This might literally kill her. | olsgaarddk wrote: | Last time I was at the doctor, I answered "not that I know of" | when asked if I had any allergies. | | Afterwards at the pharmacy, it turns out my prescription | included a box of antihistamine. | prmoustache wrote: | What a weird doctor you have. | | You don't discuss about your actual medical condition and he | doesn't tell you why he prescribe each drug and for which | purpose? | weberer wrote: | Next time just ask for an allergy test. These days they just | draw a bit of blood and send you the results in a few days. | Then its on your records for good. | adrianmonk wrote: | I'm not sure how to interpret this. Were the antihistamines | in case you had a drug allergy? Or were they for the other | kind of allergy (pollen, pet danger, dust, etc.)? | Vrondi wrote: | Antihistamines are for any kind of allergy. They don't care | if it's from breathing in something, touching something, or | eating something. Allergy is an allergy. | adrianmonk wrote: | Right, but what was the doctor's intent? | | Were they thinking, "The patient might find these handy | if they have pollen allergies but never really thought to | do anything about it"? | | Or, were they thinking, "The patient doesn't seem to know | if they're allergic to this prescription I'm giving them, | so I'll give them an antihistamine to go along with it | just in case." | mcv wrote: | I have a very obscure allergy to some specific compounds in | some medication. It gives me a rash, nothing serious. I'm | always very diligent in mentioning what little I still | remember about that allergy. | blagie wrote: | It can be important. | | Obscure allergic reaction and obscure disease often look | the same. You treat them opposite. The former, you want to | suppress the immune system, and the latter, you don't. In | obscure circumstances (e.g. a doctor is debugging a serious | rash after a surgery while you're unconscious and on an | IV), those sorts of tidbits can be important. | saalweachter wrote: | I've spent thirty years telling doctors I'm allergic to | amoxicillin; I'm not sure if I am, but that's how my | parents started every doctor visit when I was small so I | carry on the tradition. I think I might have thrown up | after taking it as a small child, but I have no | recollection myself. | chadd wrote: | it's common to have childhood allergies to penicillin- | class drugs which go away in adulthood; i had to have | major surgery (as an adult) but had a similar childhood | reaction. I was advised to do an allergy 'challenge | test'. It turned out the allergy was either never really | there or had gone away, which gives doctors more options | when antibiotics are needed. It might be worth looking | into. | ianai wrote: | But only "look into it" in a carefully supervised medical | center. Don't go rolling the dice on a severe allergic | reaction to an antibiotic at home or outside of that | supervision. | c0nsumer wrote: | I have something similar with epinephrine. Every visit | I'm asked "allergy to epinephrine?" and I have to, again, | clarify "no, but I'm sensitive to it, and it makes me | really jittery, so I prefer to not have it unless there's | no choice". It makes me feel like I've had way too much | caffeine and is just generally unpleasant. | | Those conversations don't seem tomatter much, because | when getting common small procedures done (such as mole | removal) the doctor will use whatever they prefer. | Epinephrine is a vascoconstrictor, so it helps with | bleeding and keeps the anesthesia (eg: lidocaine) from | wearing off as quickly. So, doctor's prefer it. So each | time I have to ask the doctor if that's the variant they | are using, and if they could do without. Sometimes they | do, sometimes they explain why it's best not to and we go | ahead with. | | I know I could outright say allergy and they wouldn't use | it, but I really don't want to cut off a useful tool for | them, for no good reason other than I don't like a minor, | short-lasting side effect. | oaktrout wrote: | Many people get a rash when a viral illness (epstein barr | comes to mind) is treated with amoxicillin. This is not | an amoxcicillin allergy. | bubblecheck wrote: | what not to write: | | * successfully gaslighted target during the death of a parent | using hacked iMessages | pram wrote: | I had a TS/SCI clearance when I was in the military, and I don't | even recall being interviewed. I filled out some background | information form and months later I was unceremoniously informed | I had received it. Maybe it's just more stringent for civilians? | wnkrshm wrote: | They will investigate your background, whether you have any | ties to family abroad by which you could be blackmailed etc. | | An acquaintance of mine (from East-Germany) had a US boyfriend | who started to work for Lockheed - in the interview he was | asked "Why doesn't your Eat-German girlfriend answer her | phone?". She said she got some calls from an unknown number and | didn't pick up. | | Edit: I meant Eastern Germany, after unification (but her | parents lived in East-Germany, i.e. the GDR) my bad. | ahtihn wrote: | How did she know the call was from an unknown number as a | normal person in East Germany in the 80s or earlier? (Ie when | it was still called East Germany) | wnkrshm wrote: | I should have written Eastern Germany, it was long after | unification and there were smart phones involved (but in | the US security apparatus, Eastern Germany may still be | suspect). | zoklet-enjoyer wrote: | I don't think East Germany ever had caller ID | devde wrote: | Been there, made this mistake. Recently pursued an SF-85 public | trust for work and under the "have you ever accessed or attempted | to access a computer system without prior authorization" question | I detailed at length my exploratory research into penetration | testing, including how I discovered (and reported) that a school | computer system had _domain admin_ credentials of admin:password, | among other privilege escalation bugs I had found and reported. | | Yeah, that did _not_ get approved. | hindsightbias wrote: | During a very warm part of the Cold War, a relative in service in | Germany got a visit from the services security agency. They put | him in a room and grilled him and eventually asked "why didn't | you tell us you had relatives on the other side of the wall?" | | He asked where, and informed them they were all presumed to have | died in WWII. They informed him one of his cousins was a near | counterpart on the other side and provided a village name. Then | they asked "would you talk to your parents and tell them to tell | the neighbors it's ok to talk to the G-Men". | | The FBI had apparently been going thru his tiny upstate hometown | and scaring all the Polish/Czech/Slovak/Latvian/etc emigre | neighbors who spoke little English. | | Of course he didn't tell them his sister wrote a letter to that | village, re-established contact and then she, her husband and | pre-teens (who only spoke English) flew over to Europe and took a | train to visit. Thankfully everyone on the train distracted the | security officials whenever they got near the kids. | Reubend wrote: | > I learned by chance that putting certain provocative | information on a security clearance form can greatly speed up the | clearance process. But that is another story. | | Did he ever write about what that trick is? | j1elo wrote: | I very much enjoyed the reading, but at the end... oh boy this | person knows how to end a tale with a good cliffhanger! | [deleted] | yosito wrote: | This is an interesting point. I once had to fill out a security | clearance form for a job at NASA detailing every individual I | had had contact with outside of the US in the last 10 years. | Since I've traveled extensively internationally, and couldn't | even begin to mention all the people I've been in contact with, | I just wrote an essay explaining my lifestyle. I expected to | get denied, but I got security clearance faster than anyone | else in the department had ever heard of. | lallysingh wrote: | Probably because you didn't give them names to check! | mynameisvlad wrote: | I've always wondered, as an immigrant, how they would expect | someone like me to answer that question. | | My entire family are outside the US. A big chunk of the | people I interact with are friends who also moved down to the | states and are not citizens yet. I probably interact with | non-citizens daily more than citizens. It would be | practically impossible for me to detail everyone I ever | interacted with 10 years ago while I was at a Canadian school | getting my degree. | | The whole thing is so absurd for anyone who has ever been | outside of the US even once. | xdfgh1112 wrote: | https://yarchive.net/risks/mongrel.html | | Other poster posted the same link but is getting downvoted so | might get overlooked. | 082349872349872 wrote: | By way of context, | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loving_v._Virginia would not be | settled until 1967. | | (but note also that these "race" questions were all over US | forms well into the 1980s. By my time, however, it appears | that "mongrel" answers were being routinely coded as "Decline | To State") | | Lagniappe: anyone curious about actual Caucasian phenotypes | can find them on Youtube, eg | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTdXQabTTRg | TheCoelacanth wrote: | Virginia still required you to answer a race question to | get a marriage license until 2019[1]. "Decline to Answer" | wasn't an option, though in some counties "Octoroon" | (meaning 7/8 white, 1/8 black), "Mulato" and "Aryan" were | options[2]. | | [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/social- | issues/virginia-... | | [2] https://www.wusa9.com/article/news/local/couples-sue- | over-vi... | omnibrain wrote: | Richard Feynman had a similar anecdote involving "skin tone". | adastra22 wrote: | My former boss has similar experience with TSA and customs. | His father in law runs a farm back in his home country, and | he usually goes once to visit whenever he is there. So, | technically, he visited a farm which is one of the questions | on most immigration forms. As a resident alien without a | green card, he usually gets the 9th degree from TSA and | customs. He has found, however, that if he checks this box | they immediately start grilling him about the "farm" he says | he stayed at. Once he explains "Oh no, it's a farmhouse. I | visited my father in law for dinner one night. I didn't do | any farm work or walk in the fields." they stamp his form and | let him go. They never ask (or even check, as far as he can | tell) anything else. | | Moral: give the agent an easy problem to find, but one with a | simple solution in your favor. They will never look for a 2nd | problem. | pjc50 wrote: | Tremendous essay. As someone else pointed out, this was back | when Virginia was still an apartheid state, in the process of | getting desegregation imposed on it; racial categorization | was an important weapon of the state against some of its | citizens, and not one they were going to give up easily in | the face of some guy (correctly) declaring it nonsensical. | | There's so much _Seeing Like A State_ in the punchcard | incident as well. Having invented the categories, you must be | made to fit them. These days plenty of people will say | "well, of course he's right, you can't jam everyone into | racial/ethnicity categories, and you shouldn't" then turn | around and code gender as an immutable M/F binary in their | database. | prmoustache wrote: | I never understood that obsession and unwillingless to give | up that broken concept of race/ethnicity in the USA. | pjc50 wrote: | Large areas of the US were, in a very literal sense, built | out of racism. While the most overt racism has mostly been | pushed out of the public, legal and media spheres, large | quantities remain as a sort of Superfund site just below | the surface. | | Plenty of people from that era are still alive, like | Elizabeth Eckford against whom the Arkansas National Guard | was deployed to prevent her from going to school. | | Hatred against miscegenation was so high that there was an | entire legal structure to prevent ""mongrels"" from | existing, so somebody writing that on their form is going | to cause conniptions. | petesergeant wrote: | From that article: | | > He also remarked that they had asked him if he knew me | socially and that he had answered "Yes, we just celebrated | Guy Fawkes Day together". When the investigator wanted to | know "What is Guy Fawkes Day?" he started to explain the | gunpowder plot but thought better of it. He settled for the | explanation that "It's a British holiday". | [deleted] | ant6n wrote: | This one actually has a programming related lesson at the | end! | nottorp wrote: | > The security people apparently found it impractical to | obtain the _hour or two of a programmer 's time_ that would | have been needed to fix the code | | I laughed so hard. | saalweachter wrote: | > I will probably never know. | | I wonder if the author got his answer through modern DNA | ancestry. | a3w wrote: | > After about three months it stopped and a month later I was | suddenly informed that the clearance had been granted. The | other two people whose investigations were begun at the same | time did not receive their clearances until several months | later. | | Mongrels are mixed race dogs, I guess? So just put the concept | of "race" under scrutiny, and have your mental health debated. | E voila, your background check takes off fast and intense, and | is suddenly about being sane of mind. | https://yarchive.net/risks/mongrel.html | | Greetings from germany, where we have ethnicity or, officially, | mostly nothing in this place. (Police will kinda inofficially | still racial-profile you, since "north-african looking" seems | to be easier than to say "tanned, slim and curly hair") | avereveard wrote: | reminds me of an old story where the development team was | convinced they had a good product, but feared about | management intermingling, so they intentionally put a not so | good feature front and center for the manager to "remove", so | that the rest of the program could pass the demo unchanged. | strken wrote: | These stories date from the 40s and 50s, and the author notes | in one of them that the American forms now use ethnicity too. | I suspect that at some point in the 40s Germany would have | had a very extensive racial classification system. | DocTomoe wrote: | Well, we do have "Nafri" (North AFRIcans), "Auslander" | (foreigners, but only used for "problematic" foreigners | somehow), "Migrationshintergrund" (migration background, | meaning everyone who is an immigrant, and anyone related to | them for two generations, regardless of nationality), | "Sudlander" (initially people from the south, such as | Italians, Greeks, Jugoslavians, but nowadays "people coming | from the middle east"), and - now that the latter has become | a charged term - "West-Asians", officially sanctioned by the | Berlin police HQ as a non-racially-loaded term, but meaning | the same. | | The euphenism treadmill is strong over here as well. | AdamN wrote: | I'm a White American living in Berlin, what word would the | Berlin police put in my file?? | DocTomoe wrote: | Well, if you get in contact with the police for any | reason, you obviously are a problematic person, so | "Auslander". | fransje26 wrote: | Sozialfluchtling | [deleted] | DocTomoe wrote: | ... which translates to "refugee for | healthcare/unemployment benefits/social benefits | reasons", implying that they never paid a dime in, but | happily take out of the pot nontheless. | | fransje26 meant this as a joke, but the term has been | used unironically to refer to East-Europeans (and the | situation in the States regarding the non-existance of a | functional social safety net would render them relatively | similar in this case). | watwut wrote: | He did not put the concept of race under scrutiny. He used | different and much more detailed classification of races. | mgraczyk wrote: | I went through the process of getting TS clearance the summer | after my senior year of college, and I made the mistake of | mentioning on my form that I drank alcohol with friends every | weekend, and that I sometimes drank more than a few drinks in one | night. At the time I figured this was the norm for people my age | and thought nothing of it. | | Unfortunately that was a big red flag for the investigators, and | they interviewed 5-6 of my college friends asking about my | behavior and whether or not I had a drinking problem. Very silly | if you ask me but fortunately didn't seem to delay the process | much. | tarotuser wrote: | Long story short: it's perfectly OK to lie on governmental forms, | provided you don't get caught. | | Forms also lack any nuance, so mild funny things appear to be | "serious transgressions worthy of the state apparatus". | jrochkind1 wrote: | Not exactly an encouraging story about the reliability of | security clearance at the time! | abruzzi wrote: | my first "real" job was managing the public computer lab at | college, and doing misc IT type tasks. Also part of my job was | managing the workstudies that attended the lab and helped | students. It was a pretty lightweight job and the workstudy | positions had a fair amount of turn over as students moved on. | | One day I got a call that one of my workstudies had applied for | an internship with the NSA and put me down as a reference. They | wanted to schedule a meeting with me to talk about the applicant. | Up to that point I had received a few reference check calls from | companies that were hiring former workstudies, and they never | lasted more than 5 minutes, and they never wanted in-person | meetings. | | The meeting ended up lasting over an hour, and not once did they | ask me about technical capabilities or job duties. All the | questions were about his social connections, personality, | narcissism. I realized that this wasn't a reference call but a | security clearance screening. A lot of times they asked the same | question in multiple ways, trying to trip me up or see if I had | inconsistant answers. They also asked questions about me, | presumably to determine if I was a trustworthy source. | | A few years later I applied for security clearance since I had | moved jobs to the US Navy, and I had to maintain PC with | classified data on them. My clearance level was probably the | lowest level because their interview of me was not as probing as | what I went through for the workstudy that applied to the NSA (I | never heard whether he got the internship.) | volodarik_lemon wrote: | [dead] | darod wrote: | I'm curious of the next article that describes the speed up | process. | AceJohnny2 wrote: | Off-topic, but: | | > _the most frequently occurring letters in typical English text | are e-t-a-o-n-r-i, in that order. (The letter frequency order of | the story you are now reading is e-t-a-i-o-n-r. The higher | frequency of ``i '' probably reflects the fact that _I_ use the | first person singular a lot.)_ | | Wait, I thought the letter frequency was Etaoin Shrdlu | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_frequency | | Interestingly, that Wikipedia article references the same "Secret | & Urgent" book by Fletcher Pratt, but only for the Spanish letter | frequency! | | Also, though the header table confirms my memory, it cites a now | defunct algoritmy.net website, and the per-language table below | has a "citation needed" for english! The archived algoritmy.net | website also doesn't mention what corpus it used! | technothrasher wrote: | "Here, fill it out again and don't mention that." | | I had the exact same experience when applying for a clearance | while I was in college, for the "have you taken illegal drugs" | question. When I honestly answered yes, the interviewer got | fidgety and then asked, "well do you take them now?" no. "Do you | know any drug users?" We're on a college campus, what would you | like me to say? "Well, are you friends with any of them?" Again, | we're on a college campus. "Ok, well, we're just going to put | down no for all of that." | Merad wrote: | Interesting. About 10 years ago I got a job offer from a three | letter federal agency that would've required a clearance. I | ultimately declined so I never started the process, but I was | told that past drug use (weed, at least) wasn't necessarily a | deal breaker while being caught lying about past drug was an | automatic fail. | JamesSwift wrote: | For the written form, I've always been told to be 100% | truthful. During the polygraph though I've had several | antagonistic interactions similar to yours. Its all part of the | game though at that point. They are trying to get under your | skin. My personality does not play well in that scenario. Glad | to be out of that line of work now, and I generally say no to | anyone asking if I'd be open to having a clearance again. | sizzzzlerz wrote: | Over my years working for defense contractors, I've held | clearences from multiple agencies and have gone through 5 or | so polygraph tests. In everyone of them, the examiners were | professional in every sense of the word. They clearly | explained the procedure, went over what questions were to be | asked, and ran the tests calmly and fairly. I never had a | reason to complain about any one of them. Now, I didn't like | to be tested but it was part of process to get and hold the | clearance so I could do my job so I went through it. I never | heard of any of my colleagues complain either. Still, every | job has its assholes and you were unlucky to encounter one. | JamesSwift wrote: | Thats.... the exact opposite of my experience lol. I was at | a 3 letter agency for ~5 years and close to everyone I knew | failed the first poly of every round. IMO its a ploy to | raise the stakes and get you on edge. | Cyberdog wrote: | Did they fail the polygraph? Or were they _told_ they | failed a sham polygraph in the hopes that they would | confess their crimes afterwards? The police do this | tactic often; if you are suspected of a crime, never | consent to a polygraph not done by a neutral party no | matter how not guilty you are, or you will probably | "fail." | | (Polygraphs are pseudoscientific BS in the first place, | but I know there are some cases where you must undergo | them for whatever reason.) | sizzzzlerz wrote: | I wonder if that's because you were working for the | agency instead of as a contractor. Since the testing | costs the company money, they might get pissed if too | many of their employees kept failing and require a | retest. For large contractors like LMSC or Raytheon, that | can be a sizeable expense. Of course, it goes into the | overhead charges when they bill but still, not something | they want. | JamesSwift wrote: | Well I was actually military (which is a non full-scope | poly) then contractor (full-scope poly) : ) | WrtCdEvrydy wrote: | Bro, they brought the girl that talked to me on campus to | confirm it was me at the polygraph. | ActorNightly wrote: | I got put in for a poly for one of my older job. Naturally | being of a rational mindset, I started googling how to beat a | poly. | | During the poly, few question in, guy asked me if I ever | looked up how to beat a poly. I naturally said yes cause I | was startled that this in fact could be one of the questions, | which automatically ended the interview. | | Thats when I realized that smart people don't work in the | government. | walrus01 wrote: | What if you're being recruited for a counterintelligence | job for a 3-letter agency and _part of the job definition_ | is being intimately familiar with the details of how | persons might attempt to beat a polygraph? That 's | definitely something a person in that specific field would | spend a good deal of time studying. | | I guess this is sort of a chicken/egg problem since you | can't or won't get hired from the job if you appear too | familiar with the workings of the recruitment process. But | then if you don't get hired, they might be leaving out one | of the better informed candidates. | | Anecdotally from the defense contractor industry I've known | a number of people who have a whole bookshelf of books on | subjects like cold war era espionage, are deeply familiar | with some of the most noteworthy moles/spies that were | publicly prosecuted and jailed (or north korean, chinese, | soviet officers and officials who were just straight out | executed with a bullet to the back of the head). It didn't | seem to prevent any of them from passing their clearances. | Some jobs want to know that you're motivated to learn the | subject matter at hand and research its past 60+ years of | history. | jredwards wrote: | I was proactively instructed by an O-6 (full bird colonel) to | lie on my application about drugs if I had ever used them. | Without even asking me if I had ever used drugs, he said, "I | don't care what the truth is, on the form you put no." This was | probably 20 years ago; I was pretty young. | stingraycharles wrote: | What would the ramifications be if they ever found out you | lied? It's an innocent lie, but still, I can imagine that lying | on these types of forms could turn out badly. | wesleyd wrote: | I assume it's to give you plenty of opportunities to lie. | | Revoking naturalization or a green card involves a huge legal | effort, but if it can be shown you lied on the application, | that's a much easier case. | | Many US laws seem to be designed for ease of prosecution than | for strict fairness. For example, open container laws are | probably easier to prosecute than drunk driving. | hotpotamus wrote: | Didn't the previous Executive Administration have a few | issues with their SF-86 forms? The fact that I remember the | form number leads me to believe it must have been in the news | a bit. I think they just had to fill out some amended forms | or something like that - didn't seem like a big deal. | r2_pilot wrote: | OPM had a security breach back in 2015 and the data on | these forms was stolen. | https://news.clearancejobs.com/2015/06/13/sf-86-stolen- | opm-h... | matwood wrote: | > It's an innocent lie | | It's not the lie itself, it's that you lied at all. Now you | are untrustworthy. Drug use in the past is typically not an | issue, particularly if you were young at the time. The whole | process is to determine if you have good judgement and can be | trusted. | eloisius wrote: | And to find out of you have secrets that other people could | use to get leverage over you. | Symmetry wrote: | Yes, but if you admit everything in your application | process then no leverage! And if you're in the habit of | admitting things then if some foreign agent get you to | commit some indiscretion in the future you might also | admit that rather than letting them blackmail you into | treason. | anthomtb wrote: | They would revoke your clearance. You would lose the job | which required the clearance. And you would never get cleared | again (source: happened to a now-former coworker). | eloisius wrote: | Perjury | stingraycharles wrote: | Exactly. So what is the best approach here? Ignore it? | Pretend to be of good faith? | jhart99 wrote: | The guidelines have changed in the last couple of years. | With the exception of certain agencies(FBI and DEA), drug | use is evaluated with the surrounding circumstances. They | treat I smoked pot once in college or I dealt pot or I am | currently addicted to heroin differently. | | The guidance these days is to tell the whole truth and | describe the circumstances. Lying on the form will | definitely disqualify you and a couple dumb things a few | years ago won't necessarily. | joxel wrote: | Don't apply | technothrasher wrote: | I don't know, likely at very least they would take away the | clearance. That was all over thirty years ago now and I have | nothing to do with anything that requires a clearance any | longer so I'm not overly worried about it at this point. | matwood wrote: | This is surprising because it's the exact wrong thing to do. | Past drug use will not disqualify you from a clearance, but | lying absolutely will. Depending on the clearance level they | will interview a number of people, including second degree | connections. I know someone who used to be an investigator, and | it surprised me when they told me how often first degree | connections would say bad things about their 'friend'. | [deleted] | DoctorOetker wrote: | I would also expect lying to be a bigger red flag compared to | past drug use, and while it seems these stories invalidate | such an idea, I believe they actually validate it: these are | stories of people who did get security clearance and they | were honest, the ripping up part is more like a symbolic | gesture from the system "let's both pretend none of that | happened". | | These stories don't mean the person would have past when | immediately denying the past offense... | | While growing up, and during my studies I had often | considered job roles where security clearances would | presumably be required, but I decided to stay away from that | world for multiple reasons: | | 1. when a sector is heavily propagandized / advertised in | media (books, films, ...) then usually it's to attract more | talent who wouldn't spontaneously apply. lots of people get | disillusioned in armies etc around the world, which is why | the experience is artificially inflated in movies etc... | | 2. I understand that in some situations people in certain job | roles need to sacrifice some of their personal freedoms in | order to protect the freedoms of the population at large, | think for example freedom of expression vs secrecy, and the | need of secrecy say among the Polish, French, British, ... in | the context of the cracking of the Enigma coding system. To | join and apply for security clearance entails signing away | certain rights and freedoms. The mere thought that the only | way to find out if that's a good decision or not is by taking | that decision for life is nauseating to me. Even if I were to | become an employee and the practical experience would be that | the organization and the individual that signed up agree on | the need for secrecy 99% of the time (which sounds very | optimistic), I would balk at that 1% or more of the time | where I disagree, where I might be convinced the secrecy is | creating more problems than solutions. That thought seems | unbearable to me, so I'd rather have no security clearance at | all and feel ... free. | berniedurfee wrote: | That's my understanding as well. Lying on a clearance | application is far worse than admitting to many criminal | acts. | | The thought is that someone could blackmail you into | revealing secrets by threatening to expose your lie, thus | causing you to losing your clearance, job or worse. | dragonwriter wrote: | > Lying on a clearance application is far worse than | admitting to many criminal acts. | | For one thing, admitting to past criminal acts doesn't | add a new criminal act with the statute of limitations | clock at 0, whereas lying in any official government | process, like a security clearance application, does. | Symmetry wrote: | That's been my impression with myself and several friends | going through the process. The defense establishment is | looking for honest people without drug abuse problems, not | people who've never tried a joint. But I understand the | opposite is true when applying for a job in law enforcement. | robcohen wrote: | Police typically have a 5 year period they want for zero | drug involvement. The military is more dependent on the | position and clearance level, but the max limit numbers are | arbitrarily set. They set the numbers high enough to make | recruiting possible, but it isn't based off of any science. | Symmetry wrote: | I meant that lying was more acceptable on police | applications because police, in the course of their | duties, often have to lie whether its telling a suspect | that you have proof of their guilt and they just need to | confess or using boilerplate language like "there was a | strong smell of marijuana" to justify a search in the | paperwork whether you smelled anything or not. | leoqa wrote: | This is absolutely not the case. Law enforcement | background checks are more intense than clearance, and | drug use policies are very black-white. | | The general principle is that you must be unimpeachable | such that your testimony is valid in court. | idontpost wrote: | [dead] | notch656c wrote: | In what country is this the case that police have | unimpeachable history? | leoqa wrote: | I'm mostly referring to federal law enforcement, I'm not | familiar with local police suitability (but I'm guessing | it's not nearly as well resourced as the feds). | notch656c wrote: | I wish my experiences with federal LEO in CBP could | reflect that. I've lived some corrupt ass places but | federal CBP officers take the cake. | porpoisemonkey wrote: | To reiterate half of what you've said, but maybe in a | slightly different way, the defense security clearance | process is designed to determine how likely you are to be | incentivized or coerced into revealing classified | information. | | The point of the deep dive is not to prove you've always | been an upstanding citizen, but to look for factors that | make you an easier target for foreign intelligence services | such as: | | 1. Do you have any financial problems that could make you | easier to buy off? (Bad credit, gambling problems) | | 2. Do you have any (real or perceived) addictions that | might impair your judgement or can be leveraged against | you? (drugs and DUIs) | | 3. Are you currently attempting to hide any criminal | activity that you could be blackmailed with? | | 4. Do you have any sensitive foreign connections or other | possible allegiances? | throwaway2016a wrote: | A friend of mine has the same experience. They answered yes | to the marijuana question and still got clearance. | | Another friend lied and said no (this was for a college | internship so I knew a couple people working there) and got | rejected once their story didn't check out with their | personal references. | sybercecurity wrote: | The interview/form is looking for potential blackmail or | tendency to lie or obscure facts. If you are honest, that's | fine, although they sometimes ask that you are currently | using as well and that is a strike against you. | evouga wrote: | I was talking to an NSA recruiter last year, though, and | they told me they routinely report applicants to the FBI | for confessing to crimes during a polygraph. So damned if | you do, damned if you don't... | | (For a recruiter he did an uncanny job at convincing me | _never_ to work for the NSA) | gateorade wrote: | I mean, that might be true if someone confesses to | heinous/violent crimes (and shouldn't they?) but its | definitely not true for things like minor drug use/sale | etc. | CrazyPyroLinux wrote: | See also https://antipolygraph.org/ | sailfast wrote: | This is the right answer. Drug use (outside the past 12 | months) should not rule you out for clearances. | TigeriusKirk wrote: | Right after high school a friend of mine went into the | military and needed a clearance for his assigned job on a | nuclear missile submarine. Investigators came around and | asked his friends back home about him, we all lied a little | in his favor. I remember explicitly thinking at the time "Of | course people's friends are going to lie a little for them. | What's the point in asking these questions?" | | Then I realized the real red flag would be if you weren't | stable enough to have friends who would help you out a bit. | KMag wrote: | Yea, sounds like terrible advice. I tried pot a couple of | times in college, honestly really disliked what it did to my | memory, and disclosed it on my EPSQ 2.2 clearance paperwork. | I had absolutely no problems. The background check folks | never even asked me about it. | | The main reasons people betray their country are MICE (Money, | Ideology, Coercion, Ego). Drugs might be expensive (money), | might themselves be a secret you hold (coercion/blackmail) or | might cause you to do dumb blackmailable things (e.g. fall | into a honey trap). So, that's what background check folks | are looking for w.r.t. drugs. | | Hiding drug use makes it look like maybe it could be used to | blackmail you, and suggests that maybe you're hiding other | things. | | Also, they're looking for people who follow the rules, won't | bring classified material home, won't try to impress people | by revealing classified info, etc. | walrus01 wrote: | The "MICE" model of understanding behavior like Robert | Hanssen, etc has also been extended to RASCLS: | | http://dustinkmacdonald.com/recruiting-intelligence- | assets-w... | | https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox- | b-d&q=RASCLS+in... | notafraudster wrote: | Yeah. My father didn't do secure work, but he was an | immigrant to the country where I was born. As part of the | immigration process, he was asked whether he had ever been | arrested (maybe it was charged, I don't recall and he's long | gone so I can't ask). He said "no". In fact, he had been | arrested as a pre-teen for stealing an idling tractor and | joyriding in rural post-war England. Immigration authorities | don't care that a teen went for a joyride on a tractor. They | care that he lied. Took a bunch of lawyering and paperwork to | resolve the issue. | | I guess fundamentally the distinction is "if they can catch | you, tell the truth, and if they can't, make yourself look | good", but I guess it can be hard to know. | walrus01 wrote: | On the other hand, you can answer this too truthfully and | just screw yourself up for no reason. Example: I know | Afghan former translators/employees for ISAF projects who | have been arrested by Pakistani "authorities", local police | in various cities just for the purpose of shaking them down | for bribes/money. | | I can _guarantee_ you that no record of any such arrest | exists in paper or electronic form anywhere in a database | that can be queried in Pakistan, even _if_ US immigration | authorities had a way to get cooperation from Pakistani | federal police authorities without involving very high- | level diplomatic contacts. Answering truthfully on a | question like that will just fuck up your own case. | | Is it still being legitimately arrested if you've been | detained unlawfully for a shakedown by corrupt police? The | same happens in many developing nations. It's actually more | like being _kidnapped_. | | Some of the process of using other data sources to verify | that what a person has said is truthful/factually accurate | only works if you're dealing with people coming from places | with non-corrupted legitimate record keeping and | bureaucratic processes. | [deleted] | cardiffspaceman wrote: | But what if you said you were kidnapped by people in | police uniforms and forced to pay a ransom? | walrus01 wrote: | 'have you ever been kidnapped' is a different question | than 'have you ever been arrested', I suppose. | cardiffspaceman wrote: | So in context, they ask if you've been arrested, you say | no. But this is because you characterize an incident as | unlawful, while others characterize it as a lawful | arrest. | godelski wrote: | I'd be careful, a friend of mine answered yes (and doesn't | smoke anymore/at the time of the question) and got denied a | clearance for it. But we can also see others who are | suggesting interviewers are pressuring them into a "no" | answer, which I had some personal experience with. But it | seems different people are having different experiences. I | understand why people lie though. | | I always found this odd too because I agree with the | sentiment that you're expressing. It's always been told to me | that the reason they don't want people with a history of drug | usage (different from current usage) is that it can be used | as blackmail against them. But the explanation of blackmail | is that it can get them fired, from a job where the only | reason that happens is because you lied on your clearance. | Wouldn't they want no skeletons in the closet? | DontchaKnowit wrote: | I was _completely honest_ on my form. | | E.g. i admitted to drug use, but the firm was so insanely | detailed there was no way to be fully honest. It literally | asked how many times youve done each drug, who with, whered you | get etc. Well for a raging polysubstance addict, this is | hilarious. Just listing all the differe t drugs would take more | room than there was on the forum and that doesnt even start to | account for all the tertiary information they wanted. | | I got interviewed of course. Was a very weird experience | sitting in an office in my workplace 14 feet from my boss | talking about "yeah I did cocain a few times" "why did you | stop" "well it feels good but it makes you act brazen, selfish, | and flippant. Also it sucks to be around people who are coked | up" | | Anyway, I got the clearance | walrus01 wrote: | The fact that you frankly acknowledged the drawbacks and | foolishness of casual cocaine use, with the benefit of | additional age/maturity/experience, reflecting upon your own | actions as a younger person is probably why they cleared you. | | Additionally they were looking for any hint that you might | have had an ongoing/current drug habit where you would either | be vulnerable to financial pressure or societal coercion from | drug dealers/persons associated with drug dealers, and that | they they believed you were no longer a user was likely a | factor. | nunez wrote: | This is a common one. You try something in the same year you | (unknowingly) need to apply for a clearance. | sailfast wrote: | This response is a really bad idea, and I think the security | office people that recommend this are actually compromising | security by making value judgments about what is and isn't | relevant to background investigators based on their own | personal beliefs. If this came to light they might get fired, | despite it being way too normalized. | | The conventional wisdom is to answer truthfully, and justify | your answers. You really don't want to get caught lying. It's | not up to the person asking you to fill out the form to tell | you what to list and what not to list. | | If the government can't find enough qualified people they need | to adapt the process (and they have). Some things are 100% | dealbreakers and should have been changed a long time ago (see | local Marijuana jurisdiction laws), but I'm a firm believer you | shouldn't lie to get the job. Find another one and move on. My | .02. | grishka wrote: | My only experience with serious US government forms was | applying for a tourist visa. This form also has some bonkers | checkboxes like "do you plan to commit any crimes in the US". | | Also the entry form they give you on your flight deserves a | mention. This one has "did you handle livestock in the last X | months" repeated like 3 times in different phrasing. Not as | stupid as the first one, but... why? Why is that question that | important in the first place? Pest control? | ahoho wrote: | It's about disease prevention (mad cow, avian flus, etc) | kemayo wrote: | I got an immigration official very worried when I was asked | whether I'd ever been convicted of any "crimes of moral | turpitude" and asked whether they could tell me what that | meant before I answered. They had to go print out a | dictionary definition. | | (I had never been convicted of any crimes, so admittedly I | could have just said "no" without causing a scene.) | dbspin wrote: | The livestock question might have been added during the Foot | and Mouth epidemic, which could be spread on footwear and | necessitated the destruction of livestock in the millions in | Ireland and the UK | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001_United_Kingdom_foot- | and-m... | archon1410 wrote: | > destruction of livestock | | Such a tragic, disgusting euphemism for the murder of | millions, without them getting to devour their corpses. | dbspin wrote: | Please don't equate the death of people with the death of | non human animals. It's not useful and it's needlessly | inflammatory. Murder is defined as the unlawful | premeditated killing of one human being by another. The | term doesn't apply to deaths in battle, through | negligence, or by execution, however distasteful we might | find those things. It also doesn't apply to the killing | of animals - whatever ones moral perspective on the | matter. | | Just rhetorically, using inflammatory terminology isn't | going to convert anyone to vegetarianism / veganism. For | those of us who've lost friends and relatives to murder | (including myself unfortunately), it's profoundly | distasteful. | archon1410 wrote: | > Murder is defined as the unlawful premeditated killing | of one human being by another. | | Surely this is not as easy as just pointing out the | 'correct' definition of words. The difference between | "execution", various other forms of killing you mention, | and murder can't be so clear that you can easily say "it | doesn't apply in this case". | | > not useful | | More than rhetoric and saying what is useful, sometimes I | just feel like I should be saying what I find to be true. | After billions and trillions of 'killings', with people | saying 'useful', definitinly correct things in response, | I just want to be more honest, sometimes--instead of | pretending I don't find certain things disgusting, | distasteful, vile etc for the sake of garnering | 'converts'. I am not running an evangelism program--I'll | leave that to the experts. They will perform like the | they do regardless of what I say. Maybe honesty is the | more useful policy in the long term. | floren wrote: | The federal and state departments of agriculture go to great | efforts to control agricultural diseases. Others have | mentioned foot and mouth, but there are lots of other things. | For instance, half of Washington State is declared an "Apple | Maggot Quarantine Area" | (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Maggot_Quarantine_Area) | where it's illegal to bring in homegrown / wild-picked fruit | lest you infect Eastern Washington's massive apple orchards. | A couple years back the Governor very publicly violated that | long-standing order: | https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2020/sep/16/inslee- | brings-... | thaumasiotes wrote: | > half of Washington State is declared an "Apple Maggot | Quarantine Area" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Maggo | t_Quarantine_Area) where it's illegal to bring in homegrown | / wild-picked fruit lest you infect Eastern Washington's | massive apple orchards. | | The article you link suggests that the quarantine area is | the region from which it's illegal to bring fruit _out_. | | The wikipedia article also does something interesting where | it describes a mature fly as being an "apple maggot". I | would have thought that the term "maggot" referred | exclusively to the larval form. | TeMPOraL wrote: | Isn't a mature fly just a maggot delivery vehicle? | pedrovhb wrote: | Ah, the "are you a terrorist" section of the U.S. visa | application is hilarious. I was honestly laughing out loud at | some of the questions, imagining a sincere terrorist having | their plan foiled by their strict moral code which requires | them to lay out in detail their plan to topple the government | :) | apricot wrote: | I am reminded of the (probably apocryphal) story about a | logician asking for a visa to enter the US for a | conference. When he got to the question "Do you plan to | overthrow the United States Government by force or | violence?" he hesitated and then answered "violence". | turminal wrote: | There's a true story about Kurt Godel's citizenship | application: | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del%27s_Loophole#Bac | kgr... | thechao wrote: | > Other writers have speculated that Godel may have had | other parts of the Constitution in mind as well, | including the possibility that a partisan ratchet effect, | via lifetime Supreme Court appointments and selective | application of the law, could permanently stack the | Supreme Court with Justices of one political persuasion. | | This is mentioned in the article. It's a pretty standard | way to overthrow democracies -- it subverts the system, | using the system. | idontpost wrote: | [dead] | Jerrrry wrote: | That is still the last question asked on the eQuip, and | it has been reworded, implying that yes, this likely did | happen. | | And my delayed response likewise agitated the Mr 202 area | code spec agent. | red-iron-pine wrote: | It's mostly so that someone can't say "well you never | asked!" -- okay fine we'll ask from now on. | | Additionally it creates a condition of jeopardy, because | now you've made an official statement, and if it's false | you're now potentially chargeable for perjury or making | false official statements. So if you're a super-slick spy | type and they can't pin something on you conclusively, but | are sure you're up to something (in the same way they could | only get Al Capone for tax evasion), then at least it gives | them a pretext to take action and charge or deport you. | bloak wrote: | I heard about a company web site that had a tick box like | that on their download page. Unfortunately they got it the | wrong way round so you had to claim to be a terrorist (or | intending to build a nuclear weapon: I forget exactly what | it was) in order to download the software. The story is | that the web site was broken like that for about six months | but it didn't stop hundreds of thousands of downloads from | taking place. I hope no poor bastard in the FBI was tasked | with investigating every case. | [deleted] | ArnoVW wrote: | I've always understood that those questions are just a | legal construct to be able to get you out of the country in | case of issues. | | No need to prosecute for expulsion if there were lies on | the immigration form; it becomes just an administrative | matter. | [deleted] | owlbite wrote: | My understanding was it also helped firmly establish | federal wrongdoing rather than merely state. | dilznoofus wrote: | I mean, yeah. It's like gun laws that prohibit having a | joint whilst commit armed robbery or whatever - it's not | actually trying to stop the behavior, merely empower the | prosecutor after the fact. | | But, hey, there might be a true believer on the T-side! | God says you're not supposed to lie, so it's a real | Catch-22 - 'Render unto Caesar the evidence he deserves.' | notch656c wrote: | It's my understanding that same law about the joint still | applies just for having an otherwise lawful firearm in | the safe doing nothing. | | Disclaimer: not legal advice, for entertainment value | only. | rwky wrote: | The UK visa application has the same questions pretty much | identical. Also made me laugh! | rospaya wrote: | The UK also had a question about communist party | membership on their visa application. Funny thing is that | the UK also has a communist party. | rwmj wrote: | The funniest thing is people now in government were | members: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/a | ug/01/why-jo... | Cyberdog wrote: | The US has this question as well, but I've heard that it | didn't eliminate people from China who were able to make | a "I had to join the party to get a certain job" | argument. I presume that as long as you don't voice | actual support for the revolutionary aspects of the | ideology, the migra won't care. | grishka wrote: | Hm. I had multiple UK visas (but only visited once lol) | and I don't remember that. Granted, all of those visas | were applied for with assistance from the job I had at | the time. The entry form was also much more boring. | n0tth3dro1ds wrote: | Foot and mouth disease (and others) | rjsw wrote: | It also used to have a question "Are you a gunrunner", any | computer person had to lie and answer "NO" to it. At the | time, strong cryptographic algorithms on your laptop counted | as a munition. | rqtwteye wrote: | In the 90s we had to fill out a form when dealing with Apple | to certify that we didn't plan to build nuclear weapons. | Scoundreller wrote: | That's still a thing. I know I signed pages and pages of | stuff like that requesting a sample of 5 ancient TTL chips | from Texas Instruments. | | Part of it is liability (tho I like to think they send the | most reliable parts on sample orders), but also ITAR. | deutschepost wrote: | I heard a pretty good interpretation of why these questions | exist. If you say that you don't plan to commit crimes and | then commit one, you have essentially lied on the form. In | some cases at least it is way easier for the state to deport | someone if they lie on their immigration form. But if the | question wasn't there you would have to go through the whole | legal process. | | On the other hand, if you answer yes to this question they | will probably don't let you into the country... But I can't | say for sure. | jstanley wrote: | But you might legitimately not be planning to commit any | crimes, but then change your mind once you get there. The | fact that you committed a crime after saying you weren't | planning to do so does not mean that you were lying. | Spooky23 wrote: | Cool. Hopefully you have $150k to hire the attorneys to | argue that, and deal with the trainload of stuff that | will come your way when they do. | godelski wrote: | Or worse, what if you accidentally commit a crime? Not | all crimes are obvious and something that can be normal | in one country can be criminal in another. For example, | jay walking (crossing the street not at an intersection | (when an intersection is not reasonably near by)). Or | something else silly like that. | sealeck wrote: | Are you a lawyer? | | :D | ipaddr wrote: | Ask 5 lawyers and get 5 answers. Either way it doesn't | matter unless that person is your lawyer. | | I would have ask if they were a judge. At least they are | tasked with weighing the facts and deciding and not | fighting for one point of view | TeMPOraL wrote: | > _I would have ask if they were a judge. At least they | are tasked with weighing the facts and deciding and not | fighting for one point of view_ | | But then in the US it still wouldn't matter unless they | are _your_ judge. | LudwigNagasena wrote: | Why would it be easier to deport someone for lying on a | form rather than for being a terrorist? | allan_s wrote: | If i was to guess i would say the same as for Al capone, | easier to prosecute for an administrative issue for which | there is clear evidence and a fast-lane of application | rather than go through heavy procedure required for heavy | crime for which you may not have clear evidence | Spooky23 wrote: | It's cheaper to demonstrate a lie than to have people | testify, etc. | rodgerd wrote: | If I said, in the US, "Peter Thiel is a woman-hating | monster and the country would be better if he and every | politician on his payroll was swinging from a lamppost | Mussolini style" it would be difficult to make any case | that I was doing anything not covered by first amendment | protections. | | If I'm a visitor to the country and say the same thing | having signed an affirmation that I'm not going to | advocate for violent overthrow of the US government it's | not a first amendment case, it's a lying-on-immigration- | forms case and out I do. | kortilla wrote: | I don't think death threats are covered by the first | amendment. | notch656c wrote: | This is not legal advice but I think they are. See | Brandenburg v Ohio. | | "Brandenburg was convicted of violating a criminal law | that prohibited speech that advocates crime, sabotage, | violence, and other similar acts after he spoke at a KKK | rally. The Supreme Court found that the law infringed on | Brandenburg's First Amendment rights, and created the | imminent lawless action test. In order for speech to fall | out of First Amendment protection, it must 1) be directed | at producing imminent lawless action and 2) it is likely | to produce such action." | | I think there is an exception for ones made against | certain public officials, which IMO are likely | unconstitutional, but no one is really excited about | challenging those. | | https://www.thefire.org/supreme-court/brandenburg-v-ohio | Delphiza wrote: | The Oz government used some similar loophole (or | threatened to use it) with the Djokovic covid saga at the | Australian open. As I recall, a judge said that he could | get a visa for whatever covid medical exemption reasons, | but on his immigration form he said that he hadn't been | travelling elsewhere. Social media proved otherwise, so | he was caught in an easily provable lie on an immigration | form. He was then able to be refused entry for reasons | unreleated to the covid rules. In the end, they didn't | have to rule on whether or not the Oz tennis association | could issue a medical exemption for covid - they could | kick him out on a much clearer legal basis. I don't | recall the exact details, but that is the gist of some of | the legal drama. | ipaddr wrote: | All it did was reflect poorly on Australia. | wongarsu wrote: | If they commit a crime there is the question of whether | they should be imprisoned or deported. That likely | involves a court case, something US prosecutors famously | hate (just look at all the plea bargains). | | If you lie on your immigration form, you gained entry | under false pretenses. Nothing complicated or grey about | that. | SkeuomorphicBee wrote: | Because you need proof, and proving that someone is a | terrorist is a long expensive and not guarantied process, | while the lying on a form thing is purposefully self | evident. | Wowfunhappy wrote: | But if you haven't proven they are a terrorist, how can | you prove they are lying about being a terrorist? | | They might not be a terrorist, in which case they weren't | lying. | wholinator2 wrote: | Well the form doesn't literally ask, "are you a | terrorist? ". It's just a bunch of terroristic and | criminal activities. So if you said no to "do you plan to | commit any crimes" and then you rob a store or God forbid | actually commit terrorism, which is a crime, you've lied | on the form and can be expelled quickly | pokot0 wrote: | Jaywalking is illegal. It doesn't have to be the same | illegal thing they want you out for. They're just giving | them more options. | bbarnett wrote: | The Freedom to Walk act, in California, just made it | legal. (Not relevant to your point, just a side bit of | interesting info). | | edit: | | Huh. These guys: | | https://www.dlawgroup.com/california-freedom-to-walk-act- | for... | | claim it is still illegal, but cannot be ticketed for | without certain conditions. I wonder why, or if, this | weird condition exists. | | (I see it is supposedly to prevent police harassment, but | that doesn't explain the weird legal status) | Zak wrote: | The main purpose is likely to allow the police to cite a | pedestrian who is at fault for an accident, which helps | protect the other parties involved from civil liability. | bbarnett wrote: | The law could be rewritten to take that into | consideration. The current exception even has language in | it to delineate its use. | bbarnett wrote: | It _may_ be burden of proof. Where I live, criminal court | is to be thought of as 99% proof of guilt, where as | _civil_ court, eg being sued, is more like 50.1%. | | So maybe an expulsion tribunal is 50.1% too? | jrumbut wrote: | I doubt that this is the logic but there are different | standards of evidence. If the traveler faces a criminal | charge they'll get an attorney and the government will | need to prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt. | | In a civil case, it's likely to be about the | preponderance of evidence and in front of some non-court | administrative body there may be no particular standard | of evidence at all. | akiselev wrote: | Immigration courts aren't real courts and the judges are | part of the executive branch (Department of Justice), not | the judicial branch [1]. | | Their evidentiary standards are closer to "nonexistent" | than to preponderance of evidence. | | [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_Judge_(Un | ited_St... | vilhelm_s wrote: | Yes, pest control. E.g. foot-and-mouth disease is eradicated | from the U.S. and cattle here are no longer vaccinated, but | it's common in Asia and Africa and there are occasional | outbreaks in South America. Even a single outbreak imported | from abroad could cost billions of dollars, mostly because it | would trigger international embargos preventing exports. [htt | ps://www.ers.usda.gov/webdocs/publications/45980/12171_er...] | Vrondi wrote: | Diseases. The livestock thing is related to diseases. Are you | carrying the new strain of swine flu inside your body? | adbachman wrote: | I can say confidently that asking potential refugees--who | were born and have lived in a refugee camp for their entire | lives--if they intend to pirate software when they are in the | US is hilarious to refugee officers, too. In some languages | it takes a lot of explanation to even get to a yes or no. | | It's exclusively asked as a, "turns out you lied, that's | perjury" question to make deportation easier in criminal | cases. | NovemberWhiskey wrote: | My father got caught at an agricultural inspection entering | the U.S. with an apple he'd picked up in a business class | lounge and forgotten about. He got special treatment every | time he entered the U.S. for about the next five years. | dragonwriter wrote: | > This form also has some bonkers checkboxes like "do you | plan to commit any crimes in the US". | | The point of this is not to get people to admit their plans. | | Its to convert having those inchoate plans into a crime | (fraud against the government) that can be prosecuted if | discovered without any criminal act after entry (and can be | used, with a reduced proof threshold compared to prosecuting | crime, as a basis to withdraw status and deny any future | application.) | anthomtb wrote: | My first clearance interview, about 10 years ago, it was all | going along just fine. I had the standard litany of "bad" | things any early 20-something American guy gets into - a few | mushroom trips, an alcohol ticket, friends from foreign | countries. No deal-breakers so long as you are honest and I | answered honestly. | | The only stumbling block came when the interviewer asked "have | you smoked marijuana?". I truthfully answered no. The | interviewer suddenly changed from bored old lady to the | hardened, ex-cop that I suspect she was, glared into my soul | and asked again. "No", I answered once again. "Well, that does | not check out with your background. We will have to ask around | on that one." She did ask around, my friends corroborated my | story and I got the clearance. | | My background involved undergrad education at a #1 party | school, in a college town where open marijuana usage was common | well before being legalized. And I had casual experimentation | with other drugs (the aforementioned shrooms) and plenty of | alcohol usage. I was probably the _only_ one in my college | acquaintance circle that didn 't smoke on a semi-regular basis. | I sometimes think I could have lied and said "yes I smoked | weed", and still gotten the clearance. It would have actually | been less of a red flag for the investigator(s). | favorited wrote: | Not related to a security clearance, but a coworker at a | summer job in high school was applying to be a police | officer. He was told to answer "yes" when they asked if he | had ever smoked pot, because anyone answering "no" was | presumed to be dishonest. | Cyberdog wrote: | Interesting, but not at all surprising, to learn how early | cops are trained to lie for the "greater good." | MrVandemar wrote: | "Power attracts the corruptable". | chiefgeek wrote: | I filled out DoD form for TS clearance years ago and answered | honestly that I had smoked weed and done coke in college. | That's what my boss said to do. He said if they caught you in | a lie you were finished because that meant you could be | blackmailed. | | EDIT to add: Ironically he had gotten in trouble for phone | phreaking as a teenager. | notch656c wrote: | Anyone can be blackmailed. | | If the thing you did was less bad than the penalty for | treason or revealing secrets (life in prison and/or death) | then the blackmail argument falls apart. It's just more | irrational hocus pocus by self-important bureaucrats. Hell | the thing you're blackmailing doesn't even have to be true, | they can just find an ex lover and blackmail _that_ person | to say you raped them or whatever, and well even if you | beat the charges your kids get tossed into DCS /foster care | your life is ruined etc etc. | | Yet another reason why I'll never work for the government. | nl wrote: | For many people this isn't true. | | It's not uncommon for people to _commit suicide_ over | things they are being blackmailed about. | | Plus people doing the blackmailing aren't stupid. They | don't go "we know you lied on your clearance form about | smoking weed once. Get us that top secret document!" | | They start with something much lower risk and then | leverage compliance into higher and higher value targets. | notch656c wrote: | I don't see much functional difference between outcomes | of committing suicide because you were blackmailed | regarding a fake but believable rape accusation vs say | blackmailed because someone found out you grew a bad | plant. In the end though suicide seems like an honorable | pick if the binary option is that or revealing life-or- | death secrets to the enemy. | | The US has such insane conspiracy laws frankly it isn't | much effort for a few motivated individuals let alone a | state actor to blackmail someone for the worst of false | offenses using some corrupt "witnesses." Maybe before the | war on drugs it was easier to blackmail someone with real | offenses than fake ones but nowadays it's probably easier | to manufacture them TBH. | chiefgeek wrote: | Yes, I did not particularly enjoy the two and a half | years with that division! | [deleted] | cfeduke wrote: | I had a somewhat similar experience with the polygraph | portion of my clearance process - apparently its common to | calibrate the machine to the subject by asking "have you ever | smoked marijuana" and they expect you to lie and say "no" but | then sometimes people have never smoked marijuana. | geepound wrote: | >"Here, fill it out again and don't mention that." | | >I had the exact same experience when applying for a clearance | while I was in college | | Speaking as someone on the autistic spectrum, this is why the | entire clearance process is a joke and has been since I had the | misfortune of meeting some of these spooks as a child. | | They _claim_ that the one thing that will preclude you is | lying, but obviously as posts like these demonstrate, that 's | not the case. | | I still remember going on a date with a woman who was recently | divorced... she told me about traveling up and down Baja | California for RAND (smoking her brains out along the way). | | I've met a ton of these people -- they'd have been precluded | from federal employment back in the day just for being | divorced... or a woman... or a myriad of other things... but | somehow they manage to get these cushy roles and cling to them. | | I've since quit doing any job interviews... at all. I got the | sense folks were treating them like free consulting sessions, | so I'm very purposefully showing up in the comments when | something comes up in the news and refusing to "stop posting". | | At the end of the day, if you "do a clearance", you're helping | perpetuate war crimes, and it's been that way since Iraq, | arguably as far back as when the draft ended. | | (I got the sense they, the royal they, "the feds" were | aggrieved I kept applying to the agencies in my hometown, but | hey, I was born here, and I'm not required to ignore antisocial | behavior. It's not my fault if it begins to look like you're | abusing someone you met as a child -- denying them employment | in the private sector then overpolicing their applications in | the public service) | kemayo wrote: | It seems pretty common. | | My spouse was considering applying to the Air Force almost 20 | years ago (for the language learning school), and got the | recruiter very excited after demonstrating excellent scores on | the ASVAB... then it all fell apart after they answered some | questions honestly about past depression and refused to lie | about it on the forms as the recruiter wanted them to. | yterdy wrote: | You got off easy. I once had to apply for a clearance for an | admin assistant position, coming out of college (which was | certainly overkill; I never once came into contact with | classified material, with the closest I ever got being walking | past the building's one-room SCIF while seeking signatures for | textbook order authorizations). When I got to that question, I | truthfully answered that my single brush with mind-altering | substances had been an edible a peer had passed me, after he | realized that I was having trouble relaxing during a | particularly difficult time, senior year. Back in then-present | day, my boss had gone over the application, tsked, asked why | I'd mentioned it, tsked again, and said that it was too late to | remove, since she'd already seen it. It was sent off without | another word. | | My reserved, nerdy self was replacing her bubbly English major | bestie, so I don't think she liked me much from jump, anyway. | dmd wrote: | On a life insurance form, I was asked "Has a doctor ever | advised you to stop taking any drugs (including prescription | medications)?" | | I called up and asked them what to do about this question, | because obviously the answer is yes if you include prescription | medications. They didn't even understand what I was asking. | none_to_remain wrote: | Story I was told once was | | Feds: Do you use drugs? Guy: Yes. Feds: Do you plan to stop? | Guy: No. | | The feds went away and conferred briefly and then came back and | told the guy that they needed him to at least _say_ he planned | to stop, so he said that, and got the clearance. | jawadch93 wrote: | [dead] | raldi wrote: | It's an ironic anti-aptonym that someone named "Les Earnest" was | exceptionally truthful when filling out his security clearance. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2023-01-19 23:00 UTC)