At the Pentagon’s request, Senate defense authorizers tucked deep within a defense bill a repeal of the department’s restriction on granting security clearances to ex-convicts, drug addicts and the mentally incompetent.
The repeal provision now is creating discord between the Senate Armed Services and the Intelligence committees. In its markup of the 2008 defense authorization bill, the Intelligence panel voted to delete the Armed Services provision.
The fate of the provision could become a flashpoint this week as the Senate takes up the bill.
The Senate Armed Services panel seeks to repeal a seven-year-old law that established mandatory standards disqualifying certain people from receiving security clearances.
Under the law, members of the military services, employees of the Department of Defense or contractors working for the Pentagon cannot receive a security clearance if they were convicted of a crime in any U.S. court and went to prison for at least one year; if they are unlawful users of illegal substances; if they are considered mentally incompetent or if they were dishonorably discharged or dismissed from the armed forces.
Three ways to look at this, I guess:
1.) The Pentagon and the Armed Forces have suddenly decided they believe in rehabiliation.
2.) The military and defense establishment are so broken and desparate for recruits that they have to relax EVERY standard in place in order to have enough bodies.
3.) The military and defense department are concerned that after the Bush administration, so many Republicans are going to have criminal records that they won’t be able to staff all their positions.
scav
well, the “mentally incompetent” add-in would retroactively cover the CiC…… no? Sort of a two-fer with all the criminal record elements touched on in point 3)
Snarky Shark
All of the above.
Zifnab
Please. Like Cheney even lets his sock-puppet read anything with security clearance. Bush had a hard enough time with “My Pet Goat”.
Wilfred
Is that the Eliot Abrams/Neocon clause? The one year prison condition seems to have been written with Presidential pardons in mind.
RSA
Just who I want to have security clearances: drug-addled, mentally incompetent ex-convicts. I feel safer already.
Cyrus
#2 seems most likely to me, and agrees with lots of stuff I seem to recall reading elsewhere. While the idea of lifting the ban might not be a horrible idea — if someone did their time, that should probably be it, etc. — this will go wrong like everything else related to the war. To me, the real scandal here seems to be the provision “tucked deep within a defense bill”, which makes it sound like not everyone who voted on the bill was aware of it. Sure, that’s not new either, but it’s also bad and stuff.
Dennis-SGMM
A couple of years ago one of the neighbor kids dropped by to proudly announce that he’d joined the Army and that he would be going to boot camp then to jump school to train as an Airborne Ranger.
I knew the young man well because he had been in Special Ed classes with my autistic son throughout Middle and High School so I was more than surprised that the Army had enlisted him. Nonetheless, I congratulated him and wished him good luck.
A few weeks later, his father told me that he’d returned home. That was all he said and I didn’t ask. The young man has not left the house since.
The heartless SOB who recruited that kid and the heartless, brainless SOB who made recruiting such kids necessary by starting an unnecessary war should burn in Hell.
Jake
I pick Number 3.
Unless those bodies are gay bodies. Remember: Gays & Lesbians = Bad for morale. Crazy, drug addicted, ex-cons = Good for morale.
I suppose allowing people back in after a dishonorable discharge might cover people kicked out under DADT a second chance. If it doesn’t, DoD sucks. If it does, it still sucks.
Sure, come on back, just sit over there on the Group W bench with the mother rapers and father stabbers.
Arseholes.
Crust
I guess a fourth possibility is for some reason they affirmatively want to grant security clearances to selected people with criminal backgrounds for certain roles. I’m thinking something like drug dealers in Iran Contra. That’s no less crazy than the other three possible reasons. Still crazy, though.
scav
Leaving the docs out loose when the sock puppet is around at least gives you another layer of plausible deniability and a little extra executive privilege to fling about with the feces. Or, if you’re really concerned about security, don’t leave the papers loose and throw the sock puppet in the man-size safe with them.
SPIIDERWEB™
I would go with 2 and 3.
Just my opinion which is worth exactly what it’s costing you.
RandyH
This applies to civilian employees and defense contractors as well. This is something that Cheney/Rumsfeld would have needed in order to employ or give contracts to many of their neo-con friends. They would only go to such lengths to protect one of their own.
John Bode
Crust’s hypothesis actually sounds the most likely to me, at least as far as criminal convictions and drug use go. The mentally incompetent provision I don’t quite get.
Then again, if talking points are to be “treated as” Top Secret/SCI, one could make the case that mental competence isn’t much of a concern anymore.
grumpy realist
Warm bodies. They don’t care. Just as long as they have sufficient warm bodies to throw into the meat-grinder.
Hey, Mr. President, why don’t you get your daughters to sign up if this “war” is as important as you claim it is?
scarshapedstar
Somehow I suspect the “drug addicts” part isn’t entirely unrelated to the CiC, either.
George B.
As an alcoholic, drug addict, and criminal, I feel very positive about this development.
Andrew
Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you what is now the most prescient line in movie history:
“Don’t worry scrote. There are plenty of ‘tards out there living really kick ass lives. My first wife was ‘tarded. She’s a pilot now.”
I just hadn’t realized she was in the military.
Tsulagi
From that three-way buffet, I’ll go with a bit of #2 and a slice of #3.
Also a selection of #4. The article you linked to mentions there is already a waiver process to allow in the convicted drug using mentally incompetents. But there is a 18 month backlog in processing.
See, that’s the problem! Not enough people like Bush getting into the Pentagon fast enough.
Jeff A
Well, while it could be some combo of all three, I’ve got my money on option 3. :-)
Nancy Irving
Do you have to be drug-addicted, convicted AND mentally-incompetent to qualify, or will just one do?
Jon H
“Unless those bodies are gay bodies. Remember: Gays & Lesbians = Bad for morale. Crazy, drug addicted, ex-cons = Good for morale.”
Oddly enough, if homosexuality were still considered a mental illness, they’d be okay to serve now!
rachel
Oh, the poor boy… Can anything be done to cheer him up?
Pete Guither
Paragraph 1: “drug addicts”
Paragraph 5: “unlawful users of illegal substances”
Which is it? These are not equivalent terms by any means. Plenty of drug addicts are not unlawful users of illegal substances, and most unlawful users of illegal substances are not drug addicts.
Pete Guither
Paragraph 1: “drug addicts”
Paragraph 5: “unlawful users of illegal substances”
Which is it? These are not equivalent terms by any means. Plenty of drug addicts are not unlawful users of illegal substances, and most unlawful users of illegal substances are not drug addicts.