Friend of mine is head of IT for some government agency. Not a spooky one - just a routine agency. However, given the nature of IT and the data they need to store - they are required to get security clearance.
For him it's been a minor nuisance at worst. He has strong restrictions on travel. I think he needs approval to travel abroad. He has relatives in other countries and visits them often, so it can't be too much of a nuisance.
I believe he told me that he does have to report details of where he went in each country and who he interacted with upon his return. Not sure about the details.
Things may have changed, but in my prior life when I had a clearance, for example, dating (or marrying for that matter) a foreign national would result in heavy vetting, including possibly losing your clearance and/or being terminated.
Don't do drugs (including marijuana), don't get blackout drunk, don't talk about your work, don't need psychiatric help...
For the last sentence...Trump had all sorts of clearance when he clearly should not have. But he was in an important position.
Putting aside the politics of it for a second, all clearence stems from the executive branch which stems from the president. Saying the president shouldn't have clearance doesn't make a lot of sense, he's the one who authorized it. He's the one who decides who gets it.
Anyone who thinks differently is arguing for a shadow gov, i.e. unelected bureaucrats who answer to no one and can make decisions unilaterally without consequence... not exactly democracy.
> Anyone who thinks differently is arguing for a shadow gov, i.e. unelected bureaucrats who answer to no one and can make decisions unilaterally without consequence... not exactly democracy.
Lots of countries have an establishment "civil service" comprised of those "unelected bureaucrats" that you mention, and it actually works out quite well for them.
That said, they aren't unaccountable: they answer to departmental heads, MPs, committees, etc. A big advantage of the system is to prevent mad-swings in policy just because the head-of-government changed.
Yes, of course - but if a country already had a well-oiled establishment civil-service which kept its finger on the pulse of the nation then it would already be aligned with the electorates' interests and voting-intent.
Any power structure naturally seeks permanence. Democratic elections with short office terms goes against the nature. If we are not vigilant, shadowy forces will take control of this mechanism too. Some could argue it already has happened.
That statement wasn't about politics at all. Let me put it another way: Had he been trying to get clearance for a normal position, he would probably not have received it.
I also never said he had access to everything. Nobody has access to everything. Not arguing for a shadow government--it's already a fact. It happened when classification rules went from "what would harm national security" to "what would cause problems if American citizens found out we were doing this."
In principle the president has access to EVERYTHING. There is literally nothing he shouldn't have access to, at least within the executive branch which includes nearly all military/defense/intel secrets.
The only thing he does not have unrestricted access to is Justice department stuff (e.g. FBI), although there'd better be a damn good reason to deny it to POTUS if he asks, and legislative branch secrets which really infrequently comes into play. That's due to the whole separation-of-powers, checks-and-balances thing. But security clearances for everything in the executive branch stem FROM the president. If he wants to reveal some state secret, he can just tweet it with no consequences, or blurt it out while on the phone with foreign states. As Trump did on multiple occasions.
That said, of course there is a significant deep state bureaucracy which attempts at times to keep certain things hidden, even from the current president. But if the president were to ask about it, they have to tell him.
I don't know. I haven't worked in that system for many years. That said, it was more received wisdom than a written rule, and I was aware of exceptions who were prescribed more than ADHD meds.
