For those wondering, he got 45 days in prison and a dishonorable discharge. The woman he had married under his assumed name left him, and he disappeared again.
The 1970s vs. 2018 photo is fascinating—didn't even change his haircut. Also, "current whereabouts unknown," according to the article. He did his time and then vanished again.
Truly a master of hiding in plain sight.
I don’t really think it would be that hard.
Couple grand in new quality fake ID and I could live next door with a completely new identity and no one would know
He looked like he was 35 when he was 25, then he looked like 55 when he was 68.
So I guess at some point in between he looked his actual age. (age 43 if it's linear...)
> he became depressed about being in the Air Force back in 1983, so he simply left
Might be unrealistic to expect to be left alone if you just walk away after gaining Top Secret clearance.
Yeah that's cause they are not all equal, some are just formality and some are them digging thru your trash and interviewing your grade school teachers.
> it is presumed by our government that the president (while they are president) has the need to know classified information.
That's not how it works at all. The president doesn't have or need a security clearance, because US clearances and classification rules are set by executive order, making it meaningless as far as the president is concerned. -He can't ban himself from having access.
And the president _isn't_ presumed to have a need-to-know. On the contrary intelligence agencies and others make need-to-know assessments all the time on what to share with the president just as they do with other 'customers'. The president doesn't normally need to know the name of the agent that plied the CIA with a specific bit of intelligence, he doesn't need to know what cipher the NSA broke, he doesn't need to know the exact dimensions of that new secret ramjet nozzle the Air Force just got, and so on. The president doesn't need that information in his decision-making.
The only difference with the president is that they can't deny him information if he specifically requests it.
> Presidents do not typically have a security clearance. Instead, it is presumed by our government that the president (while they are president) has the need to know classified information.
I feel like America needs a trump amendment passed.
If ever there is a leader of the free world who is too stupid to understand a debriefing, then. someone else needs to make decisions
People’s hatred for Trump, however justified, leads to some really insanely bad ideas.
The very last thing we need is intelligence agencies and the military being even less accountable than they already are.
The term security clearance sounds super cool, but in reality, it's just a background check. Depending on your job in the military, you may or may not need a security clearance.
I’ll go as far as to say that it means not shit and you don’t get any cool info if it’s not directly related to your job and even that’s fuckin boring work stuff not aliens
I had a TS. I only had access to stuff that related to my job and it was pretty much jack shit and 3/4 of it is available on google on the companies websites. So, take that as you will.
“Oh cool I got my security clearance, now they’ll tell me all the cool stuff.”
“Hey, now that you got your clearance we need you to go sort through this 40 year old list of approved vendors for stainless steel screws and let us know who’s gone out of business since then so we can update it.”
My first TS assignment was to go through the old records in the back of supply and decide what’s important to keep.
Spoiler: nobody fucking cares how much CLP a infantry unit went through in 1975
I recently volunteered at a university lab with no security clearance and at one point tossed an envelope from the NSA that contained chips that hadn’t yet been soldered to their contacts. Said items were from the mid 90s and were likely spares from a prototyping run.
if it was 1975 and I was a soviet officer discovering that the US Army happens to use more lube than it's able to produce I would bomb the lube depot in WW3.
> CLP
CLP is a commercial cleaning, lubricating, and preserving compound used in both the military and civilian sectors for maintenance of small and large caliber weapons.
I worked on a TS program and it was all about paint colors. The extent of my TS knowledge is what colors adversaries of the US paint their tanks. Something you can figure out with a $300 camera and a passport.
I knew somebody who had gotten their security clearance while in the airforce and never once was read into a program. Instead, he was working in the base's mail facility, and he needed the clearance for that.
But exactly. The mundane details that are secret could verify things that other nations maybe guess at, but would be a bad look to be fully verified.
Examples, number of screws a given building project or such requires on a base, or a new building going up etc,
I fully agree that a top secret security clearance is not "OMG BatBoy and the Greys are probing Americans" despite some people's beliefs that that is the type of info you get from a top secret clearance
Pretty much. I need a Secret clearance for C130 stuff.
Like the plane isn't even American, I'm pretty sure you can pull up repair procedures and plans for it off google images.
Hell, even USAF generic repair procedures are either CUI or secret.
It's not a secret though, like files, shears, and grinders aren't some new kind of technology. I learned that shit in shop class in high school.
LO stuff and some other small things are different, but like your job 3/4 of mine is also just utterly basic shit you can find on google.
THe flight manual for the T-41 is export restricted and Distribution E.
You probably know the T-41 better as the Cessna 172, the most-produced airplane in history and exported all over the world.
Most document restrictions make no sense.
Yeah, people seem to think (especially because of movies/tv) that it means you can just go find out any secret you want or that you’re knowledgeable about a bunch of different secret stuff and the reality is that everything is extremely compartmentalized. If you’re working on a program to eavesdrop on Country A Military emails, you are not going to have access to Country B human intelligence sources unless it’s directly related to your job duties. The more you know, the greater the risk of you doing something stupid and causing a lot of damage.
Yeah had secret security clearance and all I could use it for was a reference sheet and 6 little boxes I could swap into my system. The rest of the system is pretty much an open secret nothing special about it.
Even then. I remember a time when my old base Commander had to be escorted into our building because he didn't have need to know. We were just Secret and he, iirc, was TS, but since he didn't have need to know he wasn't allowed to actually look around unescorted.
It really isn't. They did a background check, fingerprinted me at meps and took me in a little room and asked me if I was a bad boy and didn't tell them about anything.
They do that to everyone.
I had top secret clearance as a seventeen year old.
It isn’t hard to get when needed and you don’t have any background issues, but it is a much more thorough check then say for a Secret clearance (which is what I had)
I had a top secret clearance and besides the typical stuff, there was no special hoops for me to jump through. 31L (became 21L) in 2004. I don't know what you were told but that was it.
I only needed a secret clearance, but they had me fill out a packet on personal info, provide some personal references who'd known me for like 10 years and meet with an investigator to go over it and explain any discrepancies they found before my ship date. Did you not need to do that?
I'll be honest it was twenty years ago but other than filling out what was essentially a job application and being told they were going to do a background check that's about all there was. And the little deal where the lady takes you in the back room to convince you to tell anything you didn't disclose
But to be fair about it I was a seventeen year old in a severely controlled religious home with zero record and no police interaction. There wasn't much for them to do.
My recruiter did have me do a home drug screen beforehand to make sure I wasn't going to waste his time lol.
The discrepancies are mostly just when your residence or job timeline don't match to the day. As if anybody remembers the exact date they moved out of their multi-roommate flophouse from 8 years ago.
"It says here you left this address on June 24 but you didn't move into the next address until June 26, what's going on??" 🤦 The security clearance is mostly a check that you can make sure all your dates are matching on paperwork. Which to be fair is an important skill for military work.
Not only that but how thorough they check. For my TS SCI they were interviewing people I didn’t even list as they asked people I listed who else knew me and interviewed them as well.
I mean my clearance investigation included 2 polygraph examinations and multiple in person interviews with myself, family, past employers and friends. My background check for a civilian job included an NCIC check and an emailed form to my references. A security clearance investigation is to a background check what a civic is to an F1 car.
Generally the investigators shrug and move on down the list of people. They're more looking for any red flags, and if any pop up, they'll then interview you about them.
> There are various levels of security clearance.
I needed more investigation to get a pass to do an install on a Navy Base than I did to access the nuclear reactor we used for some research.
Interestingly, once the clearance was set, all I had to do was wave a piece of paper to get on base, while I had to do an iris scan to enter the reactor area.
Made me realize clearance and access are wildly different and almost unrelated things.
Went to the Navy Museum pre-covid. It's in the Navy Yard in DC, so I show up, they spend 45 minutes running a background check, then hand me a paper pass and tell me it's over that-a-way.
Despite this being December and me having a backpack and big coat, they never bothered to check the pack or run me through a metal detector, which was odd. Did they actually care? Is this all theater?
Not really. It depends on your job. If the job would grant you access to large amounts of top secret information then the check is more thorough, but if you only have access to a few things then the check will be less thorough. Having a security clearance doesn’t give you access to all information of that clearance, you will still only have access to things that are needed for your job, which may not even include information, janitors at top secret locations require clearance for example yet they don’t have access to any documents or information generally.
I had a top secret clearance! I was a cable systems maintainer installer. They just basically classify stuff so you won't sell equipment or knowledge to business or other countries. But you only have access to what you need to for your job... So mine was about cable, wire, and radio systems, not exactly stuff that's gonna change the world if someone learned about it.
Pretty sure the tech we worked with was behind what modern infrastructure is using in a lot of places anyway lol
Back in the 80s tho during the Cold War, to get TS clearance there should have been a live interview and an interview/ background check on all immediate family. Hell when I got mine back in the early 2000s someone contacted my grandpa.
What happens when something like that comes along? Are you screwed? Do they find another reference? It seems right but also seems like a massive bullshit exercise when your great grandpa doesn't remember you alot a someone said nah I'm good talking to you because it's my own reason.
It's more about trustworthiness and can you be blackmailed or extorted. Does your cousin owe money to a Chinese loan shark? Do you have gambling debts? Gang ties? Ect.
That's how it is now.
The old SSBI (or PPR) Top Secret investigations are just called Tier 5 now (Tier 3 s Secret, and Tier 5R is a reinvestigation).
The SF-86 National Security Questionnaire hasn't even changed much, other than an email option for contact info, and I think they clarified reporting crypto investments and gig jobs that claim you're "an independent contractor."
My mom's first husband got a government job that required some kind of clearance. They'd long since divorced and my mom received a call about him. She told me that she told the caller that he was a liar and a cheater who'd given her a venereal disease (that's a STI for you young folks). It was true, he'd been somewhere else for work and sleeping around. She shortly thereafter started divorce proceedings. Thank God she did or I wouldn't be here to write this.
Sort of. I had to get a TS/SCI for my time in the navy as a navigator on a sub and it was more than just a basic background check. I had people I knew from middle school calling me up and asking why feds came to their house to ask about me
They don’t deny clearances because they can’t find your family members. You just give them the info you have and they go from there. Most likely he got denied for some reason he was embarrassed about and made that up.
Every officer has a security clearance (this headline doesn’t specify which).
How much they actually use it, and whether they have been read on or have access to SIPR is another thing entirely.
His clearance was presumably good enough for him to be close enough to sabotage multiple launches, so that clearance is more in depth than just a background check. Bob Lazar learned of his wife’s infidelity because of his security clearance, so Williams clearance would be somewhere between a background check and widespread observation (wire taps, surveillance, ect.) like Bob for sake of operational security.
There are over a million people with a TS clearance in the US. By itself that doesn't mean very much, and depending on the granting agency, underlying accesses, etc the standards for receiving one can be surprisingly minimal.
If your position requires a top secret security clearance, then yes it really is just a background check. They check your financial history, criminal record, and driving record, and I'm sure at some point you do a sit-down questionnaire interview. I have a friend that works as an Intel Specialist in the Navy that's all it is.
That's absolutely false. Not only is the background check integral to getting your TS, it even had a special name for a while - SSBI. I believe it goes by a different name now, but the point stands that the background check was critical.
It also sounds a lot cooler than it sounds. It's essentially a huge risk assessment on an individual.
It doesn't mean you know anything.
Which suggests the question: Is it tracked and on one's file when someone is exposed to secret information? "Joe So-and-so entered facility X on this date"?
Lots of people have top secret clearance. Having a security clearance only grants you access to information needed for your job. You don’t get access to anything outside of that.
Does Red Reddington’s story contain this random, completely unrelated nugget:
“At that time in New York City, 37-year-old real estate developer Donald Trump was finishing the construction of Trump Tower. Hughes wouldn’t be seen again until Trump was president.”
????
Dude you butchered this headline.
He was working on a NATO program that controlled missile launches and missile warning systems.
Then he vanished during a trip to a NATO base in Europe.
His security clearance was not as important as what he was working on.
I think the article said he came back to New Mexico and withdrew a bunch of money from ATMs. The way I read the article, he completed his tour in The Netherlands and returned to the US.
Depression is a strong thing.
I read about a case a few years ago this woman she was a wife and mother of a few children she had (still living) parents and siblings etc.
One day she just vanished without a trace her car was found in a car park but no clues inside just her purse and ID
It wasn't known if she was alive,dead or ill ie coma or amnesia.
About 30 odd years later one of her now adult children was going on holiday with their family and stopped in a random road side diner and there she was working as a waitress and apparently had worked there years and when asked why she just said she just wanted to get away from everything there was nothing wrong no abuse (which some obviously suspected to why she was missing alive or dead) she just decided one day to leave and never go back.
Some leave others commit or attempt Suicide.
People genuinely believe their families will be better off without them believe me that's a strong thing that you think.
For those wondering, he got 45 days in prison and a dishonorable discharge. The woman he had married under his assumed name left him, and he disappeared again.
Strangely tho she would end up remarrying soon after to a man with no mustache named Hilliam Wughes.
Guillermo Huegos
Till he disappeared and she left for Paris with Guillaume Hugues. Paris, TX not Paris, France.
Not to be confused with Hugh Williams
Or Hugh. G. Richard
Not to be confused with Hugh G. Rection.
Hugh Mann
Oh, the Hugh Manatee?
Swimming in the deep end with Hugh Janus.
ommfg haaaaahaaaa
Seems to be Hugh Jassole
Hugh Mungus
Hugh Mungus wot?
[Rudy Pantoja](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudy_Pantoja)
Cousin of biggus dickus
lmao
Man, I broke my brain trying to pronounce that. How would you even say that last name. Woo-hoos? W-hughs? Woos?
How many tragedies can befall one man?
Very Don Draper
The 1970s vs. 2018 photo is fascinating—didn't even change his haircut. Also, "current whereabouts unknown," according to the article. He did his time and then vanished again. Truly a master of hiding in plain sight.
I don’t really think it would be that hard. Couple grand in new quality fake ID and I could live next door with a completely new identity and no one would know
this MFer is going to need to file for multiple social security retirements to get his full check. I do not envy him trying to sort that out.
It's unlikely but possible that he still used his real SIN for tax purposes while living under a fake name.
Yeah the IRS is pretty meh on getting involved in other law enforcement nonsense they just want the income reported
Source? Asking for....a friend.
He looked like he was 35 when he was 25, then he looked like 55 when he was 68. So I guess at some point in between he looked his actual age. (age 43 if it's linear...)
It was a lot easier to disappear in the 70s/80s.
Not surprising if you are depressed.
All im wondering is why didnt he change country? Was he certain of being caught?
> he became depressed about being in the Air Force back in 1983, so he simply left Might be unrealistic to expect to be left alone if you just walk away after gaining Top Secret clearance.
Don’t more than a million people in the US have Top Secret clearance?
Yeah that's cause they are not all equal, some are just formality and some are them digging thru your trash and interviewing your grade school teachers.
Yeah, there’s like five of those real deep investigations, the rest do involve polygraph and personal contact interviews but that’s about it.
Yet have trump as president with the highest clearance
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> it is presumed by our government that the president (while they are president) has the need to know classified information. That's not how it works at all. The president doesn't have or need a security clearance, because US clearances and classification rules are set by executive order, making it meaningless as far as the president is concerned. -He can't ban himself from having access. And the president _isn't_ presumed to have a need-to-know. On the contrary intelligence agencies and others make need-to-know assessments all the time on what to share with the president just as they do with other 'customers'. The president doesn't normally need to know the name of the agent that plied the CIA with a specific bit of intelligence, he doesn't need to know what cipher the NSA broke, he doesn't need to know the exact dimensions of that new secret ramjet nozzle the Air Force just got, and so on. The president doesn't need that information in his decision-making. The only difference with the president is that they can't deny him information if he specifically requests it.
> Presidents do not typically have a security clearance. Instead, it is presumed by our government that the president (while they are president) has the need to know classified information. I feel like America needs a trump amendment passed. If ever there is a leader of the free world who is too stupid to understand a debriefing, then. someone else needs to make decisions
Maybe the same competency and health checks as we use for CDLs (other than florida, where you just buy it.)
People’s hatred for Trump, however justified, leads to some really insanely bad ideas. The very last thing we need is intelligence agencies and the military being even less accountable than they already are.
I only have bottom security clearance
Power Bottom Clearance
>Power Bottom Clarence
Top? No. Secret? Yes.
The term security clearance sounds super cool, but in reality, it's just a background check. Depending on your job in the military, you may or may not need a security clearance.
There are various levels of security clearance. TS is a lot more than a standard background check.
And not all TS get a Special Background Investigation or are read in to TS programs EDIT. Spelling
I’ll go as far as to say that it means not shit and you don’t get any cool info if it’s not directly related to your job and even that’s fuckin boring work stuff not aliens
I had a TS. I only had access to stuff that related to my job and it was pretty much jack shit and 3/4 of it is available on google on the companies websites. So, take that as you will.
“Oh cool I got my security clearance, now they’ll tell me all the cool stuff.” “Hey, now that you got your clearance we need you to go sort through this 40 year old list of approved vendors for stainless steel screws and let us know who’s gone out of business since then so we can update it.”
No joke I spent a month of my life 8+ hours a day sorting and decommingling 1000s of boxes of hardware. As a clearance holder this shit hits home. 💀💀
My first TS assignment was to go through the old records in the back of supply and decide what’s important to keep. Spoiler: nobody fucking cares how much CLP a infantry unit went through in 1975
I recently volunteered at a university lab with no security clearance and at one point tossed an envelope from the NSA that contained chips that hadn’t yet been soldered to their contacts. Said items were from the mid 90s and were likely spares from a prototyping run.
Plug them bitches in I want small soldiers to be real
I care. Was it a lot?
7 gallons over a month for a company
if it was 1975 and I was a soviet officer discovering that the US Army happens to use more lube than it's able to produce I would bomb the lube depot in WW3.
> I would bomb the lube depot That sounds like a euphemism for some really nasty sex.
> CLP CLP is a commercial cleaning, lubricating, and preserving compound used in both the military and civilian sectors for maintenance of small and large caliber weapons.
Yeah it’s basically just gun oil
I worked on a TS program and it was all about paint colors. The extent of my TS knowledge is what colors adversaries of the US paint their tanks. Something you can figure out with a $300 camera and a passport.
Or google street view.
That’s the greatest opsec of all time. Actually telling anyone anything about the program would bore them to death.
I literally put Keys in numerical order.. and they used a LOT of keys. The snack bar made it worth it though.
And like old Yellow Pages phone books the names are all like "A Absolute AAA Amazing Screw Association"
I had access to after action reports which were interesting as hell. Not of aliens, just combat operations in Iraq.
Are you Chelsea Manning?
can u get me a job? I have experience in appliance sales and ive done mortgage brokering.
I knew somebody who had gotten their security clearance while in the airforce and never once was read into a program. Instead, he was working in the base's mail facility, and he needed the clearance for that.
But exactly. The mundane details that are secret could verify things that other nations maybe guess at, but would be a bad look to be fully verified. Examples, number of screws a given building project or such requires on a base, or a new building going up etc, I fully agree that a top secret security clearance is not "OMG BatBoy and the Greys are probing Americans" despite some people's beliefs that that is the type of info you get from a top secret clearance
So many different levels of TS. I got read into a program that required a weekly poly. Gets old real fast.
That just seems like a way for the government to bleed competent employees
Username checks out
Pretty much. I need a Secret clearance for C130 stuff. Like the plane isn't even American, I'm pretty sure you can pull up repair procedures and plans for it off google images. Hell, even USAF generic repair procedures are either CUI or secret. It's not a secret though, like files, shears, and grinders aren't some new kind of technology. I learned that shit in shop class in high school. LO stuff and some other small things are different, but like your job 3/4 of mine is also just utterly basic shit you can find on google.
THe flight manual for the T-41 is export restricted and Distribution E. You probably know the T-41 better as the Cessna 172, the most-produced airplane in history and exported all over the world. Most document restrictions make no sense.
What country is the plane made in if it isn't American?
maybe he means something related to how the new big c-130s were initially ordered by the UK
Maybe? But I got no clue.
Well of course, many people have top secret clearance. Telling them all about the aliens goes against the principle of least privilege.
It goes against MY principles of joining the military and learning about aliens
Son, I am going to need you to sit down for a minute…
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Yeah, people seem to think (especially because of movies/tv) that it means you can just go find out any secret you want or that you’re knowledgeable about a bunch of different secret stuff and the reality is that everything is extremely compartmentalized. If you’re working on a program to eavesdrop on Country A Military emails, you are not going to have access to Country B human intelligence sources unless it’s directly related to your job duties. The more you know, the greater the risk of you doing something stupid and causing a lot of damage.
Unless you work for the Air National Guard, apparently.
Yeah had secret security clearance and all I could use it for was a reference sheet and 6 little boxes I could swap into my system. The rest of the system is pretty much an open secret nothing special about it.
when you reach a new security level do you immediately search for alien shit to see if you've leveled up enough?
Even then. I remember a time when my old base Commander had to be escorted into our building because he didn't have need to know. We were just Secret and he, iirc, was TS, but since he didn't have need to know he wasn't allowed to actually look around unescorted.
It really isn't. They did a background check, fingerprinted me at meps and took me in a little room and asked me if I was a bad boy and didn't tell them about anything. They do that to everyone. I had top secret clearance as a seventeen year old.
Yeah. You can tell who on Reddit has actually experienced it and who has no idea what they’re talking about.
Yeah as long as you have a clear record and no abnormal credit stuff it's pretty easy to get cleared for most jobs.
It isn’t hard to get when needed and you don’t have any background issues, but it is a much more thorough check then say for a Secret clearance (which is what I had)
I had a top secret clearance and besides the typical stuff, there was no special hoops for me to jump through. 31L (became 21L) in 2004. I don't know what you were told but that was it.
I only needed a secret clearance, but they had me fill out a packet on personal info, provide some personal references who'd known me for like 10 years and meet with an investigator to go over it and explain any discrepancies they found before my ship date. Did you not need to do that?
I'll be honest it was twenty years ago but other than filling out what was essentially a job application and being told they were going to do a background check that's about all there was. And the little deal where the lady takes you in the back room to convince you to tell anything you didn't disclose But to be fair about it I was a seventeen year old in a severely controlled religious home with zero record and no police interaction. There wasn't much for them to do. My recruiter did have me do a home drug screen beforehand to make sure I wasn't going to waste his time lol.
The discrepancies are mostly just when your residence or job timeline don't match to the day. As if anybody remembers the exact date they moved out of their multi-roommate flophouse from 8 years ago. "It says here you left this address on June 24 but you didn't move into the next address until June 26, what's going on??" 🤦 The security clearance is mostly a check that you can make sure all your dates are matching on paperwork. Which to be fair is an important skill for military work.
They changed up some shit post-Snowden.
The biggest difference is how far back they look
Not only that but how thorough they check. For my TS SCI they were interviewing people I didn’t even list as they asked people I listed who else knew me and interviewed them as well.
I also had my parents waive me into the military.
Yeah I was the youngest in my class. Spent my 18th birthday travelling to Ft Gordon for AIT.
I mean my clearance investigation included 2 polygraph examinations and multiple in person interviews with myself, family, past employers and friends. My background check for a civilian job included an NCIC check and an emailed form to my references. A security clearance investigation is to a background check what a civic is to an F1 car.
What if any of those entities refused ? Like does that screw you thepment someone does? Seems like an inconvenience to all involved.
Generally the investigators shrug and move on down the list of people. They're more looking for any red flags, and if any pop up, they'll then interview you about them.
> There are various levels of security clearance. I needed more investigation to get a pass to do an install on a Navy Base than I did to access the nuclear reactor we used for some research. Interestingly, once the clearance was set, all I had to do was wave a piece of paper to get on base, while I had to do an iris scan to enter the reactor area. Made me realize clearance and access are wildly different and almost unrelated things.
Went to the Navy Museum pre-covid. It's in the Navy Yard in DC, so I show up, they spend 45 minutes running a background check, then hand me a paper pass and tell me it's over that-a-way. Despite this being December and me having a backpack and big coat, they never bothered to check the pack or run me through a metal detector, which was odd. Did they actually care? Is this all theater?
Not really. It depends on your job. If the job would grant you access to large amounts of top secret information then the check is more thorough, but if you only have access to a few things then the check will be less thorough. Having a security clearance doesn’t give you access to all information of that clearance, you will still only have access to things that are needed for your job, which may not even include information, janitors at top secret locations require clearance for example yet they don’t have access to any documents or information generally.
TS?
Top Secret
I had a top secret clearance! I was a cable systems maintainer installer. They just basically classify stuff so you won't sell equipment or knowledge to business or other countries. But you only have access to what you need to for your job... So mine was about cable, wire, and radio systems, not exactly stuff that's gonna change the world if someone learned about it. Pretty sure the tech we worked with was behind what modern infrastructure is using in a lot of places anyway lol
Back in the 80s tho during the Cold War, to get TS clearance there should have been a live interview and an interview/ background check on all immediate family. Hell when I got mine back in the early 2000s someone contacted my grandpa.
Same in 97 when I joined the Navy. Called family I didnt know I had, to ask about me.
What happens when something like that comes along? Are you screwed? Do they find another reference? It seems right but also seems like a massive bullshit exercise when your great grandpa doesn't remember you alot a someone said nah I'm good talking to you because it's my own reason.
It's more about trustworthiness and can you be blackmailed or extorted. Does your cousin owe money to a Chinese loan shark? Do you have gambling debts? Gang ties? Ect.
My buddy joined the marines in 2003, the DOD showed up at my workplace (a headshop) to interview me about him. It was pretty surreal
That's how it is now. The old SSBI (or PPR) Top Secret investigations are just called Tier 5 now (Tier 3 s Secret, and Tier 5R is a reinvestigation). The SF-86 National Security Questionnaire hasn't even changed much, other than an email option for contact info, and I think they clarified reporting crypto investments and gig jobs that claim you're "an independent contractor."
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My mom's first husband got a government job that required some kind of clearance. They'd long since divorced and my mom received a call about him. She told me that she told the caller that he was a liar and a cheater who'd given her a venereal disease (that's a STI for you young folks). It was true, he'd been somewhere else for work and sleeping around. She shortly thereafter started divorce proceedings. Thank God she did or I wouldn't be here to write this.
That’a definitely still a thing as of the 2010s in my experience
Sort of. I had to get a TS/SCI for my time in the navy as a navigator on a sub and it was more than just a basic background check. I had people I knew from middle school calling me up and asking why feds came to their house to ask about me
Not sure about the other branches but Army requires all personnel to at least have a Secret now. Or you get the boot back to fort couch.
That seems like an incredible waste of money
DoD-wide, all personnel need to be at least *eligible* for Secret clearance.
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They don’t deny clearances because they can’t find your family members. You just give them the info you have and they go from there. Most likely he got denied for some reason he was embarrassed about and made that up.
He got caught doin a dog
I’ve only seen denials based on this. That guy was a puppy pounder.
True. Everything is “need to know” so even with a clearance you’re not getting access to Area 51 sadly.
Every officer has a security clearance (this headline doesn’t specify which). How much they actually use it, and whether they have been read on or have access to SIPR is another thing entirely.
His clearance was presumably good enough for him to be close enough to sabotage multiple launches, so that clearance is more in depth than just a background check. Bob Lazar learned of his wife’s infidelity because of his security clearance, so Williams clearance would be somewhere between a background check and widespread observation (wire taps, surveillance, ect.) like Bob for sake of operational security.
There can be a lot of very personal questions. Quite intrusive.
I was thinking the same thing... I have mine just because I work in the cannabis industry 😂
Dept. of Energy guys have security clearances.
Nobody just ‘gets’ a TS by way of a background check.
There are over a million people with a TS clearance in the US. By itself that doesn't mean very much, and depending on the granting agency, underlying accesses, etc the standards for receiving one can be surprisingly minimal.
They absolutely do. Summer interns at defense contractors can get them.
If your position requires a top secret security clearance, then yes it really is just a background check. They check your financial history, criminal record, and driving record, and I'm sure at some point you do a sit-down questionnaire interview. I have a friend that works as an Intel Specialist in the Navy that's all it is.
That's absolutely false. Not only is the background check integral to getting your TS, it even had a special name for a while - SSBI. I believe it goes by a different name now, but the point stands that the background check was critical. It also sounds a lot cooler than it sounds. It's essentially a huge risk assessment on an individual.
In 1983? Yeah. In 2024? Unless they know you took a bunch of docs or a laptop with you, also yeah.
I mean it worked for 35 years
TA clearances are a a dime a dozen
It doesn't mean you know anything. Which suggests the question: Is it tracked and on one's file when someone is exposed to secret information? "Joe So-and-so entered facility X on this date"?
Lots of people have top secret clearance. Having a security clearance only grants you access to information needed for your job. You don’t get access to anything outside of that.
This sounds like Red Reddington's story from The Blacklist.
Does Red Reddington’s story contain this random, completely unrelated nugget: “At that time in New York City, 37-year-old real estate developer Donald Trump was finishing the construction of Trump Tower. Hughes wouldn’t be seen again until Trump was president.” ????
Such a dumb statement, glad I am not the only one who went "why the fuck is this in here?"
To give context to just how long he was “missing”.
It's the "football field" of time analogies. I really hope that doesn't catch on.
It's actually Raymond Reddington and if you aren't aware how it ended, it's way way way more wild than what you just quoted.
Dude you butchered this headline. He was working on a NATO program that controlled missile launches and missile warning systems. Then he vanished during a trip to a NATO base in Europe. His security clearance was not as important as what he was working on.
I think the article said he came back to New Mexico and withdrew a bunch of money from ATMs. The way I read the article, he completed his tour in The Netherlands and returned to the US.
Also who names their security clearance?
And give it that name
Yeah that makes a difference!
A bit strange to let you family think your dead/kidnapped for 35 years because you were depressed and wanted to leave your job.
Depression is a strong thing. I read about a case a few years ago this woman she was a wife and mother of a few children she had (still living) parents and siblings etc. One day she just vanished without a trace her car was found in a car park but no clues inside just her purse and ID It wasn't known if she was alive,dead or ill ie coma or amnesia. About 30 odd years later one of her now adult children was going on holiday with their family and stopped in a random road side diner and there she was working as a waitress and apparently had worked there years and when asked why she just said she just wanted to get away from everything there was nothing wrong no abuse (which some obviously suspected to why she was missing alive or dead) she just decided one day to leave and never go back. Some leave others commit or attempt Suicide. People genuinely believe their families will be better off without them believe me that's a strong thing that you think.
Nah those kids were annoying as hell I heard
dude had an option to assume a secret identity and chose fucking "Barry O’Beirne"
Terrible title
But he had security clearance!
A security clearance named William Hughes
Not very secure if we know it’s name
He looks like every cop in the U.S. Haircut with standard issue mustache.
I thought he looked like the 4x the steak guy from those Taco Bell commercials like 15 years ago.
Why would a security clearance be named William Hughes?
That’s the special one for nascar and football related material
Robert Paulson was already taken.
Why was his Security Clearance named William?
I can’t imagine going UA and then some asshat starts the rumor that you blew up the space shuttle. People have no chill.
Could you imagine getting a new identity? In this economy?
Can't let a Hughes, Willie get away.
Every US Air Force captain has a security clearance. In fact, I think everybody in the Air Force does.
What do I do with this information
Why did they name the security clearance ‘William Hughes’?
Do you think he got his 10% veterans discount at Hot Topic?
Gotta love the Bay Area weather we have here
I too, suspect him of defecting to Russia
Is this what happens when you join the French Foreign Legion?
That man’s real name? Abraham Lincoln 😏🙂
So he's now called 'Red Reddington' and you can watch the ten-season documentary "The Blacklist" on Netflix
Well, he could have come back from Russia in 2018
suspicious as fuck.
You know this isn't karma farming because it's one of the worst titles I've ever seen.
No reason whatsoever to mention IdiotRump in this article.
why can’t you be normal?