Social Scientists Work Being Involuntarily Classified

[selil]

Strange question: I had a clearance in 1984 for activities in the Marines. Just simple Secret I believe. Could that be used to "muzzle" my research circa 2008? On totally unrelated materials? I doubt it but I don't have a security officer to ask.

[marct]

Strange question: I had a clearance in 1984 for activities in the Marines. Just simple Secret I believe. Could that be used to "muzzle" my research circa 2008? On totally unrelated materials? I doubt it but I don't have a security officer to ask.

No idea about the States, Sam.... Sorry. My own clearance is older than that and could still be used for some things today, but that's Canada .

[John T. Fishel]

Nobody is keeping track of you for clearance purposes. You report to no one.
So, write what you want and publish it. No problem. As I said before, as a Reservist with all sorts of TS accesses, I never had to seek clearance for anything I wrote when not on active duty.

We really shouldn't make to much of the hypothetical possibilities since the reality is that once the horse is out of the barn...

(Reminds me of the stallion living about a mile away who came to visit my mare - after escaping - while she was in heat about a month ago...)

Cheers

JohnT

[Tom Odom]

Strange question: I had a clearance in 1984 for activities in the Marines. Just simple Secret I believe. Could that be used to "muzzle" my research circa 2008? On totally unrelated materials? I doubt it but I don't have a security officer to ask.

Sam

Not to worry. As a DIA and DHS employee I did the standard non-disclosure agreement before training and going to Africa in 94. I had a TS-SCI and maintained that to include renewing it as I retired in 96.

In 2000, when I decided to write my memoirs. I started asking what I had to do as a retired officer in clearing what I was writing, I was civil service by then and only carrying a secret clearance. The Army basically said write as a retired officer and use common sense. DIA said leave us alone. Actually the same office that handles FOIA handles this sort of thing. I asked for my reports from 1994-1996 at the same time I raised clearing my manuscript. I gave up on clearing when the action officer told me "to send it if you want to." I have yet to get a single report released, most of which were merely confidential.

The exception to this is the CIA; folks who work for them and then publish get a publishing lawyer. Otherwise things move at glacial speed.

I think you can relax on your '84 secret clearance.

best

Tom

[Steve Blair]

Strange question: I had a clearance in 1984 for activities in the Marines. Just simple Secret I believe. Could that be used to "muzzle" my research circa 2008? On totally unrelated materials? I doubt it but I don't have a security officer to ask.

Concur with the others. Also, from my understanding based on what I see with cadet clearances and those of our cadre, they lapse after a set period of time. And once they lapse, they're more or less gone.

[selil]

Pretty much what I figured. An email the other day came across my desk that talked about having work classified at secret or above. So, I decided to go to my mentor group and ask about clearances in academia. Pretty much the same as I'd been led to believe. I could do a lot of work, a promotion committee would never see it, and that would be sad. Not as career ending since I have tenure, but not good for the next step. The other piece is that they have done dissertations (I'm a student and faculty) that were classified or had that kind of information. They produced redacted versions for publication. That though was a anecdote the veracity can't be checked unless we knew which one it was.