Arieh O’Sullivan reports for the Jerusalem Post in an article titled, “US Army strips Jewish Major of security clearance.” Excerpt:
JERUSALEM (October 24) – The US Army has revoked the security clearance of a Jewish reserve officer, forcing him to give up command of an intelligence unit, The Jerusalem Post has learned.
The officer, Maj. Shawn Pine, claims it was only because of his close ties to Israel and reflected an inherent anti-Semitism in the US intelligence community.
Pine, commander of the 300th Military Intelligence Company (Linguist) of Austin, Texas, holds dual US-Israeli citizenship and is also a veteran of the IDF’s Golani Brigade and the US Army Rangers.
A specialist in counterintelligence, Pine said he was given top-secret clearance after going through a detailed background investigation and polygraph in 1991.
…
…Trouble started last summer when his periodic reinvestigation for his security clearance came up and he disclosed that he had been called up to reserve duty while in Israel.
…
“I believe that they are revoking my clearance on the most spurious of reasons, a function of profiling and a decision to ferret out Jewish officers who have connections with Israel,” Pine said. “A few months after I provided my statement I was asked to take a polygraph. That is an extraordinary procedure and not part of the normal investigative process.
“I was told that up until then everything with the background investigation was fine and that they just wanted to be sure that nothing had happened while I was in Israel. I readily agreed, and passed the polygraph. Yet they still revoked my clearance based upon information that was in their possession prior to my taking the polygraph.
“Not only did they blatantly lie, I think this clearly demonstrates they had nefarious intentions,” Pine said.
Update – 21 February 2021: Shawn S. Pine was killed in Afghanistan in 2009 while working as an intelligence contractor. See, “From Golani to Kabul’s Killing Fields” by Jerusalem Post correspondent E.B. Solomon.