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paranoia (According to Webster's Online).

Function: noun
Etymology: New Latin, from Greek, madness, from paranous demented, from para- + nous mind
1 : a psychosis characterized by systematized delusions of persecution or grandeur usually without hallucinations
2 : a tendency on the part of an individual or group toward excessive or irrational suspiciousness and distrustfulness of others.

Sorry, based on the defination above, I would disagree that any of my postings were "paranoid."

Secondly, I never said anything in any of my posts to indicate that I believed "certain death would occur to these examiners."

But I do remain concerned.  First, I continue believe it wrong to publically identify any member of the intelligence community for the reasons I have already indicated.  I don't care if the information is only "For Official Use Only,"  verses being "classified."  I still believe it wrong to openly publish that information.

Put it this way.  You are on a plane that is taken over by Islamic militants.  They demand all to relinquish their passports.  All on the flight are Americans including you.  The press does an internet search, trips over this website, and reports their discovery that one of the passengers (you) are an NSA "Security Officer."  The militants decide to shoot a passenger.  Wanna guess who gets the bullet?

Wanna call my concern for the safety of the men and women outed by George Maschke and his reporter friend "paranoid" go right ahead.  The scenerio denoted above is not all that unlikely given the times we are living in.

What also concerns me is that based on what I have seen published by Mr. Maschke and others on this website, I am convinced if he were to get his hands on an actual classified list of U.S. government polygraph personnel, he would not hesitiate (based on the justifications he has used to date) to publish those agent's names.

I hope I am wrong...

Nonombre
      
   



 

nonombre wrote on Dec 12^th, 2005 at 1:40am:


It is not standard practice for airlines to povide the flight manifests of hijacked aircraft to the press. Even were that not the case, the NSA employees named here should be more concerned about the risk of being struck by lightning than the scenario you have painted above.

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I would not call your concern "paranoid." But I do consider it to be greatly overstated.

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AntiPolygraph.org has never solicited nor received classified information. If such information were provided, there would have to be some compelling public interest in making it public in order for us to publish it. I doubt a classified list of polygraph personnel would meet that test.

nonombre wrote on Dec 13^th, 2005 at 2:08am:

Nonombre-

From interactions in the past, you seem to be a pretty reasonable fellow.  Please don't base your assumptions on how classified information is or should be protected, or how it came to be classified in the first place off of experiences watching some James Bond movie or episode of 24.

A private citizen (w/o a clearance) is under no legal obligation to protect classified info.  One could make an argument that one would be under a moral obligation to do so, but that would depend on the information invovled, whether it was properly classified, and if a greater public good is served by publishing it.

Information can be classified simply because that info could be embarrasing to an organization.  Would it be wrong for a whistleblower to leak it to the press?  Would the reporter be ethically bound to not pursue it?  (my answer to this question: the leaker could and should get in trouble; the reporter should report the story).  A bit of a dichotomy, but that is how the system works.

Look at the situation with Scooter (got to love that name) leaking the name of the CIA gal.  Scooter is in deep doo doo.  The reporters who published it have no worries.  The only reporter that got in trouble here was in trouble not becuase they published her name, but because she was in contempt of court for not revealing a source.

You are right, there are rules concerning the release of classified info, and those who break those rules should be punished, but those who receive classified information without a clearance are breaking no laws and under no legal obligation to keep it under seal (but if it truly hurt the national security, I think morally they should keep it secret).

And FWIW. on a side note, I think the deep-throat leaker from the Watergate era should be prosecuted for breaking the law (even if he's lost his mind).  But I also thinkg Bob Woodward et al deserve credit and recognition for the work they've done.

So please, again, how is publishing an unclassified org chart showing the name of civil servants (practicing a despicable career path) some how damaging to the defense and security of our country?

Look, I think it was not useful for George to post the names of these people but really, aren't we getting a bit carried away?

Excuse me but I am at a complete loss as to why anyone thinks this a big deal. Let me explain.

The government MANDATES that ALL individuals that are the top officers, directors, or shareholders in ALL companies with publicly traded stock be listed ON THE INTERNET. Not only by full name, but sometimes by address and for the larger ones, their specific salary and bonus. Ten's of thousands of people have to do this. Also, millions of dollars of net worth are disclosed in these files.

In case you haven't watched any movies recently, corporate executives are demonized far more than civil servant polygraphers.

Not only are these folks listed, but they have been for about 10 years!  Anyone that has done the slightlest bit of investing in the stock market knows this. The rest of the world knows this. So why are you all acting like children imagining some crazy threat?

It would be one thing if these guys in the story George linked to were secret polygraphers that had a cover job and were CIA NOCs. Ain't the case here (they wouldn't be listed) so why the overreaction? Are you ashamed at what you do for a living?

Marty

whylie wrote on Dec 7^th, 2005 at 4:03pm:


Nonsense. Do you consider the publishing of the names and salaries of nearly all corporate executives in the United States irresponsible? Well, the government mandates it by law. What is special about govt. polygraphers?

Marty

NoNombre wrote " Can you spell dead?"

   what does this sentence mean then?   my thought on this is that you assume that government polygraphers are in dire straits because of this posting of names.  there are much more important and meaningful people in our government other than polygraph examiners, so don't feel that your job title entitles you to any kind of covert, secret status.   you do what you do because this is your chosen profession.   no one is pointing a gun to your head and telling you, you have to be an examiner.

Nonombre,

Don't you think you're being a little dramatic here? If the names of polygraph examiners were so top secret, then why do they give their names to the applicants they polygraph? They're probably putting themselves in the most danger doing that than anything else. Think about it. They're routinely falsely branding job applicants as liars and costing them jobs and careers. I'd say that's kinda dangerous, don't you think? It's definitely causing a lot of anger, hard feelings and resentment. Just look at the hatred expressed by allegedliar's post--and he's not alone. Another thing, if those names were so hush-hush, then why when I did a Google search on my polygraphers' names, did I get hits on both identifying them as FBI agents? The FBI should watch what it allows for release--it might be putting its own agents in danger. One of my polygrapher's pictures was even posted on the net. The agency would not allow information to be released that could pose dangers to it's agents--atleast one would think that it wouldn't do that. Something to think about before you go pointing fingers at George, Nonombre.

Dimas, 
I agree that newspapers who publish the names, pics and street addresses of LEO's involved in shootings are acting irresponsibly, but the media cannot publish information and/or material that's not made available to them. It could in fact, be both the department and the media acting irresponsibly in this regard. It's usually the norm for a department to actually withold the names of officers involved in shootings at least until the internal investigation is complete. A law enforcement officer's address and picture should never be published in the paper, unless he is charged with a crime. That's just common sense.