Hello natsec twitter! You had a heck of a time yesterday going wild on a story about NSGS. You raised some damn good questions! Also you were mostly wrong or made wrong assumptions. Want to learn more? Let’s get this party started.

(I’m not affiliated with NSGS but Twitter pileons based on speculation and third party quotes drove me nuts)

Here’s the BLUF: the HERD Mentality App is for their conference. It has zero to do with the project you saw on security clearances.

Separately! In Project VU you don’t input derogatory info. You input your basic personal info. You can relax there or learn more in next tweet...

With that info you are securely provided with such details as might turn up for you in a basic background investigation, without hurting your credit score. Such is not stored or shared.

How do I know this? I read more than the single PBS story. Nice story, tried to get a lot done in a few sentences.

Moving on.

Also from this story, several of you were snarky about whether people be interviewed for someone’s clearance are asked to vouch for their own or the investigation subjects citizenship. “That doesn’t happen.”

Reader, it does. This next tweet is extremely important.

People of color —not exclusively second gen immigrants—have a very different experience in clearance investigations than I ever do or did. The questioning of loyalties or affiliations for many is not a single check the box query. It’s intensive, invasive, and discriminatory.

It is a serious deterrent for such individuals in seeking or obtaining clearances. It causes real harm to a field desperate for talented individuals with diverse perspectives and experience. It may be new to you but it is not new.

Anyway! You are perfectly welcome to avoid or dislike NSGS, or their apps or events or projects. But oh esteemed and intense natsec twitter, you’re good enough to get your facts straight.

Oh oh oh final point. The security clearance project is not at app, and indeed is still being developed. Sorry. That should have been up front.

And yes I DID put up this thread so a bunch of dudes could snort and accuse me of weird shit. Guys it’s OK to get you information from more than a screen shot. But have a great Sunday.

Also, FFS don’t subtweet me, be better than that. The handle is right there.