I agree. I've had Secret clearances at two different companies (aerospace/defence contractors). One of my lessons is that anyone who gets a clearance draws a lot of people into the process with them. It's a bad and creepy side effect, and even though this mostly involved college friends getting grilled by Federal Agents, I wouldn't do it again.
In fact, I'll go so far as to say that "clearances" are a symptom of the pathology of the security state. Lots and lots of highly cleared people have gone wrong (Pollard, Ames, Hansen, I'm sure there's more), so the process isn't really all that helpful. For a corporation, having "cleared" employees does two things:
1. It raises a huge barrier to entry for competitors. A smaller company just can't afford the specialized record keeping and record keepers, so only lumbering dinosaurs have cleared employees.
2. It means that the corporation can say, just like my kids, "I didn't do it!" as an excuse. An employee goes bad? The corporation didn't do it, because the Defense Investigative Security Clearance Organization cleared that traitor. It's yet another excuse to not have a relationship with employees, just like drug tests. Managers can just fill out forms, they don't have to know or like or have meaningful conversations with employees.
In fact, I'll go so far as to say that "clearances" are a symptom of the pathology of the security state. Lots and lots of highly cleared people have gone wrong (Pollard, Ames, Hansen, I'm sure there's more), so the process isn't really all that helpful. For a corporation, having "cleared" employees does two things:
1. It raises a huge barrier to entry for competitors. A smaller company just can't afford the specialized record keeping and record keepers, so only lumbering dinosaurs have cleared employees.
2. It means that the corporation can say, just like my kids, "I didn't do it!" as an excuse. An employee goes bad? The corporation didn't do it, because the Defense Investigative Security Clearance Organization cleared that traitor. It's yet another excuse to not have a relationship with employees, just like drug tests. Managers can just fill out forms, they don't have to know or like or have meaningful conversations with employees.