On Jul 27, 3:10 am, Brian K wrote:
> On 7/25/2007 12:56 PM Zerex71 exclaimed:
>
> > Greetings,
>
> > I was thinking about this particular situation today and wanted to see
> > what people's reactions and experiences have been about this. Here's
> > an email to one of the office bosses from me:
>
> > ***
> > Purely hypothetically, what if someone who had a security clearance
> > found a way to travel to Cuba, say, via a third country such as
> > Canada? I know you have to report the trip to the Gov. so they can
> > have a record of your travels, but would you automatically lose your
> > clearance since Cuba is on a list of no-no countries?
> > ***
>
> > To which I received the following reply:
>
> > ***
> > I'm not sure if it would be automatic, but it would be likely. Even
> > though it is possible to do, following that kind of plan to find a way
> > around the law would demonstrate the type of poor judgement that tends
> > to make security wonks nervous and gets you removed from the list of
> > trusted people. Aside from the security clearance, you would probably
> > get fired too based on exposing the company to risk and investigation.
>
> > Short version. Do NOT consider this!
> > ***
>
> > I thought it quite interesting. Though I'm not *really* surprised at
> > the answer, it just kind of exposes the paranoia, fear, and outright
> > retardation of people who make rules like this. I guess I'll never
> > being traveling to Cuba as long as I'm part of the US offense
> > industry.
>
> > Mike
>
> I looked into this a while ago. The ban is not on US Citizens traveling
> to Cuba. The violation occurs when you spend US Dollars in Cuba. If
> you want to go that bad, go as a volunteer for a charitable
> organization. Or you could go as someone's guest who is not a US
> Citizen. Of course if you have a Security Clearance you know the deal.
> I would ask myself, "Is a few nights in old Havana worth loss of my
> security clearance and tossing my career in the dumper?" Presumably you
> like what you are doing.
>
> If the US ever lifted the ban on spending US Dollars in Cuba, there'd
> probably be a big rush to go there. It's basic psychology, if you tell
> someone that they can't go someplace or do something, it becomes that
> much more attractive. It's the lure of the forbidden. It's as old as
> Adam, Eve and the forbidden fruit. After the initial rush, after the
> forbidden is not so forbidden anymore, Cuba will have to compete with
> other world travel destinations. Castro is too old guard. He won't see
> the benefits of increased US travel to his country. So after the
> initial rush Cuba will settle to somewhere between "South of The Border"
> in Dillon, NC and Asbury Park, NJ. Even if Castro died it wouldn't
> matter. The next in line is just as conservative.
>
> As for me, I'd rather focus on places that I can go like Ireland,
> Istanbul, Alaska, and Australia.
>
> --
> ________
> To email me, Edit "blog" from my email address.
> Brian M. Kochera
> "Some mistakes are too much fun to only make once!"
> View My Web Page:http://home.earthlink.net/~brian1951
Hi Brian,
Thanks for the great response, I do appreciate it. I agree with you -
it's not something that I am actually considering under the current
regime, it was more a question of what-if. I know that you have to
fill out a section listing your travels to other countries on
clearance applications which is what triggered my question.
Mike
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