Security Clearances Research Articles

Active Gait System for Real-Time Surveillance Against Cyber-Physical Attacks

Cyberterrorism, espionage, and warfare are serious threats to national security. These attacks can harm people or destroy critical infrastructures like the data centres, computer networks, and systems. Surveillance systems currently used in monitoring critical infrastructures, national key points, and military exclusion zones (MEZ) are ineffective in detecting unauthorised intrusions. These issues compromise the stability of the countries, and the safety of the citizens and result in the loss of important assets. This experimental research study developed a Cyber Physical Security (CPS) defense gait-recognition monitoring system. Autonomous Machine Learning (ML) technology was employed to enhance the precision and reliability of the system against CPA, in tracking access, managing security clearances, and triggering alerts in the event of unauthorized entries to restricted areas.

Building the Operational Technology (OT) Cybersecurity Workforce: What are Employers Looking for?

A trained workforce is needed to protect operational technology (OT) and industrial control systems (ICS) within national critical infrastructure and critical industries. However, what knowledge, skills, and credentials are employers looking for in OT cybersecurity professionals? To best train the next generation of OT cybersecurity professionals, an understanding of current OT cybersecurity position requirements is needed. Thus, this work analyzes 100 OT cybersecurity positions to provide insights on key prerequisite requirements such as prior professional experience, education, industry certifications, security clearances, programming expertise, soft verbal and written communication skills, knowledge of OT frameworks, standards, and network communication protocols, and position travel. We found that OT cybersecurity roles are typically non-entry level, as experience was the most common requirement, and was required on 95% of analyzed positions. Possession of a bachelor’s degree or higher was required for 82% of positions, while industry certifications such as the Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) or the Global Information Assurance Certification (GIAC) Global Industrial Cyber Security Professional (GICSP) were listed on 64% of positions. Knowledge of OT or IT frameworks and standards and strong communication skills were listed on 48% of positions, while programming expertise, possession of the United States security clearance, and knowledge of OT or IT networking protocols were required for 18%, 24%, and 27% of positions, respectively. A work travel requirement was listed on 29% of positions. Individuals seeking to enter the OT cybersecurity field, and educational programs focusing on training OT cybersecurity professionals should prioritize obtaining experience, education, and certification, possessing strong communication skills, and knowledge of relevant OT and IT industry standards and frameworks.

The Exception is the Rule: The Role of Security Clearances in Employment Discrimination

The Exception is the Rule: The Role of Security Clearances in Employment Discrimination

Protection of classified information in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia. Selected criminal and administrative regulations

The article discusses administrative regulations relating to the organization of the system for the protection of classified information in the Republic of Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as presents the criminal laws on crimes against the protection of classified information in force in these countries, along with an interpretation of these laws. The article also presents selected administrative regulations governing the procedure for carrying out security clearances for the issuance of a security clearance allowing access to classified information. In addition, the rationale for classifying information and assigning it a specific classification is discussed. On the basis of an analysis of the provisions in force in Bosnia and Herzegovina (Article 164 § 9 of the Criminal Code) and a comparison with those in force in Poland, among other things, a conclusion was drawn that Polish legislation does not include a countertype that would relieve from criminal liability depositaries of secrets who transfer classified information (without obtaining the consent of the authorities specified by law) in order to prosecute the perpetrators of crimes. The above can be the basis of a legislative de lege ferenda request. The article does not exhaust the topic covered, but merely indicates selected issues of the system of protection of classified information. The exploration that has been initiated may be used to conduct in-depth studies of the issue at hand in the future.

Restricted Data: The History of Nuclear Secrecy in the United States

Restricted Data: The History of Nuclear Secrecy in the United States

The legalisation of cannabis: A security-vetting dilemma

During 1996, the South African Intelligence Community issued the Minimum Information Security Standards (MISS), which inter alia address the protection of classified information. The MISS provide the principles, standards and procedures to be followed by all South African government agencies for the protection of official resources.3 This includes the granting of different types and levels of security clearances by the South African government to provide employees and contractors access to classified information. The decision to grant a person access to classified information is based on such individual’s security competence. This is an indication of the person’s ability – based on his or her conduct – to prevent classified material from being disclosed to unauthorised persons, which may potentially prejudice or endanger the security or interests of the employing institution or the state. An applicant for a security clearance may be a prospective employee applying for a post from outside the organisation or an insider who is already in the organisation, often referred to as outsider and insider threats.4 The process of determining a person’s security competence is referred to as security vetting for new employees, and re-vetting for existing employees who have gone through the vetting process in the past.5 In this article, the use of the term ‘vetting’ includes re-vetting.

Organizational Change and Security Clearance Reform: From the January 2021 Capitol Insurrection to a Future with Artificial Intelligence

ABSTRACT The Trusted Workforce 2.0 (TW2.0) initiative revamping the personnel security program made strides to implement the process of continuous evaluation (CE). CE isn't a new concept, though, but why did it take so long to implement? I argue TW2.0 built on previous momentum of evolutionary change to capitalize on a moment of punctuated equilibrium while utilizing best practices of designing for new technology. This paper will help to explain why rioters at the US Capitol with security clearances may stay in positions of authority, and it will also raise questions of what policies are needed for clearance reform in the future.

A Critique of Control and Black Boxes

This article analyzes Ian Hatcher’s online and kinetic poem “⌰ (Total Runout)” (2015) from a point of view of a critique of corporate and governmental black boxing, at the level of its code, text, visual output, sound, and live performance. The multimodal poem is part of the Drone Pilot suite, and it is presented in different versions: as a web-based work, sound piece, and performance. It remixes appropriated text from a WikiLeaked manual by the UK Ministry of Defence, essays on artificial intelligence, and Hatcher’s own text. The overall versions of the work, understood as variable events, boldly problematize communication and cognitive processes in networks—whether they are implemented in computer systems by secret agencies or corporations. Hatcher’s critique of black boxes entails re-creating issues of security, control and surveillance, as digital systems are increasingly paving the way for less privacy and less knowledge about their inner workings. As a result, the poem questions the essence of privacy, redaction, and systemic violence, when access is a privileged asset of agents with security clearances or those with a deep knowledge of programming. This article presents “⌰ (Total Runout)” in the scope of the poet’s aesthetic program. Then, it analyzes its Web version’s interface and source code. The kinetic poem’s spatial and temporal dimensions are discussed via experiments that modify the source code. The methods here presented deform the poem’s temporal display, by means of modifications, or what are called in the article lit mods. Thus, the article proposes an approach for a more informed reading and understanding of digital kinetic poems, since they are ever-changing events. Finally, it locates the work’s aural and performative versions in a cultural and political context.

“Data-Cloud (TOKEN)’s application in SECURITY CLEARANCES at the Domestic as well at the International AIRPORTs”

“Data-Cloud (TOKEN)’s application in SECURITY CLEARANCES at the Domestic as well at the International AIRPORTs”

Challenges to Using Big Data in Health Services Research

Given the shift in current healthcare trends toward digitization of storing information, there has been an increase in the number of studies using administrative databases. These databases provide a powerful tool to conduct research on outcomes, health services, and epidemiology. However, these databases have limitations and biases that should be considered. Given the sensitive information regarding patients’ health in the database, security clearances must be granted before data is accessed. Furthermore, algorithms to link the different variables to create a cohort of people with specific disease are imperfect and may not yield an accurate representation. Due to a large volume of records, a statistically significant finding may be observed, but may provide insignificant clinical results. Despite the current limitations, administrative databases provide powerful data that researchers can use to identify gaps in performance to improve the healthcare system.

Optimal Assignment of Sensors to Analysts in a Cybersecurity Operations Center

A cybersecurity operations center (CSOC) analyzes a large volume of alerts generated by intrusion detection systems, which process data from a number of sensors. Sensors are assigned to analysts, and the number of sensors is much larger than the number of analysts at the CSOC. Hence, sensors are grouped into clusters, which are allocated to analysts for investigation. There are two essential properties that must be met in the above grouping and allocation process: 1) meeting the cluster's requirement for specific analyst expertise mix, complete tool coverage that allows the analysts to handle the type of alerts generated, and analyst credentials such as security clearances; and 2) minimizing and balancing the number of unanalyzed alerts among clusters at the end of the daily work shift because an imbalance or a large number of unanalyzed alerts among clusters due to factors such as lack of analyst credentials or tooling expertise in a cluster would pose a security risk to the organization. Current practice at CSOCs is to group and then to allocate, which may not meet the above properties because grouping and allocation steps are done independently that remain static for a long time despite uncertainties such as day-to-day changes in alert generation rates and analyst absenteeism. This paper meets both properties by presenting an optimization model, in which grouping of sensors to clusters and analyst allocation to clusters is achieved simultaneously . The integrated methodology produces optimal sensor grouping and analyst allocation that is adaptable to changing shift conditions.

Democracy in Exile: Hans Speier and the Rise of the Defense Intellectual by Daniel Bessner

Reviewed by: Democracy in Exile: Hans Speier and the Rise of the Defense Intellectual by Daniel Bessner John Krige (bio) Democracy in Exile: Hans Speier and the Rise of the Defense Intellectual. By Daniel Bessner. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2018. Pp. 312. Hardcover $35. Daniel Bessner's outstanding biography of the eminent and influential social scientist Hans Speier charts his intellectual and political efforts to promote democracy in the Weimar republic, his refashioning of his strategy once Hitler came to power, his move to the United States, and his uncritical commitment to serving as a defense intellectual advising the highest levels of government after dedicating himself to analyzing Nazi propaganda during World War II. Its richness lies in Bessner's careful analysis of the changing positions adopted by Speier on the vulnerability of democracy to mass politics, a concern rooted in Mannheim's sociology of knowledge, and of his gradual conviction that social scientific advice should be left to experts who were not accountable to the body politic. To save democracy from tyranny one had—temporarily—to suspend some of its core values. Speier's determination to hold extremism, both fascism and communism, at bay, was central to his politics, from WWII through the Cold War. Ironically, Speier was a democrat in exile in the United States but in his role as a defense intellectual at RAND, and then as consultant to the Ford Foundation and the State Department, he argued for "exiling" democracy: he thought democracy was threatened by the gullible, selfinterested, and manipulable masses that he came to despise after the trauma of Hitler's rise to power. Gradually detaching himself from Marxism and relinquishing his direct engagement with educating working men and women during the Weimar years, Speier saw an unbridgeable epistemological gulf between the educated intellectual elite and the working class. RAND emerged as a perfect venue for Speier to promote his agenda. He joined it in 1948 as the founding chief of its Social Science Division, when its future was still uncertain, and remained there until 1969 when he was appointed professor of sociology and government at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. It was at RAND that he and his colleagues "learned secrecy" (p. 147), producing a culture of classified reports and journals, restricted conferences, and off-the-record discussions and security clearances (up to nuclear developments for Speier himself) that shaped [End Page 919] policy decisions in a universe that existed parallel to the open society. He used his growing influence to persuade the Ford Foundation to fund "basic research" at the Center for the Advanced Study of Behavioral Sciences (CASBS) and a Research Program in International Communications at MIT's Center for International Studies (CIS), engaging a new academic elite in social science research that could be "applied" to policymaking in the Cold War. His influence at RAND waned as quantitative and formal methods of analysis, including game theory, systems analysis, and computer simulations, pushed qualitative social scientific research to the margins. Speier remained committed to considering politics, culture, psychology, and emotions in making sense of human behavior, and he developed his own Cold War political game that simulated real-life behavior in international politics. It was used by the Kennedy Administration to simulate the Second Berlin Crisis. Bessner writes about his subject with sympathy and insight. It is only in his conclusion that he questions Speier's political choices. He does quote Noam Chomsky bemoaning scholars who worked uncritically for the military-intellectual complex as being unable to fulfill their intellectual duty to speak truth to power—a left-wing critique that had run out of the steam by the late 1970s. Preferring rather to address those currently engaged as defense intellectuals, Bessner emphasizes the need for expert accountability. Taking a position orthogonal to that of his subject, he insists that public accountability is the only way to ensure that expert governance functions effectively: Speier believed it would have had just the opposite effect. Democracy is still in exile today, writes Bessner, and it can only be revitalized if "Americans were to develop means by which experts were morally and professionally sanctioned for poor advice" (p. 231). Bessner challenges us thus...

3. Soldier with a Notebook

3. Soldier with a Notebook Bill Broyles (bio) In April 1942 Ives left Douglas Aircraft and as a civilian went to work for the U.S. Army Signal Corps and the Army Chemical Corps, in succession, at the Presidio of San Francisco, then Fort Monmouth, New [End Page 280] Jersey, and then Dugway Proving Ground, Utah. He seems to have found a niche working with weather instruments, probably based on his limited experience monitoring weather in the Rockies. At the Presidio and Fort Monmouth he took a series of military training courses, though he makes no mention of anything like a boot camp. And he was assigned to Dugway as chief of the Meteorology Section. There, in his words, he "made standard and special weather observations, trained personnel in special chemical techniques, designed, built, tested, and operated a wide variety of special instruments for chemical meteorological work, including telemetering instruments for use in hazardous locations. Prepared reports on same, with recommendations for mass production, and instruction manuals for their use. Made, operated, and evaluated radiological instruments for tracer researches in connection with same."151 It is unclear whether Ives volunteered for the army or was drafted for World War II, but on July 17, 1943, he was inducted. His draft board was in Boulder, Colorado, but he gave his address as Upper Montclair, New Jersey, when he entered on duty as a second lieutenant "commissioned directly from civil life," undoubtedly because he was college educated with a master's degree. His discharge papers show work experience as a meteorologist with the U.S. Army Signal Corps; Chemical Warfare Service, U.S. Army; and the American Philosophical Society, Boulder, Colorado, 1938–1943, which at first appears perplexing but the society was the funding connection to his geological study for the Big Thompson project. Along the way he earned low-level security clearances, while his father, as head of Bell Laboratories, undoubtedly had high-level security clearances, because the lab had a role in perfecting top-secret projects like radar and infrared sniperscopes. His army physical qualified him for Limited Service based on some existing physical conditions. His health was "normal," with vitals as height, 69½ inches; 131 pounds; pulse of 88; and blood pressure of 125/80. His vision was 20/80 in his right eye and 20/70 in the left, both correctable to 20/20. Of interest, the report notes an appendectomy in 1931, fractured ribs on both sides in 1932, and both feet being "frozen severely" in 1928 with his right small toe being amputated, though he continued to work at altitudes and in cold doing search and rescue and geological research without further ill effects. The medical board notes his being 6 pounds underweight for his height and age and having deficient circulation in his feet, but gave him a waiver and recommended him for limited duty.152 [End Page 281] Ives's version of what happened reads like comedy, one that many veterans can relate to, but it was nothing to sneer at. He declared, I worked for Douglas Aircraft on the development of the C-54. That became the DC-4. One day I was told, "Hey, you're working for the Signal Corps." And I said, "Hell I am. I'm working for Douglas." "You're under orders." So suddenly I found myself in Ft. Monmouth, New Jersey. I was there about four weeks and I heard "Hey, you're to go out and start a meteorological station at Dugway, Utah." I said, "Where in the hell is this Dugway." And he showed me on the map. And so I went to Dugway and with some Signal Corps helpers set up a meteorological station there on the Chemical Corps proving ground. One day more papers came through and instead of being an employee of the Signal Corps, I was suddenly an employee of the Army Chemical Corps. And then a few months later, the commander called me in and said, "You're no longer a civilian." I said, "Now what happened?" "A presidential order. You're a first lieutenant." I said, "What difference does that make?" He said, "$200 a month less in pay...

A Conversation with Edie Windsor

Suzanne Goldberg [SG): It is not often that a law school gets to welcome a rock star. But in our world, Edie Windsor is a rock star. She is one of the major civil rights plaintiffs of our lifetime, whose lawsuit challenged--and triumphed over--the federal Defense of Marriage Act. Her victory in that suit has been vital to changing the landscape of marriage equality for all Americans. It is a tremendous honor, Edie, to have you here at Columbia Law School, and we welcome you. Edie Windsor [EW]: Thank you so much. SG: I will start off by asking the first question in our conversation this afternoon, and then Andrew Chesley and Madeline Gomez, who are both Columbia Law School students, will be following up with questions we have collected from students throughout the law school. Edie, you have shown courage in every imaginable way: entering the computer science field as a young woman at a time where there were few women computer scientists--in fact, there were barely computer scientists; making the decision to get divorced and then coming to New York City to find other lesbians; and then coming out in so many ways. So when Time Magazine called you the "unlikely activist," it was not quite right because in so many ways, for so many years, you have been an activist, and you have been willing to challenge conventions. (1) Let's start the conversation by you just talking about how it was as a young lesbian coming to New York and confronting this world, and then also about some of the activism that you've done along the way before you filed your lawsuit against the United States government. EW: First of all, I came out late enough in life that I missed a lot of the pain of adolescence when you're gay and don't belong. I first had any kind of real relationship with a woman when I was a first-year student in college. And I didn't fall in love seriously with a woman until I was in my third year in college. Meanwhile I had become engaged to be married to a great guy, who was my big brother's best friend. He and I did get married, but when I saw two women together on a Saturday night, I was jealous. I had never been out with a girlfriend even on a Saturday night. I went out with boyfriends. So it was a whole different world. I told my husband, "Honey, you deserve more and I need something else." But as I said, I missed most of the pain. I came to New York and there was nothing but bars, and 1 didn't even know how to find them. The first time I went to a bar, I really wasn't living in New York yet. I came in for a wedding, and then I got on the Fifth Avenue bus and I went downtown. I stopped a woman on the street who had on a trenchcoat. And I said, "Do you know a bar where only women go?" She sent me to Thompson Street, L's Bar. I sat down at the bar, and I ordered a drink; I had never paid for a drink myself in my life until then. And nobody talked to me. I was dressed to the T, and nobody said hello, nobody said anything. I sat there for two hours and then I left. Okay. I thought, this is not going to be easy. My first real experience with being afraid of being gay came when I worked on the UNIVAC at NYU, which was mostly subsidized by the government and used primarily by the Atomic Energy Commission. (2) We had to have security clearances. I got a notice from the FBI inviting me to a meeting and saying I did not need a lawyer at this point. I got a book to get ready--and the book was the first time I saw the word gay. (3) It also had an appendix with the states and what was illegal in each state. It said that as far as women were concerned, that in New York, as long as you weren't imitating a man or pretending you were a man, you were safe. And in the bars, everybody said that so long as you were wearing two pieces of women's underwear, you would be safe if the police raided. So I didn't want to lie. If they asked me, I wanted to say, "I am gay." I'll probably lose my job, but I won't be arrested. …

Effect of Legal Issues in Infrastructure Development: The Case of Container Terminal Bids in Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust

Abstract The Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust (JNPT) is the largest container port in India, handling about 40% of India's container traffic in 2014-15. JNPT has five container terminals (CT) out of which three have already been operationalised, a standalone CT of 330 metres (m) is partially operationalised and a fourth CT is under construction. While the first CT, Jawaharlal Nehru Port Container Terminal, is operated by JNPT, the second and third CTs are being operated by DP World and an APM Terminals-CONCOR consortium respectively. The standalone CT too is operated by DP World while the fourth CT was awarded to PSA International and is under construction. The development of the CTs is a case study to understand how various conflicts have been addressed or accentuated by policy makers, legal and regulatory authorities, and the mechanisms used to resolve them. Following a case-based analytical approach, case studies, court judgements, published and unpublished papers, media reports, primary data from discussions, and secondary data have been examined to construct a chronological story of the bids for the five CTs during the twenty five years since the commissioning of the port in 1989. The concessioning of each CT to a private stakeholder involved contentious issues which prompted the authorities to revise policy guidelines periodically to address them. Consequent and prolonged litigation resulted in time and cost overruns. Various issues, like policy formulation, contractual rights versus policy guidelines, strategic risks, monopoly prevention versus scale economies, market risks, effect of elections, leadership changes, security clearances, mutuality and clarity in documentation, that emerged during the bidding processes, have been crystallised as lessons learnt.

The “ANTHROPOCENE”: What is its geological utility? (Answer: It has none!)

Since proposed in 2000, the concept of the “Anthropocene” has filtered through the geological literature (See Zalasiewicz,, et al, In Press, for a brief summary review). Inevitably, it attracted the attention of the IUGS which formed a Working Group of the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS) to examine it. Although the base of the “Anthropocene” is diachronous (Edgeworth et al, 2015), the chair of the ICS Working Group on the Anthropocene has proposed that the “Anthropocene’s” base should be defined now by the isotopic signature of the world’s first nuclear explosion on July 16, 1945, at Alamogorda, NM, (Zalasiewicz,et al, In Press). Other work (Corcoran et al, 2014) shows that plastic garbage makes an anthropogenic global marker as well. The real question is, does the “Anthropocene” even have utility? Granted, human reworking is observable at the surface or near surface, but is it geologically regional in scale? How would one map the proposed isotopic marker in the field? Will it mean repeated trips to the field to collect samples, analyze them isotopically in the laboratory, and then go back to the field to place the boundary thus increasing a field geologist’s carbon footprint? Or will geologists now be required to carry a Geiger counter or portable Gamma Ray tool to be sure not to miss the critical basal boundary? (I see a business opportunity here to develop miniaturized versions for field use). Where will the type section be? Alamogorda, NM, where the original atomic bomb test took place, is a military restricted area requiring extensive security clearances to even visit, much less do field work, if it will even be allowed. Obviously, a search for a standard section will be required, but where will it be and who decides? How long will it take and how many international field excursions will be required before the ICS makes such a decision? Has the isotopic signature representing the base of the “Anthropocene” ever been identified and correlated in deep sea piston cores recovered by oceanographic institutions? (DSDP, IPOD and ODP cores have disturbed tops so are unusable). Has anyone even checked? Tyrrell (20l1) summarized a range of potential oceanographic scenarios but little in the way of data pinpointing diagnostic signatures. Looks like a potential PhD thesis for someone. What is the long-term preservation potential of any identifying criteria for the so-called “Anthropocene”? Likely it will be small because most of the studies describing evidence of human alterations occur in geomorphic areas that are dominantly erosional. Few examples have been reported from areas of sediment deposition that have larger preservation potential (See references cited above). A working limestone quarry operates near my residence. Is the changing vertical cut and quarry floor an “excavation surface”? Is the “excavation surface” in a quarry ten miles away and abandoned 50 years ago coeval? Perhaps the IGC should form a subcommittee to evaluate that surface for its utility in “Anthropocene” sequence stratigraphy. If the reader is offended by my questions and bemusement, please be advised that the following quote,

Defense and Government Contractor M&A—Special Concerns for Private Equity Buyers

Private equity (PE) buyers account for a great deal of merger and acquisition activity involving aerospace, defense, and technology services firms that contract with the U.S. government. This industry is highly regulated, and some of its regulations are complex and counter-intuitive. The article addresses the affiliation issues that can arise from holding government contractor portfolio companies. First is the affiliation among a PE buyer, its portfolio companies, and the acquired company for purposes of the U.S. Small Business Administration rules on small business “set aside” contracts. Second is the affiliation between PE firms and their foreign investors when acquiring a government contractor that holds security clearances. Finally is the affiliation between and among portfolio companies for purposes of contract competitions, including the conflict of interest and suspension/debarment regimes.

The role of the health physicist in nuclear security.

Health physics is a recognized safety function in the holistic context of the protection of workers, members of the public, and the environment against the hazardous effects of ionizing radiation, often generically designated as radiation protection. The role of the health physicist as protector dates back to the Manhattan Project. Nuclear security is the prevention and detection of, and response to, criminal or intentional unauthorized acts involving or directed at nuclear material, other radioactive material, associated facilities, or associated activities. Its importance has become more visible and pronounced in the post 9/11 environment, and it has a shared purpose with health physics in the context of protection of workers, members of the public, and the environment. However, the duties and responsibilities of the health physicist in the nuclear security domain are neither clearly defined nor recognized, while a fundamental understanding of nuclear phenomena in general, nuclear or other radioactive material specifically, and the potential hazards related to them is required for threat assessment, protection, and risk management. Furthermore, given the unique skills and attributes of professional health physicists, it is argued that the role of the health physicist should encompass all aspects of nuclear security, ranging from input in the development to implementation and execution of an efficient and effective nuclear security regime. As such, health physicists should transcend their current typical role as consultants in nuclear security issues and become fully integrated and recognized experts in the nuclear security domain and decision making process. Issues regarding the security clearances of health physics personnel and the possibility of insider threats must be addressed in the same manner as for other trusted individuals; however, the net gain from recognizing and integrating health physics expertise in all levels of a nuclear security regime far outweighs any negative aspects. In fact, it can be argued that health physics is essential in achieving an integrated approach toward nuclear safety, security, and safeguards.

A Conversation with Edie Windsor

Suzanne Goldberg [SG): It is not often that a law school gets to welcome a rock star. But in our world, Edie Windsor is a rock star. She is one of the major civil rights plaintiffs of our lifetime, whose lawsuit challenged--and triumphed over--the federal Defense of Marriage Act. Her victory in that suit has been vital to changing the landscape of marriage equality for all Americans. It is a tremendous honor, Edie, to have you here at Columbia Law School, and we welcome you. Edie Windsor [EW]: Thank you so much. SG: will start off by asking the first question in our conversation this afternoon, and then Andrew Chesley and Madeline Gomez, who are both Columbia Law School students, will be following up with questions we have collected from students throughout the law school. Edie, you have shown courage in every imaginable way: entering the computer science field as a young woman at a time where there were few women computer scientists--in fact, there were barely computer scientists; making the decision to get divorced and then coming to New York City to find other lesbians; and then coming out in so many ways. So when Time Magazine called you the unlikely it was not quite right because in so many ways, for so many years, you have been an activist, and you have been willing to challenge conventions. (1) Let's start the conversation by you just talking about how it was as a young lesbian coming to New York and confronting this world, and then also about some of the activism that you've done along the way before you filed your lawsuit against the United States government. EW: First of all, came out late enough in life that missed a lot of the pain of adolescence when you're gay and don't belong. first had any kind of real relationship with a woman when was a first-year student in college. And didn't fall in love seriously with a woman until was in my third year in college. Meanwhile had become engaged to be married to a great guy, who was my big brother's best friend. He and did get married, but when saw two women together on a Saturday night, was jealous. had never been out with a girlfriend even on a Saturday night. went out with boyfriends. So it was a whole different world. told my husband, Honey, you deserve more and need something else. But as said, missed most of the pain. came to New York and there was nothing but bars, and 1 didn't even know how to find them. The first time went to a bar, really wasn't living in New York yet. came in for a wedding, and then got on the Fifth Avenue bus and went downtown. stopped a woman on the street who had on a trenchcoat. And said, Do you know a bar where only women go? She sent me to Thompson Street, L's Bar. sat down at the bar, and ordered a drink; had never paid for a drink myself in my life until then. And nobody talked to me. was dressed to the T, and nobody said hello, nobody said anything. sat there for two hours and then left. Okay. thought, this is not going to be easy. My first real experience with being afraid of being gay came when worked on the UNIVAC at NYU, which was mostly subsidized by the government and used primarily by the Atomic Energy Commission. (2) We had to have security clearances. got a notice from the FBI inviting me to a meeting and saying did not need a lawyer at this point. got a book to get ready--and the book was the first time saw the word (3) It also had an appendix with the states and what was illegal in each state. It said that as far as women were concerned, that in New York, as long as you weren't imitating a man or pretending you were a man, you were safe. And in the bars, everybody said that so long as you were wearing two pieces of women's underwear, you would be safe if the police raided. So didn't want to lie. If they asked me, wanted to say, I am gay. I'll probably lose my job, but won't be arrested. …

The effectiveness of a national security screening interview conducted by a computer-generated agent

To determine the feasibility of automating the process of interviewing applicants for Federal security clearances, the authors examined behavioral and physiological responses of individuals (n=120) to questions concerning their mental health, drug, alcohol, and criminal histories. The interviews were administered by a computer-generated (CG) agent. The results indicated that the number of relevant admissions during the CG interview exceeded the number of admissions made using a self-report questionnaire. In addition, significant blood volume and skin conductance amplitude differences were observed between individuals who made two or more relevant admissions and individuals who made less than two admissions. An interaction between perceived locus of interview control (either computer or human) and behavioral activation systems (BAS) on skin conductance (SC) responses was also observed.