BOOK REVIEW: TRUST ME: A GUIDE TO SECRETS: WHO GETS THEM AND WHY WE HAVE SUCH A MIXED TRACK RECORD WITH THEM
By Lindy Kyzer / Post Hill Press
Reviewed by: Linda Weissgold
The Reviewer: Cipher Brief Expert Linda Weissgold retired from the Central Intelligence Agency* with more than 37 years’ experience. Her final position was serving as Deputy Director for Analysis, responsible for the quality of all-source intelligence analysis at the CIA. She previously served as head of CIA’s Office of Terrorism Analysis and as a Presidential Intelligence Briefer. She is currently an adjunct professor at Texas A&M University’s Bush School of Government and Public Service in Washington, DC. She is also a geopolitical consultant and active on multiple advisory boards.
REVIEW — Mention the topic of security clearances these days and you are almost guaranteed to provoke a strong reaction–whether it be about the difficulties of getting one or the privilege of retaining one. As a professor at Texas A&M’s Bush School of Government and Public Service in DC and someone who held a clearance for decades, I am routinely asked by nervous students looking to go into public service about the process. Fortunately, I have found in Lindy Kyzer’s book, Trust Me: A Guide to Secrets: Who Gets Them and Why We Have Such a Mixed Track Record with Them, an objective and informative resource that I can recommend without hesitation to those seeking to understand an opaque, yet crucial process.
In an era when we often hear more about the virtues of openness and declassification than the importance of clandestinity, Ms. Kyzer wisely starts by establishing that the concept of government secrecy is enshrined in the Constitution. (Article I, Section 5 allows Congress to exempt information that it deems may require “secrecy” from its required public reports.) Fast forward to a world in which more information is being produced and is more accessible than ever, and it is understandable that keeping secrets or “need to know” requires a vetting framework. Like it or not, the government needs a process that determines whether someone can be trusted with access to sensitive information, systems, and facilities. That is, in a nutshell, the security clearance process.
Ms. Kyzer’s book is not a blueprint for getting a clearance. Rather, it is a guide to help demystify and prepare an applicant for a less-than-straight-forward process. It gives both practical and philosophical advice. Clean up your finances before applying. Stop smoking pot, even if it is legal in your state of residence. If you don’t want to take a polygraph, don’t apply for certain national security jobs. She writes without judgment about questions that some may be afraid to voice, including addictions, mental health, and juvenile transgressions. She discusses balancing truthfulness and some generational tendencies to overshare, reminding applicants to read the security questions carefully. Nobody is worried about you taking a pen home from work but boxes of them may be worth explaining.
What national security news are you missing today? Get full access to your own national security daily brief by upgrading to Subscriber+Member status.
Trust Me is not just meant for those seeking a clearance. It also offers useful information for those who already have one and for those involved in potential reform. Ms. Kyzer, who is Vice President of Content and Partnerships at ClearanceJobs.com—the largest career site for cleared US professionals—offers authoritative words of wisdom on career pathways. And, in her role as vice chair of the Intelligence National Security Alliance’s (INSA) Security Policy Reform Council, she is well-versed on the probability that security policies, reporting requirements, and adjudicative guidelines are likely to shift. As such, clearance holders would be smart to heed her tips on ways to stay reliably informed, as well as her admonition that continuous vetting, rather than scheduled reinvestigations, means that blips in your financial activity, run-ins with law enforcement, and your digital footprint, are now flagged in real time so proactively engaging with your designated security officials is now more important than ever. For those involved in continuing to find ways to improve the clearance process, Ms. Kyzer highlights reciprocity and clearance portability as potentially low-hanging fruit that could be helped by continuous vetting and AI. Clearance policies already indicate eligibility should be portable, but the reality is that onboarding between organizations for cleared individuals can still be a lengthy process. Universal continuous vetting for cleared individuals could remove some objections and help to speed up onboarding processes and ultimately increase government agility.
I truly appreciate that, while her book is leavened with humor—for example suggesting your tasteful nude selfies might be a problem if you wouldn’t send them to your mother—Ms. Kyzer does not sugar coat or avoid controversies. She admits the subjectivity involved in qualifying for a clearance and in losing one. She objectively reminds readers that a security clearance “is not a personal asset but rather a conditional privilege granted by the government.” She highlights that even the most thorough background investigations sometimes fail to identify individuals who ultimately become insider risks. I applaud her candor in part because I believe it is essential for those seeking a clearance to understand up front that once you are given access to the nation’s most sensitive data, you will be expected to forfeit some of your own personal freedoms to protect that information and yourself. Restricting your public speaking on some topics, reporting your foreign travel, providing access to your financial records are all part of the equation, and you should know and accept that before you apply. Some of these restrictions are life-long, including my requirement to submit this article for classification review.
When I was leading the Directorate of Analysis at CIA, I often reminded officers that the Intelligence Community operates on three kinds of privileged access—the time and thinking of our country’s leaders; a range of information, classified and unclassified, often acquired at real risk; and our reputation. These are all grants of trust that must be used wisely, in accordance with US law, and in keeping with the expectations of the American people. It’s true that most of what CIA, and the rest of the Intelligence Community, does on good days takes place outside of the public eye, but there is accountability from Congress and independent internal units. The first rung on that accountability ladder, however, is the clearance process. Trust Me is therefore ultimately an important resource for anyone seeking to understand the most basic safeguards surrounding government secrecy. Love it or hate it, my personal hope is that any ongoing controversies surrounding the clearance process never diminishes the commitment of those who have had the privilege of serving to protect our nation’s secrets or the confidence of the American public in its institutions.
The Cipher Brief participates in the Amazon Affiliate program and may make a small commission from purchases made via links.
Sign up for our free Undercover newsletter to make sure you stay on top of all of the new releases and expert reviews.
Read more expert-driven national security insights, perspective and analysis in The Cipher Brief because National Security is Everyone’s Business
*All statements of fact, opinion, or analysis expressed are those of the reviewer and do not reflect the official positions or views of the US Government. Nothing in the contents should be construed as asserting or implying US Government authentication of information or endorsement of the reviewer's views.
