> I've seen more people lose their clearance for pissing hot

When? In the 90s? Biggest pothead I know has had a clearance since '05. For my own form, I straight up admitted I had done it and did not regret it.

Are you saying weed should be punished less, or the others should be punished like weed?

The thing that is missed in most efforts to replace people with machines is how often the people that are being replaced are on the fly fixing the system the machine is intended to crystallize and automate.

It's easy to pass judgement on a decision like that when so far removed from the context where/when it took place.

It's likely that answering yes to that question meant an instant rejection for the clearance AND summer job. The FBI was probably not inclined to spend money looking into such an obviously trivial matter just so some kid could get some work experience. "Sorry, try the McDonald's down the street."

That security officer did the author an incredibly big favor.

When I joined the Air Force, they helped us fill out the clearance forms. One question was related to marijuana use in the past. The NCO helping us told us “if you have used it before, be honest. They will know.” But then followed it up with “remember: you used it less than 5 times and you didn’t like it”.

It’s also odd, because usually, as long as you don’t lie on your security form, you’ll get your clearance.

The coverup is always worse than the original sin.

If it is plausible that you did not remember, it's not a felony. Something that happened for 12-years old is easy to forget.

There is nothing morally wrong in felonies like this, just don't get caught.

Probably thought he was joking around. This was for a summer internship after all.

The travel forms to visit the US ask if people have ever been involved in espionage, at least they did, I'm not aware that it's changed.

You can guarantee the many people who work for intelligence agencies of US allies aren't admitting to that when they travel to the US.

It's all a bit of a game.

He lied originally, kinda.

He made a cypher with a school friend, which cypher was handed by a stranger to the FBI and investigated. That one possible outcome of the investigation might be 'the subject is a Japanese spy' doesn't mean _he_ was suspected of that; not by the FBI at least.

If he said, "I made a cypher in school", then likely the form would have been considered fine? Presumably his record clearly showed the FBI incident, so I'm surprised that lying in the second form didn't cause concern sufficient to question him. But there you go; I've never had any associations with TLAs, what would I know.

I mean, his name is Les Earnest, they should expect it.

https://milk.com/value/

Also the server header is "lactoserv"

He used to (maybe still does) have a page where he talked about turning down millions of dollars for it.

Almost as cool as owning ai.com!!

In an incredible coincidence, I just yesterday listened to a podcast episode that discussed milk.com.

https://www.npr.org/2025/09/03/nx-s1-5526903/domain-name-val...

"Kid, have you rehabilitated yourself?"

Investigating a cryptographic key found near a major military installation during war time doesn’t strike me as a waste of money. We have the full information about the outcome, but the San Diego FBI field office did not.

I think that’s what makes this story so funny- the FBI was acting appropriately and rationally, but ended up with a relatively absurd result.

It's not funny. It's a dag-gone jobs program. ICE, TSA, and more throw away billions to effect little but a heavy burden on the population. These organizations, FBI and other law enforcement included, invent crises and problems so as to secure even more funding.

Maybe the individual investigator in the story is excepted considering it seems he took it seriously, perhaps, but yes, a lot of money is intentionally thrown into these organizations for security theater, jobs programs, and padding the pockets of political friends and cronies.

What we should be worried about is how many legitimate threats fly under the radar because time and again these organizations have been proven to be highly ineffective at actually preventing what their charters mandate, but they can appear to be very visibly effective by incarcerating thousands of innocent people.

And then when something big happens, everybody and their dog starts screaming “how could this happen?!?”

You can’t have it both ways… (not specifically directed at you.)

I mean, in this case the government spent thousands because there was a small amount of circumstantial evidence that suggested there was clandestine communication happening during wartime.

What was the immediate government spending on Japanese American internment, where there was no evidence or investigation into the ~120k people whose lives were disrupted, and who were transported, housed, fed and guarded for multiple years?

Arguably, spending thousands on investigating something specific is less wasteful than the alternatives the government was willing to take at that time.

You think it was a waste of money to try to track down a cipher during World War II, when we'd been at war with Japan for over a year?

Remember, hindsight is always 20/20.

Here you go: https://yarchive.net/risks/mongrel.html