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What do the Bureau of Diplomatic Security's Coordinator for Security Infrastructure and former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky have in common?
They look kind of similar.
What else do they have in common?
They've both been doing bad things that destroy innocent lives, and getting away with them for a long time.
The news this month has brought a number of commentaries and insights into why this is so.
The news has not just brought us a Penn State coach who is a pedophile, and an organization that protected him. It brought us news of similar atrocities in both Orthodox Jewish and Conservative Christian communities in the US. All are shocking, not just for the nature of their crimes, but for the degree to which they have remained hidden for years.
All of these cases share certain traits:
They have all occurred in small communities that have each, in their own way, taken pains to separate themselves from others.
These communities see themselves as elite and special, in some ways better than everybody else.
All see themselves as doing God's work, or at least, serving a greater good - so great a greater good that ordinary rules and laws do not apply to it.
These are communities that put the reputation of the community - the good name of Penn State, or the Lord, or DS, ahead of any individual right. Or wrong.
They have an organizational or community-based claim to integrity, and the ability to accuse others of lacking that integrity. They share a belief that they can strip any accusers of credibility at will.
And they use these ideas to justify to themselves the collective hiding of secrets that they believe could hurt their community - protecting the wrongdoers in their own ranks in the name of avoiding an embarrassment to football, to the University, to the Lord, or to the DS team. "We represent" they tell themselves, " the very nature of GOOD, itself. And we cannot even admit to ourselves, much less to others, that there are any among us who are not absolute in that embodiment."
Or worse: "We do so much good (help so many kids) that a few missteps along the way (a few kids sacrificed as a reward to the do-gooders) is an acceptable price to pay."
One by one, their secrets are coming out.
The victims are confronting their abusers, and the facts are becoming clear.
Under its current Coordinator, DS has routinely abused the security clearance system to punish dissidents, silence critics, settle personal gripes, and limit diversity.
It has gotten away with this abuse because it refuses categorically to subject itself to any oversight or to enact any internal control mechanism to ensure compliance with the government-wide rules followed by every other agency.
Like Penn State, and the various Deacons and Rabbis involved, and the Vatican, for that matter - in earlier allegations of child abuse and pedophilia by priests, the State Department has remained aloof, supporting continued abuse through continued silence. The Department routinely signs off on certifications, including an annual certification by the Secretary, that internal controls are in place and being followed. Meanwhile, two key DS functions - security clearance adjudication and PR investigations, remain entirely free even from rudimentary internal oversight.
Any visa issuance, any travel voucher, any housing assignment, any outgoing telegram, receives more scrutiny and oversight than investigations and adjudications that can end people's careers. These functions are virtually the only functions in all of State's operations that have no - repeat no - mechanism in place to ensure compliance with State's own rules.
That has allowed DS to get away with doing metaphorically to FSOs what Sandusky did physically to children.
But the truth will one day be made clear. And CFSO will continue to work towards that goal until it does.
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