Comment by Gustomaximus | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Gustomaximus | Hacker News Reader

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This reply seems poor logic. It feels like (apologies if I've misinterpreted) by claiming if a born citizen can turn there is no reason not to treat naturalised citizens desperately. It would be like me pointing out sober drivers that have had accidents to explain why we shouldn't limit drink driving.

And I respect the ideology of once some someone is a citizen, they should have full rights. Though ideology and practicality do not always meet efficiently and in something like this I feel practicality is needed.

So circling back for clarity, my point was I suspect (note, saying I suspect not know) there is higher risk of a naturalised citizen harbouring loyalty to their origin country and/or being more easily manipulated via family ties etc. This would vary by country and circumstance so is not black and white but in this situation where you know Chinese agents are very active, I find it amazing, for right or wrong, an agency would take that chance. And with hindsight, this is a very correct view.

The poor logic is your unfounded assumption that naturalized citizens are somehow more prone to this type of crime than citizens by birth.

If you want to assert that, you'll need to back it up with evidence. Until you do, there's no reason to assume it -- if anything, one could flip your logic around and claim that birth citizenship should correlate with higher risk since a born citizen didn't have to do anything to "earn" it and so doesn't value their citizenship/country as much as someone who had to put in significant effort and jump through a lot of hoops to get naturalized.

This is similar to the situation where some people notices that born again Christians are more religious than people who've been Christians their whole lives. And this makes sense on some level, to have to actively seek out membership (religious or national) implies a greater degree of effort or commitment than someone who has never known non-membership.

New converts to a religion are always the most zealous.

Is there really no reason for you to assume a naturalized citizen might possibly have loyalty to his former country? Really, you can't see any reason at all? Nothing?

This argument is pretty much the dictionary definition of prejudice.

"preconceived opinion that is not based on reason or actual experience."

No, it's not.

My predjudice would be that naturalized citizens actually tend to being more jingoistic and loyal in order to prove that they really do belong.

For one, you're not considering malicious actors not acting independently. It's not easier to get an nth generation citizen than a naturalised one to apply for a CIA role.

There is a way of limiting the severity of such a situation though; just caveat the clearance so the bearer is restricted from accessing any information relating to their country of origin (or any other countries they or close relatives have a potential conflict with). It seems surprising that wasn't done here, regardless of his original intent.

Plus naturalized citizens need to pass a lot more screening, from getting the visa to enter the country in the first place, and on each next step afterwards - they are under the constant surveillance for years even before they apply for the job that requires any security clearances.

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