Reply #22: Amen to that Blond

[NeedleCast]

As a person who has been such a victim, I can tell you just how damaging it can be.

In 2003, I was working at the Office of Naval Intelligence, which required a high level security clearence. Due to a clerical error, a page of my application was lost (put in the wrong folder by someone who wasen't me. Well, someone noticed this and reported it to security, and the next thing ya know, I'm being accused of falsifying documents by not providing a "full" copy of my application. My security clearance was revoked, I was fired by the contractor I was working for and spent 40% of my 2003 take home pay on my legal defense...because an over-aggressive federal attorney thought he could get some credit for busting me. Six months into legal proceedings, the missing page was found in another folder (in the same drawer of the same filing cabinet). Still took the federal attack dogs three more months to drop charges against me. They didn't want to look bad after their case fell apart, so they went fishing for anything else they could find on me, which ended up being nothing, although they debated bringing up charges that I had put malicious software on the ONI computer network because someone had tried during the year I worked there and since they already had my name in the system, why not blame me for it?

My reputation was in shambles and I essentially had to start a new career in a different field, even though all charges were dropped and I was completely innocent.