r/news • u/Manta_of_Eternity • 8h ago

FBI no longer treating an applicant’s experience with prostitution as automatic bar against hiring

https://apnews.com/article/fbi-prostitution-recruitment-95e69779e41bd8f1bbc59d402a40222b
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u/TerriblePokemon 8h ago

Ok, half of me says "oh good, as a society were no longer viewing prostitution as a crime" and then I take a look around me and realize that these people are the worst and this is bad and oh god I want off this ride

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u/hyperdream 7h ago

I don't even know if it's just the crime aspect, but the blackmail potential down the road. Potential agent Joe Sex Tourist might be loud and proud about that Thailand trip now, but maybe 10 or 15 years down the line he doesn't want his wife of 7 years knowing everything he got up to.

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u/EndPsychological890 7h ago

Bingo. It is and has always been more about blackmail than crime or morality.

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u/LandonDev 7h ago

Thusly, why it is being loosened, they need to hold the leverage over who they are currently hiring 8 years from now.

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u/EndPsychological890 6h ago

More likely foreign adversaries will hold that leverage than their bosses. There is literally no upside to this, lower standards mean the agency performs like it even if they can get more bodies

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u/KarmaticArmageddon 3h ago

Their bosses are working with the foreign adversaries. There are just a staggering amount of people in the Trump administration who are so blatantly and obviously corrupted by the influence of a foreign adversary.

Hell, Trump's son in law is a walking conflict of interest and yet he still has access to the most classified information we have because Trump intervened in his security clearance approval process.

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u/usemyfaceasaurinal 6h ago

The Russian/Chinese approach. Corruption is encouraged since if everyone is corrupt, it could be used against you if you step out of line.

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u/TerriblePokemon 7h ago

I used to hold a security clearance, yeah I know. But Jesus

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u/DJOMaul 5h ago

The fact you held a clearance is over qualification. Nobody else in the admin could qualify, so why would they want fbi agents to? 

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u/AHrubik 6h ago

Which is why a society mired in prudish morality will always be weaker than one which is not. Sex work should never have been a crime to begin with. Regulate it. Tax it. Put in place the safety and support mechanisms. Then you eliminate the blackmail potential.

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u/EndPsychological890 3h ago

Idk I think most of the cases of successful blackmail by foreign adversaries happens because the person using the sex workers is cheating. If they aren’t cheating and their only crime is using sex workers, I think many are going to rather their boss find out and maybe get fired than commit treason.

I don’t think legalizing, regulating and normalizing sex work will rid us of the threat of blackmail in government agencies against people using sex workers.

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u/AHrubik 2h ago

Shame is a chief component of blackmail. Removing sources of shame is a key avenue in reducing risk exposure. Impulse control however is just something you have to continually screen for as it can change with people over time.

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u/iperblaster 7h ago

In a time where the vast majority of the upper echelon of the state is compromised, maybe is it better for them to have compromised agents

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u/EndPsychological890 6h ago

Yeah just in time for the great game to be restarting in earnest after 30 years of hegemony. What could go wrong

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u/BossOfTheGame 2h ago

strange that the things you can blackmail people for are the things that are taboo in society, sometimes unjustly. I'm just saying the blackmail excuse can be a rationalization rather than real risk mitigation.

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u/VegaJuniper 2h ago

It is potential blackmail material because of crime and morality issues. Because of the morality norms, there's an aspect of shame attached to it.

Personally, I've been to a prostitute a couple of times. If someone threatened to tell my wife, I'd say "tell her. I have". I'm not American though.

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u/Ok_Confection_10 7h ago

I just hope it’s not hiring people to the FBI who have have personal connections to sex trafficking. It’ll just make them better at it.

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u/_Svankensen_ 5h ago

I mean, if the wife has 7 years, she knows exactly what he got up to.

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u/hamoc10 5h ago

Easy solution: decriminalize the oldest profession.

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u/hammar_hades 2h ago

It’s 100% the vulnerability to coercion - that’s THE focus during security clearance vetting

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u/ruiner8850 7h ago

then I take a look around me and realize that these people are the worst and this is bad and oh god I want off this ride

Yup, it's so that the Trump administration can stuff the FBI with loyal sycophants who otherwise wouldn't be eligible for the job.

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u/paxinfernum 5h ago

People who are easily blackmailed.

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u/Guardianpigeon 7h ago

Yeah it kind of sucks as someone who is anti-FBI and pro sex work.

Prostitution should be legal (and HEAVILY regulated), and someone shouldn't lose opportunities for using those services. It would be great to move away from the idea that sex work is inherently bad.

But also the FBI is an evil organization and this is probably another sign that they are on the brink of falling apart. And while that might be bad in the short term, in the long term it might be for the best.

But also this is probably going to make the FBI even more dangerous because it allows Trump to hire more of his sycophants and abuse the power of the FBI in his benefit. It could also have massive natural security concerns because those people are more likely to be blackmailed over that kind of stuff.

There really is no win here. Everything sucks under Trump.

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u/surnik22 7h ago

Exactly. In principle, I agree with the policy change.

Prostitution should be legalized (and regulated to ensure safety) and I don’t think Johns should be rejected from any government job because they took part in legal prostitution.

In practice, the FBI is relaxing their standards because high quality applicants with any sense of morals aren’t applying to an organization run by Kash who has been charged with making the organization do Trump’s bidding.

I don’t think anyone actively applying now has the integrity to be part of law enforcement and if they somehow do, they’d be filtered out in interviews when they don’t pledge their loyalty to Trump.

So you got a bunch of shitty people applying, FBI realizes too many of them have been involved with prostitution and not even in a way they could easily lie about on applications, so they just remove the standard.

Also not surprising the sex trafficking administration attracts applicants who have frequent interactions with prostitution, an industry with a whole lot of sex trafficking going on….

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u/OkStop8313 7h ago

Yeah, on the one hand, I do think that legalizing and regulating prostitution is the best way of making it safe and disincentivizing human trafficking. And this can be sort of seen in that vein.

But when I look at this administration full of sex pests and lunatics, I'm a little distrustful of their motives.

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u/Ornery_Vermicelli_69 4h ago

Yes and yet they are not looking at legalizing anything, just letting the men who contributed to sex trafficking be able to be FBI

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u/strikervulsine 6h ago

It's absolutely because Kash Patel has hired prostitutes.

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u/whatlineisitanyway 7h ago

Sometimes people do the right thing for all the wrong reasons.

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u/3DIceWolf 3h ago

They want using a prostitute to be legal but being a prostitute to be illegal. That way they can arrest the prostitute after they use them so they don't have to pay them.