I think in most LW contexts—including drug discussions—the former model is a better match. My impression is that security clearance investigations in the United States involve a lot of interviews with friends and family, but, at the present time, don’t involve highly sophisticated computer analysis.
Given the way the NSA works I would highly doubt that they don’t check information in their databases when handing out a security clearance and run highly sophisticated computer analysis. The actual capabilities of those programs are going to be classified. The NSA doesn’t want people to know about the capabilities they have.
In addition the internet doesn’t forget. NSA computer programs might not be good enough at the present to catch it but they might be in five years. Especially the whole Snowden episode encouraged the NSA to invest a lot more effort into gathering data about possible leakers and have computer programs that analyse the behavior of people with a security clearance.
Given the way the NSA works I would highly doubt that they don’t check information in their databases when handing out a security clearance and run highly sophisticated computer analysis. The actual capabilities of those programs are going to be classified. The NSA doesn’t want people to know about the capabilities they have.
In addition the internet doesn’t forget. NSA computer programs might not be good enough at the present to catch it but they might be in five years. Especially the whole Snowden episode encouraged the NSA to invest a lot more effort into gathering data about possible leakers and have computer programs that analyse the behavior of people with a security clearance.