Did Kim Jong Un’s Cousin Hold a Security Clearance?
An appreciation of the U.S. culture around public records
There are a lot of valid criticisms to be made of the United States. Our privatized health care system is a sham. This is the only major economy without paid family leave. Americans own 120 guns for every 100 people, more than double the next-highest per capita rate in the world. But there is one area in which the United States is arguably the world leader: freedom of information.
The United States was the second country in the world to implement a federal freedom of information law when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) into law in 1966. The law has been amended and updated multiple times in the near-six decades since, most notably in 1996 when President Bill Clinton signed the Electronic Freedom of Information Act Amendments clarifying that most electronic records would be susceptible to FOIA requests as well.
It’s easy to see why FOIA is so popular. Right-leaning small government conservatives want to be able to scrutinize how public bodies behave behind closed doors. Left-leaning liberals leverage freedom of information laws to embarrass Republican operatives. All 50 states and the District of Columbia have implemented state-level versions of FOIA, and attempts to rein in the laws or otherwise add barriers to records requests are broadly unpopular.
Public records are also indispensable for reporters and bloggers who fancy themselves reporters. Open record laws have helped journalists break crucial stories, such as the names of those killed crossing the border as a result of President Donald Trump’s border wall or lead poisoning at National Guard gun ranges. Records requests have also revealed hilarious bits of information, like the fact that the US Navy aided with the production of the movie Battleship or that J. Edgar Hoover wrote a lot of fan mail to baseball players. One could spend years reading through the CIA FOIA collection.
The proliferation of digital technology has dramatically increased both the total volume of records and the amount of requests made to government agencies. In response, many bodies, from local police departments all the way to Cabinet-level federal agencies have preemptively made various records available online. Much to my surprise, I learned that this includes decisions by the Defense Office of Hearings and Appeals.
If the only Doha you know of hosted a World Cup, you’re not alone. I had never heard of DOHA before stumbling across the subreddit /r/SecurityClearance one night while reading about how the federal law enforcement agencies are struggling to recruit younger workers, in part due to the continuing federal prohibition against the use of marijuana, especially when it comes to cybersecurity.
There are so many people holding some level of security clearance that the federal government does not know how to count them all; as of 2019, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence estimated that 4.2 million people — more than 1 percent of the country — held a security clearance. The overwhelming volume of security clearance applications necessitated the creation of DOHA, which conducts hearings related to security clearance application appeals, typically stemming from the denial of an individual’s application for clearance.
As America’s most vigilant blogger, I knew a good source of public records when I was lucky enough to have one fall in my lap. Setting aside the tremendous irony of security clearance appeals resulting in public records, albeit anonymized to remove the names of the applicants, my hunch was that the DOHA appeals would contain some truly funny stories. I was correct.
Clicking through records at random, I found a lot of appeals that deserve to be savored. Case 19-01011 tells us the story of an applicant who did not disagree that his application was improperly denied, but rather felt as though he should be given a clearance because not having one is contributing to his unemployment. Hard to argue with that logic!
In Case 21-00962, we have the story of an applicant who appears to have failed to pay his taxes for years, yet evidently believed he would pass his federal background check, as he appealed his case twice.
And while there are dozens, perhaps hundreds, of appeals related to drug use, I’m partial to Case 22-02623 as a true shining star. This case tells the story of an applicant who admitted to using, among others, cocaine, Adderall (without a prescription), and hallucinogenic mushshrooms. He also did not just use but also sold weed. Stranger still, he appears to have won his appeal. Stoners of the world, there is hope for your future Raytheon career!
But these examples pale in notability in comparison to Case 23-014625. Returning to /r/SecurityClearance, I searched the subreddit for funny cases other users had found, assuming I would read through more obviously baseless appeals made to DOHA in protest of drug use or felony convictions. Instead, I came across this post from blacktargumby highlighting an appellant who was denied her clearance because a “close family member (cousin, aunt, uncle, niece, or nephew) is the dictator of Country X.” According to the case file,
Applicant’s parents and their children, including Applicant, immigrated to the United States in the 1990s when she was young. They all became U.S. citizens. None of her immediate family members have ever returned to Country X or maintained contact with any of their family in Country X.
Despite Administrative Judge Edward Loughran noting at the beginning of the document that the “decision will be as vague as possible to protect her privacy while still ensuring she receives a fair decision,” user ig666 immediately clocked the applicant as a relative of Kim Jong Un, the dictator of North Korea.
At first glance, this seemed impossible, as the case record stated that the applicant wasn’t applying for her first clearance, but rather seeking approval to move up in level from Secret to Top Secret. It would be one thing for the federal government to give a clearance to the relative of an allied dictator, like King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud of Saudi Arabia or Equatoguinean President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, but quite another to allow the relative of one of the few states actively seeking conflict with the United States to hold a Secret clearance.
However, between the comments on the Reddit thread and my own review of the case file, I too agree that the applicant is most likely a relative of Kim Jong Un — specifically, she is likely his cousin.
The DOHA document states that the applicant is in her thirties, was born in Country X, and immigrated to the United States in the 1990s with her parents, later naturalizing as U.S. citizens. In 2016, Ko Yong Suk and Ri Gang, using the names they left behind in North Korea, gave a series of interviews to the Washington Post, where they stated that they moved to the United States in 1998 with the assistance of the CIA, which bought them a house. The Post reported that the couple had three kids, two sons and one daughter. The couple also confirmed that they are Kim Jong Un’s aunt and uncle, as Ko is Kim’s mother’s sister.
Other details from the case file check out as well. “Country X considers people who leave their country to be traitors” is undeniably true for North Korea, as does the description that Country X “conducts cyberattacks and espionage against the United States.” In fact, the only nations publicly known to have waged cyber warfare against the United States are North Korea, Russia, China, and Iran.
Ultimately, despite describing the applicant as “intelligent, honest, loyal to the United States, a model employee, and a current clearance holder with no evidence of any security problems,” ALJ Loughlan upheld the denial of her application for a Top Secret clearance due to her connection to the dictator of Country X, and he went on to rule that the applicant should also lose her Secret clearance.
In one fell swoop, this woman, presumably Kim Jong Un’s cousin, lost her appeal, her Secret clearance, and likely her job all because of a cousin she hasn’t seen or communicated with for at least 30 years, and who possibly doesn’t even know she exists.
Adding insult to injury, her adopted country’s robust public records laws ensured that anyone would be able to read through the record of her appeal and connect the dots as to her probable identity. As ALJ Loughlan put it, “She is a good person who happens to be related to an extremely bad and dangerous person,” rendering her ineligible for a security clearance.
I love reviewing public records, especially unusual documents like the DOHA appeal files. Whether vanity plate rejections, confirmation of a school’s participation in the upcoming college football video game, or the denial of a security clearance for a dictator’s estranged cousin, our nation is better off for making the various mechanisms of our government open to inspection.
In this specific instance, the DOHA case — something I never would have thought about without public records disclosures — has sat with me for days, challenging my preconceived notions about who does our national security work and what motivates them to go to work each day. I have a ton of sympathy for the woman who is probably Kim Jong Un’s cousin, even if I also understand exactly why her clearance was revoked.
The case, like most government work, is grimy, but as Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis once wrote, sunshine is the best disinfectant.
Things I Enjoyed This Week
Lost Water | Places Journal
This Is Financial Advice | Folding Ideas (YouTube)
Aruba Becomes First Country to Endorse Statement Protecting Digital Rights of Memory Institutions | Internet Archive Blogs
Death on the Savage Mountain | Business Insider
A New Idea for New Union Organizing | In These Times
Next time you’re annoyed with your cousins because they haven’t RSVP’d to your wedding or because they forgot to bring their assigned side dish to Thanksgiving, consider that at least they didn’t cost you your job from half-a-world away due to their evil dictatorship. There’s always a silver lining!
Thank you as always for reading.