Court Opinion

ID: 9475454
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 05:27:53.033633+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:44:43.726342
License: Public Domain

MARKEY, Chief Judge,
dissenting.
Convinced that the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) was never constituted a “security clearance review board”, and that it should not by this court be so constituted, I most respectfully dissent.
A circumstance of grave import, ignored by the majority, is this: Egan does not challenge any fact in the listing of his 14 years of arrests and criminal acts and alcoholism — he simply disagrees with the Navy’s evaluation, its judgment, made in light of those facts. Thus the majority is necessarily insisting that MSPB substitute tís judgment on which employees should be entrusted with the Navy’s nuclear submarine secrets and which should not. Indeed, the majority says MSPB has a “statutory responsibility” to do so (though no statute so states).1
Thus the majority here makes not an application of law but a choice of policy. That choice, I submit, is not only wrong but fraught with mischief. Further, I cannot find that the majority, in making that policy choice, engaged in the required balancing of Egan’s interest in obtaining a clearance and the armed services’ interest in fulfilling their assigned role of protecting national security.
No one has a constitutional right to be hired by the government. No one, not even one whose slate is unmarked, has a constitutional right to be granted a security clearance. Egan was conditionally hired to help repair submarines. His retention on the job was conditioned, as he knew, on whether those responsible for Navy security would grant him a security clearance. After a thorough review, all the way to the Director, Navy Civilian Personnel Command (NCPC) and after Egan had a chance to respond and to appeal to higher authority within the Navy,2 the responsible office of the Navy declined to grant the security clearance.
Egan’s immediate employing facility, Trident Naval Repair Facility (TNRF), because Egan did not get the required clearance and it had no other job for him, was forced to remove him, but Egan lost nothing to which he was entitled. If he had a property right in his job, it was a conditioned right.3 All that happened was that *1576the condition precedent to retention in his conditional employment did not occur.4
It did not occur because the Navy exercised its judgment and responsibility by declining to disclose its secrets to an employee with a history that included imprisonment for possessing a firearm as a felon on probation following a conviction for assault.5

Fear of “Arbitrary” Denials

The majority decides a case not here. Like that of the presiding official, the majority’s underlying rationale is a felt necessity to “protect” civilian employees against “arbitrary” denials of security clearances. Amicus and the majority see the boogymen of “specious, arbitrary, discriminatory” clearance denials, citing no evidence that those horror stories are factually based, supplying no description of how they could happen under OPNAVINST 5510.1F., and giving no reasons why those responsible for Navy security would want to engage in such chicanery, or why a due process review by MSPB would not serve to catch and rectify any denial of a clearance made without due process.6
Whence the fear of arbitrary denials? Whence the automatic refusal of even a modicum of at least initial trust in Navy officials? Whence the disregard of the process (denial response denial appeal final denial) conducted by the Navy under OPNAVINST 5510.1F before denying a clearance?
There is no evidence, and not even a claim, that any Navy official had any personal dislike of Egan. Indeed, he was hired and removed by TNRF, and his clear*1577anee was denied by the NCPC, and then only after an opportunity to respond and appeal. There is not even an assertion that any Navy official involved in the clearance review process ever met Egan. Nor is there any basis for the assumption that the Navy could have an interest in the ridiculous enterprise of hiring Egan and then scheming to deny itself his services by “arbitrarily” denying him a clearance.
Egan does not, and could not, claim that the Navy acted in “bad faith” in denying him a clearance, and there is nowhere in the record even a whiff of the “well-nigh irrefragible proof” required to establish such bad faith. See Kalvar Corp., Inc. v. United States, 211 Ct.Cl. 192, 543 F.2d 1298, 1301-02 (1976), cert. denied, 434 U.S. 830, 98 S.Ct. 112, 54 L.Ed.2d 89 (1977).
The conjecture that Navy officials might act arbitrarily is not only unwarranted, it is far too weak a reed on which to rest a determination that MSPB must decide which employees of the armed forces should be granted security clearances. Given that the responsibility is the Navy’s, and given the system of high level, objective, impersonal, decisionmaking employed by the Navy in carrying out that responsibility, including the employee’s chance to respond and to appeal to higher authority within the agency, I can see no reason why, under those circumstances, the Navy should not be allowed to exercise its judgment in exercising its authority to grant or deny security clearances.
Moreover, the majority engages in no balancing of the potential risk it imagines (arbitrary denials) with the actual risk it creates (board and court interference in security decisions).

Egan is Already “Protected"

The majority slides too easily by the fully adequate due process protections provided Egan under the Navy’s regulation, OPNA-VINST 5510.1F, which, it is undisputed, the Navy followed to the letter. NCPC notified Egan in writing of the intent to deny him a security clearance, gave Egan all the reasons and access to all information on which that intent was based, and afforded Egan an opportunity to respond. Egan did so through a representative and in writing, not challenging the facts cited by the Navy but disagreeing with the Navy’s judgment and arguing that he should be granted a clearance. NCPC considered Egan’s response and notified Egan of his final decision to adhere to the denial, again citing reasons. Egan was notified in writing of his right to appeal to higher authority within the Navy (to the Assistant Deputy Chief of Naval Operations). From the record, Egan declined to file such an appeal, but proceeded promptly to MSPB.
The majority apparently believes Egan must have a full evidentiary hearing on whether he should be granted a security clearance, even though there is no material fact issue to resolve. In any case, due process does not require such a hearing. Cafeteria & Restaurant Worker’s Union, Local 473, AFL-CIO v. McElroy, 367 U.S. 886, 894-99, 81 S.Ct. 1743, 1748-50, 6 L.Ed.2d 1230 (1961).
Moreover, the majority incorrectly implies that Egan would get more “process” if the Navy had proceeded under § 7532. Egan was given a right to appeal under OPNAVINST 5510.1F not available under § 7532. Egan was given a right to a full statement of reasons that is available under § 7532 only if national security considerations “permit”. It is true that § 7532 provides for a hearing, but as indicated above, a hearing is not required in Egan’s case.
In denying Egan a clearance, the Navy followed Executive Order 10450, which treates a security clearance for what it is, a grant of trust, requiring an affirmative determination that granting a clearance would be clearly consistent with the interests of national security, and requiring “an overall, common sense determination based on all available information.”
As would any judge, I join the majority’s desire that Egan receive a “full and fair consideration of his case.” But, assuming he has a “case” for a security clearance, he *1578has had precisely that. After completion of the OPNAVINST process, there is nothing more to consider. There is no fact dispute and no law to apply to the Navy’s judgment. All that remains is the possible substitution of MSPB's judgment.
Egan had no “right” to receive a security clearance. Because a clearance was a condition precedent to his job retention, it can be argued that Egan had a right not to be denied a clearance without due process (i.e., “arbitrarily”). That right was fully protected here.

The Majority’s Transfer of Authority and Responsibility

The authority to grant or deny a security clearance is committed to the sound discretion of executive agency heads. See Exec. Order 10450, 3 C.F.R. 936 (1953 Comp.) reprinted as amended in 5 U.S.C. § 7311 (1982) note:
Sec. 2 The head of each department and agency of the Government shall be responsible for establishing and maintaining within his department or agency an effective program to insure that the employment and retention in employment of any civilian officer or employee within the department or agency is clearly consistent with the interests of the national security.
It is to me clear that, if this court compels MSPB to determine the “reasonableness” of security clearance determinations, the result is to transfer the sound discretion to grant or deny security clearances from the head of the executive agency concerned (Navy) to another, and less qualified, executive agency (MSPB). The majority cites no authority, and none exists, for the notion that security decisions of one executive agency should be reviewed, and occasionally overturned, by another executive agency.
The majority’s decision will necessarily, and grievously, impair not only an independent operation of the armed services and other executive agencies and departments, it will dilute the responsibility the President placed on them to insure that civilian employment is “clearly consistent with the interests of national security”. Indeed, as described below, the majority’s decision will effectively gut Executive Order No. 10450.
MSPB properly understood the President’s order committing security clearance matters to the sound discretion of the department or agency as requiring MSPB, as an administrative tribunal, to exhibit a deference to military judgments on security clearances not unlike that traditionally exhibited by courts in relation to matters within military purview. Cf Williams v. Secretary of the Navy, 787 F.2d 552 (Fed. Cir.1986).
The majority’s mandate that MSPB make its own judgment on whether a security clearance should be denied or granted transfers the right to judge from the expert, authorized agency to MSPB and this court, both of which lack the needed individual and institutional competence. It also runs clearly contrary to well-established principles of deference owed national security determinations of executive agencies. As below indicated, it also runs contrary to the jurisprudence of this court.

MSPB “Jurisdiction”

The majority’s facile leap, from the board’s general jurisdiction to review removals to the notion that the exercise of that jurisdiction must include authority to review the reasonableness of security judgments, is unnecessary and unwarranted.
Hence the majority’s statement that there is “no indication that Congress intended this type of removal action to be exempt” is irrelevant.
The majority rests on the statutory jurisdiction of the board to review removals. But no one is arguing that question. That MSPB jurisdiction is present (because employment is affected), however, is not controlling.7 MSPB recognized that it had *1579jurisdiction to consider Egan’s removal, and it exercised that jurisdiction, determining that Egan had not been denied due process. Though the board referred to “jurisdiction” to review the “underlying national security considerations inherent in security clearance determinations,” it had to be referring to the scope of the jurisdiction it was in fact exercising. Indeed, the majority at one point recognizes that the issue before us is not “jurisdiction” but the “scope and standard of review” MSPB should exercise.
As this court has so often said, MSPB has only the jurisdiction Congress granted it. See, e.g., Cowan v. U.S., 710 F.2d 803, 805 (Fed.Cir.1983). Having never specifically granted MSPB jurisdiction to conduct hearings on security clearances, Congress has not signalled an intent that MSPB should use the jurisdiction it was granted as authority to inject itself into that sensitive area committed to the Executive branch. This court is not authorized, of course, to grant MSPB a jurisdictional scope so broad.
That a claim of denial of due process is within the scope of MSPB review in this case is undisputed. MSPB agreed that it should, and did, review Egan’s removal to insure that it was accompanied by due process. Egan does not assert a failure of the Navy to follow its regulations or any statute. As MSPB correctly observed, “there is present within the agency or the applicable entity a procedure for affording at least minimal due process protections, i.e., notice of the agency’s determination, a statement of its reasons in support of the determination, and an opportunity for the affected individual to be heard.” 28 M.S.P.R. at 519, citing inter alia DeSamo v. Department of Commerce, 761 F.2d 657, 660 (Fed.Cir.1985), and Cleveland Board of Education v. Loudermill, 470 U.S. 532, 105 S.Ct. 1487, 1495, 84 L.Ed.2d 494 (1985).
The majority lists a first category of cases in which the scope of MSPB’s review was not restrained, and a second category of cases in which that scope was restrained. The second category contained the only cases involving underlying decisions of the armed services. Yet the majority elects to drop the present case, involving an underlying decision of an armed service, into the first category, without telling us why (except fear of arbitrariness) it should not be placed in the second category-
This court has affirmed MSPB’s recognition of restraints on the scope of MSPB’s exercise of its jurisdiction in appropriate circumstances. See, e.g., Buriani v. Department of the Air Force, 777 F.2d 674, 677 (Fed.Cir.1985) (loss of employment-controlling active air reserve status because of failure to attain promotion not reviewable); Zimmerman v. Department of the Army, 755 F.2d 156, 157 (Fed.Cir.1985) (“the Board does not have the jurisdiction to examine military assignments and transfers”); see also Schaffer v. Department of the Air Force, 8 MSPB 631, 9 M.S.P.R. 305 (1981), aff'd, 694 F.2d 281 (D.C.Cir.1982). Considerations compelling still greater restraint are implicated when it is suggested that MSPB should affirm or reverse on the merits decisions of military authorities made in a due process procedure in the interests of national security.
That no one contests the foundation on which the majority builds, i.e., that MSPB has jurisdiction to review all matters within its jurisdiction, including removal actions. 5 U.S.C. §§ 1205(a), 7512, and 7701, does not mean that in reviewing a removal action, the board must review the merits of all agency actions which preceded or, indeed, precipitated the removal. The majority recognizes that this court has repeatedly so stated. Bacon v. Department of *1580Housing and Urban Development, 757 F.2d 265, 269-70 (Fed.Cir.1985) (no MSPB authority to probe mental processes of agency head for reasons he conducted reduction-in-force); Madsen v. Veterans Administration, 754 F.2d 343 (Fed.Cir.1985) (in reduction-in-force related adverse action, no MSPB power to review merits of agency’s prior classification of bumping employee or his qualifications); see also Crofoot v. Government Printing Office, 21 M.S.P.R. 248, 252 (1984), rev’d on other grounds, 761 F.2d 661, 665 (Fed.Cir.1985) (MSPB does not re-examine reasons behind criminal conviction); McGean v. National Labor Relations Board, 15 M.S.P.R. 49, 53 (1983); Buriani, supra.
The facts and reasoning in Zimmerman and Buriani, make clear that there is no basis whatsoever for distinguishing them from the case before us.
Ms. Zimmerman sought reinstatement to her civilian position by arguing to the MSPB that the Army had erroneously denied a condition precedent to retention of that position (membership in her Reserve unit). This Court, however, gave short shrift to that argument. It flatly rejected the notion that the MSPB should have reviewed the reasons for the Army’s denial of her Reserve status, saying “the Board does not have the jurisdiction to examine military assignments and transfers.” Zimmerman v. Department of the Army, 755 F.2d at 157. It would appear impossible, respecting MSPB authority, to distinguish the military’s denial of Ms. Zimmerman’s condition precedent (Reserve status) from the military’s denial of Egan’s condition precedent (security clearance).
Mr. Buriani was a civilian employee of the Air Force who was not militarily promoted, a condition precedent to his maintaining the grade of his civilian position. This court limited the MSPB inquiry to whether Mr. Buriani was promoted, holding that any other inquiry would be an inappropriate “wide ranging collateral inquiry into the selection board.” If MSPB may not inquire into the military’s refusal to grant a civilian employee a military promotion, it strains credulity to suppose that it must inquire into the military’s refusal to grant a civilian employee a security clearance.
Zimmerman, Buriani, and Egan were all civilian employees against whom adverse actions were taken because, and solely because, the military refused them a status required for job retention. MSPB heard all three cases, yet only in Egan’s does the majority say MSPB must inquire into the military’s refusal to grant the necessary status. Principled decisionmaking requires more than a mention of Zimmerman’s and Buriani’s Reserve status as justification for the present departure from this court’s precedents.

Separation of Powers

The majority ignores entirely the government’s argument based on the constitutional principle of separation of powers. The protection of classified information is an executive responsibility flowing from the President’s constitutional mandate to provide for the national defense. U.S. Const., Art. II, § 2.
[I]t is the constitutional duty of the Executive — as a matter of sovereign prerogative and not as a matter of law as the courts know law — through the promulgation and enforcement of executive regulations, to protect the confidentiality necessary to carry out its responsibility in the fields of international relations and national defense.
New York Times Co. v. United States, 403 U.S. 713, 729-30, 91 S.Ct. 2140, 2149, 29 L.Ed.2d 822 (1971) (Stewart, J., concurring); see United States v. Marchetti, 466 F.2d 1309, 1315 (4th Cir.1972), cert. denied, 409 U.S. 1063, 93 S.Ct. 553, 34 L.Ed.2d 516 (1972). In exercising his constitutional responsibility, the President reserved to heads of federal agencies, as above indicated, the decisions on who is entitled to hold a security clearance. Executive Order 10450, supra8
*1581Where, as here, no deprivation of a constitutional right or statutory violation is involved, the courts have declined to intrude into the sphere of Presidential responsibility for national defense, in recognition of the constitutionally mandated separation of powers. See, e.g., Haig v. Agee, 453 U.S. 280, 292, 101 S.Ct. 2766, 2774, 69 L.Ed.2d 640 (1981); Gilligan v. Morgan 413 U.S. 1, 7-11, 93 S.Ct. 2440, 2444-46, 37 L.Ed.2d 407 (1973); Laird v. Tatum, 408 U.S. 1, 14-15, 92 S.Ct. 2318, 2326, 33 L.Ed.2d 154 (1971); Orloff v. Willoughby, 345 U.S. 83, 93-94, 73 S.Ct. 534, 539-40, 97 L.Ed. 842 (1953); Buriani v. Department of the Air Force, 777 F.2d 674, 676 (Fed.Cir.1985), quoting Zimmerman v. Department of the Army, 755 F.2d 156, 157 (Fed.Cir.1985); Adams v. Laird, 420 F.2d 230, 239 (D.C.Cir.1969), cert. denied, 397 U.S. 1039, 90 S.Ct. 1360, 25 L.Ed.2d 650 (1970); Greene v. McElroy, 254 F.2d 944, 953 (D.C.Cir.1958), rev'd. on other grounds, 360 U.S. 474, 79 S.Ct. 1400, 3 L.Ed.2d 1377 (1959).
Because the Constitution assigns national security matters to the Executive Branch, the courts have not developed the institutional competence to decide them. In Greene v. McElroy, 254 F.2d at 953, the court explained why it should not review the merits of an agency’s security clearance revocation:
There must be a “justiciable” controversy — one which the courts can finally and effectively decide, under tests and standards which they can soundly administer within their special field of competence. Here there is no such controversy. As we have seen, Greene makes no claim of lack of compliance by the Government with its own regulations. He attacks the Secretary’s decision on its merits and as a matter of constitutional right. But for a court to hear de novo the evidence as to Greene’s fitness to be assigned to a particular kind of confidential work would be a bootless task, involving judgments remote from the experience and competence of the judiciary. Indeed, any meaningful judgment in such matters must rest on considerations of policy, and decisions as to comparative risks, appropriate only to the executive branch of the government.
The actual judgment on whether to grant or deny a security clearance requires specialized expertise, is predictive, is judgmental and neither factual nor legal, requires no knowledge of legal or Civil Service/Merit principles (because there “is no law to apply”), and rests on policy considerations and risk comparisons. The majority does not tell us why an MSPB presiding official, or MSPB itself, is better, or even equally, qualified to make that judgment than are the responsible military officials. “We are not in an area where absolutes obtain, and the grant or denial of security clearances is an inexact science at best. Those who have that responsibility have to do the best they can with what they have____” Adams v. Laird, 420 F.2d at 239.

What Now?

The majority’s too-easy dismissal of the agency’s concern over its remedies (if MSPB reinstates Egan) is unfair. When the law is clear, judicial decisions certainly must not be controlled by results. But where, as here, no statute authorizes or requires MSPB to review security clearance judgments of the armed services, a court should not render a decision that it must do so with no regard for the havoc the court may thereby create. In the present case, the court should not simply finesse the Navy’s question “what now”?
A moment’s thought to consequences establishes that the majority’s approach will engender absurd results. The presiding official, believing herself so empowered and qualified, held that despite Egan’s criminal record and a history of alcohol dependence, the Navy’s judgment that he *1582should be denied security clearance was “unreasonable.” If the MSPB, despite its non-expertise, decides that the Navy’s clearance denial was “unreasonable”, it would have to reverse Egan’s removal and order the Navy to reinstate Egan as a repairman on its submarines (with consequent exposure of its secrets). Does the majority intend that MSPB order the Navy to grant Egan a security clearance? Why not, its denial having been found “unreasonable”? And, before the board reversed Bogdanovicz in this case, MSPB presiding officials repeatedly did order the Navy to grant security clearances. See Skees v. Dept. of Navy, No. PH0752 8410257, slip, op. at 13 (June 14,1984); Peterson v. Dept. of Navy, No. BNO7528410257, slip. op. at 9 (Feb. 14, 1984); Irving v. Dept. of Navy, No. BN07528410005, slip. op. at 9 (Feb. 3, 1984).
Where shall MSPB say the Navy erred in its denial? What criteria for granting or denying security clearances should MSPB establish? If MSPB sets forth no clear, all-encompassing criteria, how shall the Navy, or any armed service, or any executive agency, know when its grant or denial of a security clearance will pass muster at MSPB? Should any such MSPB criteria supplant that employed now by the Navy in OPNAVINST 5510. IF CH 4, 16-102?
If MSPB and this court are to be the final decisionmakers on whether and which employees should be trusted with our nation’s security, how could the officials of the armed services rely on their judgment of whether granting a clearance would be “consistent with the interests of national security”? What objective facts can those responsible officials correctly cite to “prove by a preponderance of the evidence” that this or that employee will reveal defense secrets? How does one prove his judgment that a particular employee might disclose secrets?
It must be remembered that the only remedy which MSPB can grant is reinstatement of Egan in his job. In this regard, this court has said it is appropriate to look to the authority Congress has provided in connection with relief. See Electronic Data Systems Federal Corp. v. General Services Administration Board of Contract Appeals, 792 F.2d 1569 (Fed.Cir. 1986); United States v. Amdahl Corp., 786 F.2d 387 (Fed.Cir.1986). The majority unfairly avoids the limitation on the board’s remedial authority by merely saying the issue of relief is not ripe.
If the presiding official’s determination be reinstated on remand, it is clear that the Navy must either grant or again deny a security clearance to Egan. In light of the responsibility it bears, it is inconceivable that the Navy would grant Egan a clearance while remaining convinced of his unreliability. If the Navy may persist in denying Egan a clearance, must it nonetheless continue to employ him in the submarine repair work for which he was conditionally hired? How could the Navy do that (except by the impossible step of removing the security clearance requirement for all persons doing that work and thereby made privy to Navy secrets)? If the Navy retains a security clearance for the job, and does not give Egan his original job and a clearance, must the Navy find him an equal-pay job that does not require a clearance? Must it do so without regard for Egan’s qualifications for such other job? It being established that there are no such other jobs, must the Navy pay Egan for not working (because he has no clearance)?
The foregoing and similar considerations make it impossible for me to imagine how the result reached by the majority can be seen as serving “to promote the efficiency of the service.” Together they force this dissent.

Conclusion

MSPB correctly held that “in an adverse action over which the Board has jurisdiction and which is based substantially on the *1583agency’s revocation or denial of a security clearance, the Board has no authority to review the agency’s stated reasons for the security clearance determination.” That holding was supported by compelling, sound considerations of long-established deference and public policy. It should be affirmed.

. The sole issue presented to this court by a prolix Egan is “Whether the Merit Systems Protection Board Has the Statutory Authority and Obligation to Review and Consider the Underlying Reasons for the Denial or Revocation of a Security Clearance in the Appeal of an Adverse Action by the Employing Agency Where Said Action is Based Primarily on the Denial or Revocation of Said Clearance and Where the Merit Systems Protection Board Otherwise Has Jurisdiction.” (Emphasis added.) Though Egan repeatedly refers to "denial or revocation,” and though the issue of the board's authority to review security clearances would encompass both, the record reflects only a "denial", not a “revocation”.

. The majority indicates, incorrectly, that Egan had no right to appeal within the Navy. He had that right, OPNAVINST 5510.-1F, 16-105 Id, but on this record simply chose not to exercise it.

. The majority’s reference to a “liberty interest” is misplaced. The Navy did not publicize its denial of Egan’s security clearance. *1576See Nesmith v. Fulton, 615 F.2d 196, 200 n. 6 (5th Cir.1980). Moreover, if Egan were defamed he has a remedy in another forum.

. If the majority’s position should escape Supreme Court review, the Navy, and the other armed services, would be well advised (at whatever cost to efficiency) to use only § 7532 or abandon the practice of hiring on condition that a security clearance be obtained. The alternative, under the majority's approach, is to have all denials of security clearances to civilians second guessed by MSPB (numerous appeals have already been stayed in this court).
In the present case (though hiring might have been substantially delayed), the Navy could have determined Egan's security status before hiring him, and, because Egan would never have become an "employee", MSPB would have had no jurisdiction, and the Navy would have entirely escaped MSPB supervision of its efforts to safeguard the country’s security interests. If the Navy could accelerate its clearance review process, it could hire “on probation” and again escape MSPB supervision of its security decisions. If an employee sought a promotion to a “non-critical sensitive” position, and was denied a clearance (and thus the promotion) MSPB would have no jurisdiction. All of these considerations illustrate the comic nature of this case, in which the majority employs the mere fact that Egan was conditionally hired as the basis for creating a security clearance review role for the MSPB.

. The Navy’s denial of security clearances to sailors is immune from supervision by MSPB and this court. It is at best incongruous to insist that the Navy’s denial of a security clearance to a civilian employee must not be immune from MSPB supervision. Civilians employed on nuclear submarines, and thus privy to secret equipment on board and to the Navy’s highly sensitive submarine shipping and movement schedules, can do as much harm as any sailor assigned to operate those submarines. I have grave difficulty in seeing why the Navy should be forced to keep on its nuclear submarines civilian employees who, in its judgment and after careful consideration, it has decided it cannot safely trust, any more than it should be forced to keep sailors it cannot trust on its submarines.
I trust that in this I am not unduly influenced by the thought that no MSPB presiding official and no member of the board or of this court will have to serve on a submarine repaired by persons to whom the Navy has been forced to grant security clearances against its will, infra. Nor, I trust, have I been influenced by the many current press accounts of convicted spies who escaped detection, and the accompanying criticisms of officials who failed to guard the nation’s security interests.

. The majority distinguished Crofoot and McGean on a basis that the employing agency did not play a part in creating the basis for removal. Though the Navy, broadly speaking, is the "agency” here, the separation between TNRF and NCPC is not meaningfully distinct from the separation between the entities involved in Crofoot and McGean.

. The majority makes much of the "availability" of § 7532 to the Navy, and that its use *1579would enable the Navy to escape MSPB review of its security clearance denials. No recognition is given, however, to the limitation of § 7532 to employees with "permanent” or "indefinite” appointments, and the question of its applicability to Egan whose appointment was conditional. That the Navy did not argue inability to use § 7532 is no basis for punishing it by subjecting its judgments on security clearances to second guessing by MSPB, or for disregarding the arguments it did make.

. Congress has granted to the secretaries of the military services, including the Navy, *1581broad discretion regarding matters falling within their sphere to assure that the services may fulfill their assigned missions of protecting the national defense. See 10 U.S.C. §§ 133, 5012, and 5031 (1982); Cafeteria and Restaurant Workers’ Union, Local 473, AFL-CIO v. McElroy, 367 U.S. 886, 890, 81 S.Ct. 1743, 1746, 6 L.Ed.2d 1230 (1961).