Are Secret Security clearances too easily granted?

I don't think they are easily granted but I do believe that sometimes they are granted to individuals and soldiers who either don't have any loyalty, lack the responsibility and understanding the importance of infomation in these documents, for an example they are granted to some soldiers like that PFC that leak documents to wikileakes. In my opinion giving security clearance should not only be judge by your credit history.

I would have to disagree only because of personal experience. For me, with no issues coming in to the military, my security clearance took a bit longer than most of my peers and then ended up getting lost on the way to my first duty station keeping me locked out of information I needed to do my job for 6 months.

In addition, at my second duty station one of my fellow Airman explained to me why he wasn't a linguist and had been placed into our career field despite his intelligence level. His parents were Saudi born with little to no connections to the country and I believe he had only ever been to the country once. I feel our clearances are given when seen fit but when you have information, you have those who want to try and get it, illegally if need be.

Always a good question. Know in my time it was a giant pain in the ass that I had to go thru every 5 years or so. NIS Crawling Up my Rectum, Questionaire for hell and the first one they even send some Federal Officers to Tail me while home on Leave the First time (That was Actually Fun taking them on some wild goose chases). My main beef and question is how sloppy it has gotten since it was "Privatized". Contracted Out. I know it is the Mantra of some that it is always better to have it done by Private Companies but I think the Government did a better job of doing it in my day than now.