Security Clearance Jobs Blog

Our popular ongoing series allows you to ask your most complex questions regaring security clearances and our regular contributors of present and former clearance investigators and adjudicators will try to answer them. The rules are listed below. Failure to abide by them will mean your question will be deleted.

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An April 10, 2009 article in CQ Politics highlights John Sullivan, who spent three decades as a CIA polygrapher giving polygraph tests to CIA employees.

When he sought a renewal of his CIA security clearance for a post-retirement job – He was turned down.

Sullivan had just written “Gatekeeper: Memoirs of a CIA Polygraph Examiner,” which discusses internal politics of the CIA.

“Today, he says, “I absolutely believe that the last polygraph examination I underwent was an abuse of the process and that those who participated in that process engaged in misconduct.”

I asked him whether CIA polygraphers are grilled on whether they’ve ever abused their powers, either on their own or at the direction of agency higher-ups, during their own lie detector exams.

They are not.”

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An April 9, 2009 article in the Washington Post reports that six investigators conducting security-clearance checks for the federal government have been accused of lying to the OPM in the reports they submitted. “The investigators lied about interviews they never conducted because they were overworked, cutting corners, trying to impress their bosses or, in the case of one contractor, seeking to earn more money by racing through the checks.” One investigator admitted he lied in 30 of 67 background investigations. (He’s at least batting under .500)

Since 2007, federal prosecutors have charged six investigators with making false statements. In the past OPM has handled such problems internally, however, OPM wanted to send a message by prosecuting the offenders instead of administrative action and/or firing the employee.

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