Security Clearance Jobs Blog

A contributor at ClearanceJobs.com recently compiled the top 10 reasons for security clearance applications to be rejected at both DISCO and OPM. Failure to pay attention to detail seems to top the list, with issues of missing or incomplete information taking up the majority of the top 20 issues listed.

DISCO - these ten items account for 96% of all DISCO rejections

1. Missing employment information
2. Missing social security number of spouse or adult co-habitant
3. Missing relatives information
4. Missing Selective Service registration information
5. Incomplete information concerning debts or bankruptcy
6. Missing education reference information
7. Missing employment reference information
8. Incomplete explanation of employment record
9. Missing personal reference information
10. Missing explanation of drug usage

OPM - these ten items account for 98% of all OPM rejections

1. Fingerprint cards not submitted within the required timeframe
2. Certification/Release forms information illegible or missing
3. Certification/Release forms not meeting date requirements
4. Discrepancy of place and date of birth information
5. Missing references (character, residential, employment or educational)
6. Discrepancy of e-QIP Request ID Number
7. Missing employment information
8. Certification/Release forms not submitted
9. Missing education information
10. Missing residence information

We shared the article via several of our social sites, and some security officers were quick to point out that while many issues listed seem to make up ‘reasons a security clearance application was returned to the security officer,’ denials typically have much more to do with an employee lying or ‘misremembering’ key information. Either way it’s a good reminder for applicants that they are responsible for every aspect of their application – including whether or not it is filled out completely. A security officer may play a critical role in proofreading documents before they’re sent, but that’s not a guarantee of accuracy.

What issues do the investigators on this site see over and over again, and do you agree that it’s often an employee’s failure to include all of the required information that causes issues?

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Want to know the value of a security clearance? Ask someone who has had theirs revoked and fails to get it reinstated upon an appeal to the Defense Office of Hearings and Appeals (DOHA).

While the accuracy of polygraph examinations remains so controversial that they’re inadmissible in most courts, they continue to be a vital part of the security clearance application and review process, especially within intelligence agencies.

Well-known security clearance attorney Sheldon Cohen is drawing attention for his public criticism of their use by DOHA. Specifically Cohen criticizes the use of heavily redacted and anonymous investigation reports. Cohen sites his recent case of a client whose Department of Defense security clearance was revoked after an alleged admission of viewing pornography on a government computer and watching child pornography at home, from a 2008 CIA investigation.

While Cohen’s argument hinges on several separate and legitimate arguments, including Department of Defense Policy against “giving reciprocal effect to other agencies’ adverse clearance determinations” it hints to the continued controversy surrounding security clearance polygraph procedures.

A McClatchy News service expose earlier this year accused the National Reconnaissance Office of failure to adequately track and report criminal behavior disclosed in security clearance polygraph investigations, as well as inconsistencies in interview procedures.

Cohen’s client, who isn’t named, said some of the statements in the CIA investigation were misrepresentations, and he denied other statements. When it comes to security clearance polygraphs, while the interviews are recorded, subjects aren’t allowed a copy of the audio, and only redacted copies of the investigation reports are provided.

At the end of the day, while there are policies and procedures in place for employees, cleared personnel and members of the intelligence community, in particular, do not necessarily have due process under the law. Security clearance due process procedures are outlined for professionals, but in a variety of areas, from polygraph procedures to whistleblower protections, critics remain.

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We’re launching a new article series at ClearanceJobs.com highlighting security clearance professions. If you work in the security clearance industry and would like to be featured email editor@clearancejobs.com.

Security Clearance Career Profile: Investigating the Tough Cases

by Ericka Cady for ClearanceJobs.com

Until recently I worked at the Defense Office of Hearings and Appeals (DOHA) where I adjudicated background investigations on defense contractors who had applied for security clearances. Defense contractor cases are usually handled by the Defense Industrial Security Clearance Office (DISCO), but when DISCO is unable to grant a clearance due to the complexity of the case, the entire file is sent to DOHA.

I occasionally received an easily resolved single-issue case, but most cases that arrived at my desk were incomplete and contained multiple complex issues. These cases involved applicants with massive unresolved issues, such as delinquent debts, criminal records (some dating back to the 1960s), drug use, current alcohol abuse, foreign preference or nationality concerns, and deliberate falsification.

DOHA is now located at Fort Meade, Md. in a new state-of-the-art building specifically designed for clearance adjudication. DOHA shares the building with 9 other DOD adjudication agencies. The new facility is very secure. Personnel are required to clear 3 different checkpoints before arriving at their desks. Building rules don’t allow for any recording devices, cell phones or laptops to come inside. Lockers for the storage of such personal items are provided near the metal detectors in the reception area. Once inside, I would go directly to my workspace, a cubicle in a sea of cubicles.

After dropping my purse and lunch, I listen to 6 to 10 phone messages left for me since leaving work the previous evening. I turn on my computer and review the list of names from the phone messages, with full intent to marry them up with the actual file before attempting a return phone call.

Once logged into the computer, I pull up my email. Email is vital in DOHA. And by vital, I mean a lifeline. All information is passed in office email, from “Important all hands meeting in 20 minutes” to “Who left the coffee pot totally empty and still on?”

Read more…

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IMPACT 2011 took place in Chantilly, Va. this week and while the event was off-the-record, it’s worth reporting the hot topics discussed in this gathering of security officers and experts. With hundreds of Facility Security Officers and Information System Security Officers in attendance the forum was a hot venue for information sharing and discussion of the current security landscape. The trends you’ll note in the agenda aren’t surprising, and spotlight the evolving digital landscape today’s security professionals face. Here are the highlights:

• Cybersecurity. Unless you’ve been living under a rock in the past several years it’s probably no surprise that cybersecurity is a watch word across the intelligence and security industries. Whether you adhere to the Defense Department argument of cyberspace as a warfighting domain, or are with the State Department camp looking to broaden Internet access in order to promote democracy, wars of the future will be waged along the Internet superhighway. Government and private industry are looking for cybersecurity professionals with the necessary skills to compete in this growing market.
• The mission matters. Security is a customer focused profession (and you thought it was all about defending networks and hunting down Russian spies….). Security experts have an important goal in keeping their communities safe, and the human component of any security position – even within the IT industry – is a powerful one. Several presentations focused on briefing skills and the importance of training and education. That’s certainly a trend we see with training and education related positions posted at ClearanceJobs.com.
• Progress has been made in the security clearance process…but it’s far from over. Representatives from the Defense Security Service (DSS), the Defense Office of Hearings and Appeals (DOHA) and others highlighted the improvements made in efficiency and reciprocity, but were cautious not to toot their own horns too loudly. They acknowledged that more steps need to be taken to make the process clearer and easier for both applicants and the security officers with companies and within the government who facilitate applications.

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A monograph on “Debt and Home Foreclosures: Their Effect on National Security Clearances” by Sheldon I. Cohen, a prominent Washington D.C. area attorney specializing in national security clearance, was recently posted at his website. Cohen reviewed 62 case decisions by Defense Office of Hearings and Appeals (DOHA) Administrative Judges between 2006 and 2010 involving foreclosures and short sales. He also reviewed 71 DOHA Appeal Board cases involving Guideline F: Financial Considerations. Regarding 22 case decisions that resulted in the granting of security clearances, Cohen stated:

“The common thread in all of these cases is that: (1) applicants were victims of circumstances not of their own doing; (2) they had not been speculators in the housing market who were caught when the bubble burst; (3) they had not succumbed to fraudulent schemes “too good to be true” as a result of their own greed; and (4) they had made good faith efforts to meet their other debts after the loss of their homes by foreclosure or short sale.”

This monograph is probably the only document on the internet that analyzes written case decisions on this subject. A further analysis of the cases reviewed by Cohen might produce some distinctions between outcomes of cases involving foreclosures versus short sales.

Full 37 page study [pdf] – Debt and Home Foreclosures: Their Effect on National Security Clearances

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