Security Clearance Jobs Blog

If you ask around the common perception seems to be that getting a security clearance costs sponsoring companies or agencies a lot of money – this is a case of perception not meshing with reality, however. The cost of investigations is published, with the average cost for OPM investigations at $1,230 per investigation.

The most significant and in many cases difficult to assess cost is in non-productive time while an employer waits for an employee’s clearance to be processed. It’s a key reason why already cleared personnel remain in demand – it’s because they’re easier, and cheaper, to get on the job quickly. That said, as processing time continues to decline even this cost is decreasing.

Read the full article on how much security clearances really cost here.

COMPARE:  Prices of OPM’s investigative products for Fiscal Year 2008.

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Federal prosecutors, the district court judge and a number of others are asking how Army Reserve 2^nd Lt. Scott Allan Bennett was able to obtain a top-secret clearance and work as a defense contractor, despite a 2008 misdemeanor conviction for lying to government officials, the Tampa Bay Online reports.

The story unfolds like something from a television crime drama….or an issue of the Onion satirical newspaper. Over the past five years Bennett has repeatedly lied to government officials, bluffed his way into meetings, offices, and in his current conviction, housing at MacDill Air Force Base.

An Army Reserve spokesman stated that Bennett’s TS/SCI clearance was obtained four months prior to his entrance into the 11^th Psychological Operations Battalion (a somewhat fitting occupation for a man of Bennett’s persuasion). Almost everyone seems to agree that regardless of how it happened, allowing such a person access to sensitive information is risky for a number of reasons.

ClearanceJobs managing director Evan Lesser, quoted in the Tampa Bay Online, says that government agencies need to investigate how Bennett got his clearance, what information he had access to and what he may have done with that information.

“It seems really difficult to believe that he did not have red flags from past behavior,” Lesser said. “Should somebody be concerned about this person? I would say most definitely. He had high level clearance and access to a fair amount of classified information at a very high level. It seems like somebody dropped the ball on this particular person.”

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The Washington Times is reporting that investigators have falsified hundreds of top secret security clearance investigations, claiming to have conducted research that never took place. Court records showed 170 falsified interviews and more than 1,000 that could not be verified.

Individuals quoted in the Washington Times story report that the push to adjudicate clearances as quickly as possible, as well as the increased outsourcing of investigation specialist positions, contributed to the falsification. Others cited simple greed on the part of investigators who over-promised and weren’t able to deliver completed investigations.

“The monetary loss sustained by the government does not, nor cannot, represent the cost associated with potential compromise of our nation’s security and the trust of the American people in its government’s workforce,” said Kathy L. Dillman, associate director in charge of investigations at the Office of Personnel Management.

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The Atlantic reports (courtesy of Registan blogger Joshua Foust) of a recent job posting for agricultural specialists, security clearance required. It points to the dramatic increase in recent years for the need for individuals in a variety of occupations to hold security clearances – from executive assistants and janitorial crews working in cleared facilities to, in this case, farmers deploying to help native populations in combat zones. As the Atlantic notes there’s good reason for individuals deploying to locations like Iraq and Afghanistan to have clearances – sensitive information is on the line and individuals working alongside deployed troops and in secure facilities will most definitely have unique access.

The need for farmers with security clearances also points to the increase number of security clearances issued in recent years. The number of clearances has become so significant, in fact, that the Office of the Director of National Intelligence is having trouble coming up with the exact number, according to reports from Secrecy News. While the director of the ODNI special security center stated in a Capitol Hill briefing that they would divulge the number of security clearances held sometime after the first of this year, the figure has yet to be disclosed.

Secrecy News reports that ODNI will still provide the number – but will include it as a part of the Intelligence Authorization Act of 2010, which required disclosure of the total number of clearances. All of this leads to the conclusion that keeping tabs on exactly how many security clearances have been issued and are active is easier said than done. A 2010 GAO report estimates the number at 2.5 million, but only ODNI knows for sure.

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On June 3, 2011 the Defense Security Service (DSS) posted “A Quick Reference Guide for the Newly Updated Standard Form 86” (QRG). “This QRG contains detailed field descriptions, step-by-step instructions, and a link to a printable form to help you determine what information you need to gather.” Unfortunately the printable form (July 2008 version) has not yet been updated to the March 2010 version.

This QRG provides 15 pages of detailed instructions for completing the SF86—much more comprehensive than anything previously published by DSS or the Office of Personnel Management (OPM). There are several errors and discrepancies in the QRG when compared to the internal instructions in the SF86 posted at the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Reginfo.gov website.  For example the QRG indicates that only 7 years of residence information is needed for NACLC/Secret; whereas the OMB version indicates that 10 years of information is needed and make no distinction between NACLC/Secret and SSBI/Top Secret. There are also “years of coverage” discrepancies for the sections on “Where You Went to School” and “Employment Activities.” The section on “Use of Alcohol” leads off with “This section requires you to provide information regarding your illegal use of drugs. . . .” The section on “Relatives” indicates that a yes or no response is possible, and if a no response is selected the program will skip over this section and proceed to the next section.

Despite the errors, DSS should be applauded for creating the QRG. Hopefully within the weeks to come, they will correct these problems and expand on what they have already provided.

A sorely needed new capability to transmit attachments by scanning and uploading or by faxing has apparently been added to the SF86 e-QIP. This will enable to applicants to submit supporting documents directly to the Defense Industrial Security Clearance Office or other Government security office.

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Here at ClearanceJobs we regularly get questions from individuals wondering if an indiscretion or two (i.e. – occasional drug use in college, a misdemeanor offense, or delinquent credit card debt) will hinder them in receiving a security clearance. The answer is generally  “it depends.” Factors include time elapsed since the incident, efforts to control or handle the problem and an individual’s behavior since. Because time elapsed since an error in judgement is such a critical factor, college students with youthful indiscretions may be in particular trouble. A clearance investigator is unlikely to consider your habitual marijuana use in college to be negated by the fact that you stopped after the spring semester – a few months before applying for a position with the State Department and needing to obtain a clearance.

Fortunately for many Maryland students, there’s Project SCOPE. With the 2005 Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) bringing tens of thousands of jobs to Maryland – and many of those jobs in fields requiring a security clearance – the Fort Meade Alliance, a local community organization, has stepped in to educate students on what they need to know about obtaining a clearance.  The program is now offered across the state of Maryland and brings together parents, students, teachers and local business leaders to encourage young people to make smart choices – and keep their future career in mind.

It demonstrates just how important a security clearance can be, and why it’s critical for young people to realize that drug use, significant debt or criminal activity aren’t just poor choices to make now, but could impact them in their career down the road.

Editor’s note: With one-in-five high school students reporting having abused prescription drugs, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention statistics, it’s increasingly important to remember that abusing medications, just because they’re legal, isn’t okay. Drug abuse is drug abuse.

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In case any of you security-cleared professionals needed a reminder: beware of bikini-clad avatars of good-looking women. Wired.com’s Danger Room reports of a social media user touting herself as a rocket scientist/defense expert and connecting with professionals across the security sector. With multiple social media accounts and a suspicious professional background it appears she may have been after more than just friends.

It’s a solid reminder that while there are many benefits to social media, everyone, and especially those in the national security business, needs to exercise a fair share of caution online.

It’s not the first time intelligence professionals have been in trouble for making poor choices online. Thomas Ryan, co-founder of Provide Security, made headlines last summer after revealing that a profile he’d created of a so-called cyber geek was really a fake. Robin Sage was her name, and she made over 300 connections online. Ryan retold the story at a recent event at the International Spy Museum entitled “Whose Watching Whom: Spying and Social Media.”

At the event Ryan outlined several tips for those looking to interact online, including suggesting separate accounts for personal and professional interactions as well as the simple need to be more vigilant in interacting online. Other recommendations include not posting personal information and while it shouldn’t need to be said, never share classified or sensitive information online.

It’s a reminder we take to heart at ClearanceJobs, and why we think it’s so important for cleared job seekers to be able to visit a secure, password protected site with vetted employers. When you visit ClearanceJobs you’re not just visiting another online network, you’re visiting a trusted network, who knows how important online security – and avoiding bikini clad avatars – are to the cleared community.

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It seems BRAC (the 2005 Base Realignment and Closure) is impacting just about everything these days – and security clearance adjudication hasn’t escaped the hit. At the heart of the matter is personnel – with 10 Department of Defense Central Adjudication Facilities moving to a joint location at Fort Meade, Md., expect some growing pains.

Five CAFs are already located within a 3-mile radius of the Pentagon, and not far from their new facility at Fort Meade. The problem will come from the Defense Industrial Security Clearance Office (DISCO) and the Defense Office of Hearings and Appeals (DOHA) personnel transferring from Columbus, Ohio. Many personnel from those facilities won’t move to the Washington, D.C. area and the process for recruiting, hiring, training  and certifying new personnel security specialists can be a lengthy one. As many as 80 percent of DISCO workers aren’t expected to make the move and with a competitive hiring environment in the Fort Meade area (we have hundreds of open positions around Fort Meade posted at ClearanceJobs.com) they face challenges in filling their open positions.

What you can expect is a longer than usual processing time for pending security clearances and additions to the adjudication backlog.

Read the full story here, and tell us if you’ve noticed delays with the adjudication process.

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A federal appeals court found that an Iranian-born worker can sue for discrimination after being fired from his job after being denied a Homeland Security clearance.

Hossein Zeinali was hired by Raytheon in 2002, contingent upon his receiving a clearance. He was terminated in 2006 when it was learned his clearance request had been denied. The cusp of the lawsuit rides on whether or not the clearance really was a requirement of the position given two other employees were purported to have continued working after a similar denial.

Not knowing the details of the Zeinali case we can’t speculate as to the reason behind the denial of his initial clearance request (or the legitimacy of his lawsuit), but the issue of foreign birth is a significant one and a factor in security clearance procedures.

Being born in another country doesn’t prevent a person from obtaining a security clearance, but having dual-citizenship with another country or refusing to give up a foreign passport possessed as a result of dual-citizenship is an issue.

Foreign influence is a significant concern when the government considers individuals for security clearances. The issue at heart is “divided loyalties.” Read: Uncle Sam doesn’t want to give anyone a clearance if they might have difficulty resisting influence from friends, family or allegiances in another country.

As we’ve stated before, critical elements to mitigating outside entanglements include demonstrating allegiance to the United States through attitudes and habits as well as demonstrating a willingness to give up outside influences, be it relationships in a foreign country or financial ties.

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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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The “Annual Report to Congress on Personnel Security Investigations for Industry and the National Industrial Security Program” for fiscal year 2010 is one of the more useful periodic reports containing data on security clearance processing.  Produced by the Defense Security Service, it is the only report that provides any information about interim clearances and one of the few that provides raw numbers.

Understanding the numbers can be a little tricky.  For example, you can’t simply divide the number of interim clearances granted by the number of final clearance to determine the percentage of cases that received interim clearances, because:

• Applicants drop out of the process before a final clearance decision is made on their cases.
• Interim clearances are granted at the beginning of process and final clearances are granted at the end, and these 2 events don’t always happen in the same fiscal year.
• Some of the final clearance decisions were made for periodic reinvestigations where interim clearance decisions are unnecessary.

What the report clearly shows is that the Defense Industrial Security Clearance Office (DISCO) lost ground in FY2010.  It started the year with 9,596 cases pending and ended the year with 17,936 cases pending, even though it opened 5,687 fewer cases than it did in the previous year and granted 5,900 Secret clearances using eAdjudication.  According to the report, operational productivity declined due to personnel problems related to the scheduled relocation of DISCO from Columbus, Ohio to Fort Meade, Md. by August 2011.  Unless DISCO increases their use contract adjudicators or raises their pay scale, expect further problems in the coming months.

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An article in USA Today says more state and local law enforcement officers are getting top secret clearances from the FBI to access sensitive federal information in terrorism cases than at anytime since 9/11.

Clearances granted to members of the FBI’s network of regional terrorism task forces jumped to 878 in 2009, up from 125 in 2007…Since 2001, the number of terrorism units, which draw on federal, state and local investigators, have grown from 35 to 104 nationwide. The units are staffed with 4,433 officers and agents, up from 912 in 2001, FBI spokesman Bill Carter told USA Today.

The FBI is launching an effort to declassify information that can be shared with more local investigators.  “Trying to get everybody into the clearance arena is not the solution,” FBI Assistant Director Ronald Ruecker reported to USA Today.

After 9/11, the FBI established the State and Local Law Enforcement Executives and Elected Officials Security Clearance Initiative. This program was initiated to brief officials with an established “need-to-know” on classified information that would or could affect their area of jurisdiction.

For more information see FBI Process for State and Local Law Enforcement | Brochure [pdf]

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Our popular ongoing series allows you to ask your most complex questions regarding 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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Please read over previous threads to see if your question has already been answered. Use the Search tool to locate specific keywords.

Related Articles:

• Employment Suitability Versus Security Clearance
• Criminal Conduct and Security Clearances
• Drug Involvement and Security Clearances
• Rebutting and Appealing Security Clearance Denials
• Alcohol Consumption and Security Clearances
• Personal Finances and Security Clearances

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Over the past two years, ClearanceJobsBlog.com has become the only place on the internet where people can ask tough questions about security clearances and get expert answers. Our staff and regular contributors have taken the time to answer even the most complex questions and give people peace of mind and assistance for an inherently confusing topic. We greatly appreciate all of the input.

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Secretary Gates said the “freedom of communication and the nature of it is a huge strategic asset for the United States…there are clearly a number of governments, around the world, that try to control these communications…but these governments “can’t draw the net tight enough to stop everything”…

However, the DOD also warns against the dark side of social networking as well. The problem is not so much people twittering away secrets as letting slip many smaller pieces of information that an adversary can piece together.

Where’s the middle ground? What precautions do you take?

Update:  Just today, a Washington Post article points out that even the super-secret National Security Agency is on Facebook.  Not only the NSA, but the CIA, FBI, and DIA.

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