Top Issues for Security Clearances in 2019

The year has passed and with all of the changes in the background investigation and security clearance realm it seems apt to label 2019 as the year of clearance and investigation reform. Reinvestigations are a thing of the past; Continuous Evaluation (CE) and Trusted Workforce 2.0 are the new buzzwords; the new Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency (DCSA) took over from the Defense Security Service and National Background Investigations Bureau. All of this occurred while keeping the flow of new security clearance investigations going. The massive amount of planning and coordination needed to pull this off was challenging to say the least, but things seem to have smoothed out and processes are improving. On the adjudication side of the house (posted through the end of October) the Defense Office of Hearing and Appeals heard 1,066 initial DoD clearance denial appeals. Below is a breakdown by adjudicative category of the types of issues involved resulting in the initial denial (Note – many cases had multiple issues):

The numbers are consistent with previous years, with financial considerations outpacing all other issues combined. As always, I recommend those seeking or already holding a clearance visit ClearanceJobs.com and the ClearanceJobsBlog forum to browse through the enormous amount of valuable information posted by subject matter experts and those who have already gone or are going through the security clearance process.