Are we actually regressing when it comes to tolerance of drugs? Obama was a pot smoker, and he admitted to cocaine use as well. No one much cared.
You left out the “in high school and college” part. Funny, that.
Most federal employees have to pass lengthy background investigations in order to get a security clearance. If you want to work in the White House and gain access to sensitive (not necessarily classified) information, you have to be cleared. Biden didn’t make the rules.
I didn’t read the entire story but if someone lies in an attempt to conceal material information on a clearance, that’s an immediate disqualifier and termination; it’s also a potential crime.
Yep. Most who admitted to past weed use were Oked, only five were not.
As a retired Fed, I know that even a small lie gets you ix-naxyed .
Biden has said he wasnt pot decriminalized and whatever states want to legalized it, fine by him.
And Joe himself had nothing to do with this, he likely wasnt even consulted.
First of all, Biden likely has nothing to do with this.
Next, it could have well been for lying about past use. Note that most staffers who admitted to past use were hired, only a few were not. We dont know the whole story but the fact that hundreds got the Ok, and only five didnt indicates it wasnt simply past pot use. And it shows clearly that past pot use isnt a bar to getting hired.
No they didnt. Read the story.
This is true in many cases; it depends on the agency and the position. Law enforcement tends to take a dim view of illicit drug use even when it comes to experimentation, with greater scrutiny for those who used after high school/college. DEA is the probably the least tolerant for reasons that are probably obvious.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but you can be denied a security clearance for drinking too much, can’t you? Security clearances aren’t strictly about legality, they’re about responsibility, and there’s a ton of perfectly legal activities that could still signal, “Don’t trust this person with secure information.”
Has there been any official statement from the administration about why these individuals were fired? “I was fired for past pot use” could mean “I came to work stoned last Thursday”: Last Thursday is, after all, in the past. For that matter, it could mean “I was fired because I got caught embezzling, but I don’t want to admit that, so I’m lying and saying it was about pot”. The word of a fired person is not necessarily reliable.
That’s possible, but I don’t remember excessive drinking ever coming up in any of the cases I dealt with. On the other hand, excessive and mismanaged debt, while perfectly legal, was the most common derogatory information. I remember one fairly senior NCO with an otherwise sterling record who was denied a renewal of his security clearance because he had declared bankruptcy.
Security clearances aren’t strictly about legality, they’re about responsibility, and there’s a ton of perfectly legal activities that could still signal, “Don’t trust this person with secure information.”
And yet, two posters on this message board recently expressed shock and RO that credit checks were used in employment decisions at all.
I didn’t think it was relevant. And it’s not my job to soft-pedal Obama’s history. I believe some of the people we are talking about here also said they only smoked in college.
Because we weren’t talking about govt clearances, were we? We were talking about somebody’s brother who desperately needed a job because he was in foreclosure and was turned down because of the foreclosure. Many people don’t realize that that could be an issue in a civilian position (such as a casino). We don’t know what the job he applied for was. Not sure why you dragged that over here.
Of course you didn’t. And it’s also not your job to imply his use was much later in life than it truly was.
Can you point out what led you to believe that?
Drinking’s a potential issue if it causes problems with work or personal relationships and absolutely a deal if it results in illegal conduct (DUI, domestic violence, assault/battery)
I did no such thing. I just said he also used pot and cocaine, and that he admitted it. All true. I actually don’t know when he used coke. He was part of the ‘choom gang’ in high school, an admitted heavy user, but his coke use was detailed in his autobiography, which I didn’t read.
I don’t care anyway. I am for drug legalization.
Well, DUI, domestic violence, and assault/battery are issues in and of themselves, completely separate from heavy drinking. As I said, it certainly seems possible that heavy drinking would be noted on a background check as derogatory information, it’s just that I personally never encountered that in any of the cases I dealt with, and I don’t remember ever discussing it with investigators or clearance board members. Prior drug use and finances came up all the time, though.
And, again, prior drug use by itself wasn’t necessarily disqualifying. @SingleMalt’s anecdote about their sister-in-law is pretty much exactly how I remember cases being handled. If you were up front and honest about your past drug use, and made a credible presentation that you were no longer using, you got some extra scrutiny, and your clearance would probably be delayed for extra investigation and interviews, but it generally wasn’t a bar. Continued or recent drug use was almost always a bar, though. And lying about it was much worse. You can’t be prosecuted for drug use based on your answers in a background investigation, but you can be prosecuted for lying about it.
Finances were by far the most common bar.
And what on Earth made you think this was relevant to my post?
I was agreeing with you. It’s a matter of responsibility.