One issue that nobody has mentioned yet—the process of getting the clearance is difficult,and stressful. It can create a lot of anxiety, and increase worries about your self-esteem.
You have to fill out long, very detailed forms, that pry into your personal life.
You have to list every place you’ve ever lived, and friends who knew you at that time, and will be willing to speak to the FBI about you. Then you should notify those people that they will be getting a visit* from men in black suits and guns in shoulder holsters . The FBI will ask those people for additional names of mutual friends (which you did not list).
So , the process requires you to re-live your entire life, re-connect with old friends, who you’ll have to call, maybe for the first time in years. And those friends will mention other old friends, who will be drawn into the process with no advance warning, and will be surprised when they suddenly find an FBI agent paying attention to them. They may or may not give you a good recommendation. (I know of a case where the friend-of-a-friend was a nice respectable guy, but also was selling small quantities of pot to students at his campus. He was terrified by a call from the FBI, thinking that they were investigating him, and so he denied all knowlege of the guy who the FBI really wanted to know about. This made it look like the guy was hiding something from his past, which made it harder to get the security clearance.
So it takes a lot of self-confidence to endure the whole process. Be prepared.
(well, probably just a phone call. And no guns. But it’s still scary.)
Well I’ve never been married. I only saw the shrinks for relationship issues with girlfriends or issues with job insecurity, and the stress and anxiety associated with that type of stuff.
Does that fall under the grief clause? That’s the only possible exemption from having to disclose having seen psychiatrists within the past 7 years the I can see in Q21. Is that legit ‘grief’ or should I still be disclosing seeking mental health counseling from 2007-2008 (it was about 14 times, 2 different MD’s)? I just used it as mental therapy.
I’ve got 4 reliable references to draw upon. I’ve notified all that they could be visited by FBI without warning. I’ve been filling out this SF86 for 2 weeks now. The sticky points are mainly what I’ve put down so far - the DUI, with other misdemeanor charges, and the 2 related arrests all which happened 13-14 years ago and the shrinks within the past 7 years. Those are the only 2 things giving me some pause about this whole process…
kvadrat, I don’t think that anyone can definitively say whether you’ll get clearance (and if they could, they wouldn’t), but as others have said, the most important things for you to do are:
Be totally honest about everything, every time.
Be able to demonstrate that you have already corrected your past bad behavior with a reasonably long track record of success, and that you have no desire or willingness to engage in it again.
Never engage in bad behavior in the future.
If you haven’t already, do look at the site that Klaatu posted. You’ll see, over and over, a person with fairly significant issues being granted clearance, while another with relatively minor issues being denied, solely on the basis of 1) hiding those issues, 2) repeatedly engaging in those bad behaviors in the past, and/or 3) continuing to engage in those bad behaviors. For instance, compare these two cases from 2013 [bolding mine] :
Granted clearance:
Denied clearance:
While the first applicant’s problems might seem to be a much bigger deal, she disclosed fully, and was able to demonstrate that she has successfully put these problems behind her. Although the second applicant’s issues might seem very minor in comparison, he hid them, and continued to engage in them. In short, to my completely unqualified ear, your situation sounds a lot more like the cases that were granted clearance than those that were denied - provided that you are honest about everything.
And as DrDeth said, that literally means everything, and not just now, but from now on. The desire and/or willingness to conceal information from the investigators is often a far more serious concern than the actual information itself. I know a few people with clearance, and they tend to refrain from talking about anything even tangentially related to their jobs in any but the vaguest of terms, so that when their clearance is reviewed, they can confidently and honestly say that they have never revealed any potentially sensitive information. Clearance is a very valuable thing to have, and those who are smart protect it accordingly.
Life is hard. Mistakes are made. They do not expect everyone to be perfect, squeaky-clean Boy Scout saints. If they did, they’d never be able to find anyone to work there.
In a nutshell, the two main things they are looking for are honesty and anything for which you could be blackmailed. Financials are a big deal to them as far as the blackmail thing goes.
I saw a shrink when I was 12 YO and got a Secret clearance when I was 18 YO. Not a problem for me. I was hyper-active as a child and fortunately that was long before they had drugs to calm kids down.
As others mentioned, don’t bother contacting previous mental health professionals for a letter. It probably won’t be in the format that the investigators want anyway.
I really believe that you are over-thinking this process and creating undo worries for yourself. Just go with the flow and I bet everything works out find.
I won’t repeat what everyone else has said, other than to say you have a pretty good chance of getting the job. The upside of getting this clearance is that it opens a large number of doors for other work in the future, assuming you don’t do anything stupid to jeopardize the clearance. If a company doing government contracts is looking to hire one of two people that have equal quals, the person with an existing or lapsed security clearance will probably get the job, since the company knows they likely won’t have to look for someone again in six months when the clearance request is rejected.
One thing you may want to find out is how critical the interim clearance is, and if you’ll be terminated if that doesn’t come through.
I ask because in my first job out of college (working for a large defense contractor), I was put in for a Secret clearance, and the department that hired me intended to put me onto a particular project once the interim clearance was received. The first day I showed up, I was told to report to another group altogether. It turns out that the interim clearance got denied*, and so they had to find another no-clearance-required slot for me in the meantime while waiting for the full investigation to complete.
It worked out fine in the end (and I was granted Secret clearance) but it was definitely worrisome, and if the department had been less flexible I might have found myself in a difficult position-- so it might be something to ask about.
I have since obtained higher clearance levels, and will second what everyone above has said about honesty and forthrightness being the most important factors. (I take medication and see a psychiatrist for minor depression, and that has never been an issue.)
*Denied because, while studying abroad in Japan during college, I had traveled to Hong Kong and stayed for <48 hours. This was in 1998, after HK had reverted to Chinese control. The investigator asked me in detail about the trip (it happened because round-trip airfares to HK at the time were much cheaper than fares to/from Japan, so the travel agency had booked all of us as traveling to HK with months-long layovers in Japan each way) and was perfectly satisfied with the explanation, but it had thrown up enough of a flag in the system to prevent the interim clearance from going through.
I deal with these issues in hiring on a regular basis. Nothing is certain, but it sounds like you won’t have a problem Security officers are not morals police. Their job and interest is determining whether you will tell the truth and follow the security rules. So, tell the FSO what your issues are. Again, they are interested in getting the feeling you are going to tell the truth, not details of your early years. For your mental questions, as long as you haven’t be diagnosed with any medical issues and haven’t been hospitalized, simply state the facts in the simplest terms and let it be. You need to, you can only, discuss these matters with the FSO of the company hiring you. They will hold your clearance. No other FSO will talk to you about it. Once you fill out the security application, the rest is up to the investigators who aren’t planning on being in a hurry. That would be my only concern. Talk to the person hiring you and see if you can get a minimum number of months that they will employ you while your clearance is pending. Six months is reasonable. Sometimes it will take longer even for Secret. But the actual procedure is the Gov’t will grant an interim clearance as soon as you apply. If there is any reason at all, or for no reason, the interim may be canceled after a week and you will have to wait for your permanent clearance to come through. I have seen these apps go through in 2 weeks (very rare) and some take almost a year. After a year though, neither you nor your company will have much hope. But check with your hiring company and find out whether they will continue your employment even if the interim is declined. If not, you are taking a significant risk. L
In a rush so I don’t have time to read both of the threads, but–getting a secret clearance is no big deal. I doubt your brushes with the law will affect your ability to get it.
There’s a big jump to top secret, though. That’s when an FBI agent shows up and spends the day grilling you, your co-workers, and your close family and friends.
One question, who is this FSO everybody is talking about? How do I get a hold of this person? Is this person an employee of the contracting agency hiring me or the actual company I’d be getting work from? Lastly, since I still haven’t taken the job officially, meaning have not given notice to my current employer to go work at the contracting firm I’m assuming I cannot consult with the FSO - no access to him/her until I actually start working there, right?
FSO = Facility Security Officer. If you work on a military installation, depending on the organization, FSO could be Sue from HR or SGT Jones from X Airbase Wing/Squadron whatever.
They deal with all issues you have raised above. They are the people who apply for on your behalf, maintain, and keep you up to date on your clearance, security training, and any local security requirements for the installation you work at.
After rereading this I am just going to say: dude stop freaking out. If you get the job, no worries. Your In!! Don’t worry about acronyms. You will deal with FSO, OPSEC, INFOSEC, DTRA, RAM, FUBAR, AFMC, AFRL AND STFU.
Nope, not freaking out. I just have a little time to consider whether I really want to quit my current cushy job for one that has some risks associated with it, at least at the start.
So I am just gathering some info to help me understand what I am doing, before i make the jump.
In that case there’s much more to consider. Working for the government, especially the military, even as a contractor can be strange. You’ll probably be shocked at all the rules and regulations plus how long it takes to do anything. In some positions you might spend a 1/10th of your time wasted in meetings. A lot of it is due to strange laws that Congress passes making it rather difficult to do anything. I often have to tell new workers without previous government experience “It doesn’t have to make sense. It’s the government.”
I was active duty military for 24 years and have worked as a government contractor for another 13 years so I’m pretty immune. However even I get shocked at times. I have worked as a consultant in the private sector and I’ve been amazed at times how well things work there. No “resubmit in 60 days for final disapproval” crap.
BTW: Working for the US Post Office was the worst by a long shot.
When I went through the clearance process, they sat down with me before the polygraph, and ran through the questions they were going to be asking me. During that interview, they told me that past drug use was OK, as long as you weren’t using any more, and you were honest. I said, “no problem, I never have!”, to which they replied “But it’s OK if you did!”
They hooked me up to the polygraph and went through their questions. When they got to the drug question, I answered, honestly, that I never had used drugs. There was a long pause, and they said, “OK” and went on to the next question.
They certainly seemed surprised when I passed that question. I may have been the only one they ever interviewed who could honestly say they never had!
I went through the security clearance process two years ago. The main thing is to disclose everything; they’re gonna find it out anyway. If it looks like you’re trying to hide it, you’ll be denied summarily.
But in your case, it sounds to me like they would see you being right upfront with it, not trying to hide it, and you’ve kept your nose clean since then. I don’t think it would be an issue. They might ask some follow-up questions about it. I’d go for the job if I were in your place.
This is my $0.02 only. I’m not the guy doing your background check and I don’t know how sticky your job is going to be about past transgressions.
