February 07, 2006

• Well depending on how old the transvestite was, I'd say it shouldn't be much of a problem ;) I helped someone get that clearance awhile back, and the interview was mostly based on my perceptions of thier integrity, trustability, etc. I don't know what other sorts of background checks they do, but the interview-with-colleagues part was much like a standard job interview, only with things like "Have they ever mentioned overthrowing the government" type of questions in there.
• I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you! Ha haa haaaa....sorry I got nuthin. Although I remember reading a similar question somewhere else and the answers involved disclosing your shady past and it not being a problem. Unless you did loads of coke and booze and got your daddy to help you avoid a tour 'in country'. That's a real no-no.
• You need clearance to watch 'Top Secret!' now? Sure, it's devastatingly funny, but it's not lethal or anything... Is this the potato farm? Yes, I am Albert Potato. Heh.
• Nobody in the universe is squeaky-clean. Therefore I would be surprised if such clearance were limited to squeaky-clean people, because there'd be only, like, three of them and they'd be boring as hell.
• My brother was up for a locksmith job with the FBI at one point and warned us that we might be contacted for an interview. However,they pulled the req so I never had to go through with it, so I don't have any advice on that score. But, I will say that you might want to give your friends and family a heads-up before you give their names and addresses to the gummint, especially if there are any tinfoil hatheads among them.
• Definitely fully disclose your past. I have had many clients who try to get into the armed forces here in the US. They typically will not be allowed to if they have any criminal convictions on their record. I would think that the whatever problem there is with recruiting in the US military might go a long way toward being solved if they would let in people with some criminal history (Possession of Marijuana? DWI? Come on.)
• My understanding is that petebest is correct -- apart from the usual FBI background check (which, IIRC, includes interviewing your friends, family and neighbors), they're more concerned with your psych profile and any possibility of sedition. So likely they don't care if you were caught cornholing Billy Ocean on the MetroLink. For this kind of job, you'll likely have to submit to regular searches and surveillance. We have a friend who's an FBI analyst, and she regularly has her computer and PDA checked out, has to be paranoid about drinking and driving, etc.
• The most I've had to do was minor training in ITAR regulations, which doesn't sound close. Good luck with the job, anyway.
• You have to tell us all the details about your checkered past before we can truly appraise the situation, you know. Don't worry, we won't tell the internet.
• I have experience Fes. Give me a little more time to finish typing it up.
• A friend of mine got an engineering job with a defense contractor some years ago, and he had to get some sort of clearance for it. Many of his friends and acquaintences (myself included) were interviewed by someone from either the FBI or the Department of Defense - I can't remember which. The interview, in my case, focused on how likely or unlikely it was that my friend (the job candidate) might be blackmailed. My friend had a pretty tumultuous personal life, including dropping out of college, marriages, divorces, shacking ups, un-shacking ups, and other relationship disasters, enteprenurial failures, scattershot job and career choices, drug use, alcohol abuse, etc. He got the clearance and the job.
• "Fessie, you're doing a heck of a job." Mmmm - yeah okay I can see it. You'll be a shoo-in.
• I've gone through the process and gotten a cleareance. I did it as part of the process of becoming a nuke for the USN. I had to feel out a long, LONG form, and go through a phone interview, the rest of the action happened on their end. The phone interview was to discuss anything that might look bad, they'll ask you to explain your side of your rowdy past, but it'll be up to you to volunteer it. If you don't bring it up and they find it, they warn that that's bad, as it looks like your hiding it. I had to explain an assualt charge (which I took to court and won, but it's still on my record, even though the courts decided I was not guilty). I had to explain a night in the drunk tank (seperate incident). I had to briefly describe other minor incedents (fix-it tickets and whatnot). They'll ask about drug use. They were okay with my one-time experimental use of marijuana. They did want confirmation that I decided I didn't like it, but that was it. If I remember correctly, my phone interviewer told me this was the best answer (after I gave it), because sayng no pot-use would mean either: A) I was being dishonest in the interview and had something to hide, or B) that I had no experience with pot, which means I haven't made a informed decision to not like it. I could (likely) wind up trying it in the navy, decide I like it, and become a security risk. (I say "if I remember correctly" because it might've been a recruiter who told me this, not the phone interviewer. I had a recruiter sitting in front of me throughout the phone interview, and so all my memories of the phone interviewer have this person overlayed on top of him.) They part of my past they were most apprehensive about my night in the drunk tank, and needed reassurance I ended up there not because I was an alcoholic, but (at the time) just did not know my limit, because of little experience with alcohol coupled with egging on by my peers. An alcoholic is more capable of getting themself into money problems, and could be more tempted to sell nuclear info. They ask open ended questions that require you to volunteer information. Anything that is on record, you NEED to bring up. They will find it out anyways, this is your chance to tell your side. If you were in the wrong, it's your chance make them understand why you did X, and more importantly, that you realize know that X was wrong and that you are now more prepared to NotX than most. But anything that is not on record, do not bring up. Do NOT volunteer anything. I did volunteer my one-time experimental pot use, but only because I had a conversational slip up about it with another recruiter from a seperate branch of the military (4 years earlier), and I felt it safer to stick to the response that recruiter helped guide me to (not that it was right or wrong, but he helped reenforce the keywords "experimental" and "one-time"). From their perspective, if it's not on record, it didn't happen. Talking about it when you don't have to displays an inability to keep secrets, which is what they don't want. If you volunteer personal and damaging secrets when you don't have to, what are you going to do with the secrets they entrust you with? If don't possess the judgement skills to keep your mouth shut now, then you won't have them when Comrade Quidnunc is pumping so for information. Recap: Bring up everything on recorded, and if you were in the wrong, demonstrate the positive effect it had on you by telling them the lesson you learned from it. For anything not on record, demonstrate that you are worthy of the clearance by demonstrating good judgement skills and an ability to keep your mouth shut. Hope this helps.
• Just don't mention the you-know-what.
• Is it possible to get a security cleared if you have a rowdy past? Yes. Depending on what questions they ask me, the answers could become interesting, perhaps even eekish. One of the issues they will be looking for is your amenability to blackmail. Your full and frank disclosures will assure them that you would come to them if Comrade Chan threatened to tell your wife about your hot tranny sex.
• Comrade quidnunc vs. Comrade knickerbocker. Round two. FIGHT.
• In Mother Russia, you wife comes to you to talk about your hot tranny sex with Comrade quidnunc.
• A, B, X+C, sweep left B!
• Hmm. And that's the rub, ultimately. If I am unwilling to detail the various events in question for you all reasonably anonymously, the likelihood is that I will be reluctant to do so for the government, which will put me in the awkward position of either (a) lying during a clearance interview and/or polygraph (a mistake of Cthulonic proportions), or (b) being fuckwaditudinally forthright not only with the government but potentially with several others, so as to preclude a possible third party's ability to coerce me (not a hugely attractive alternative). I am reminded of something an acquaintance, a Marine MP, once told me: when you take the government's dime, you have to play by the government's rules, and the government's rules suck. My course, thus, becomes increasingly apparent. I appreciate you all helping my sort this out in my noggin, thanks much, esp. Mr. Knickbocker and Lagged2Death.
• Man, you would have made a good secret agent, too. I was gonna be your nerdy tech dude backup and everything, but whatever.
• Hey Mr Kickerbocker, you were a nuke in the navy? That means you're my research subject! Mr K speaks sense. Unfortunately, the US Govt has very mixed up requirements for clearance. There's minimum standards, but each agency will have their own, particular, hoops to jump through. Depending on who's granting your clearance you may have to submit to one or more polygraph tests and prepare to wait a long time for the clearance to come through. If you're embarrased about your prospective employers finding out secrets from your past then, frankly, you shoudln't apply for clearance. If you don't want them to know, it's quite possible the Bad Guys will find out and use it against you, and you don't want that. Far better to disclose fully at the outset. Hell, what you tell them is secret anyway. Also be prepared for a significant loss of privacy. You may have to record and report conversations with people from certain countries, for example, or submit to your computer being searched. Lots of people I know won't use crypto communications, and I feel kind of uncomfortable encrypting my own communications (even though I have no clearance) because I don't want suspicion to fall on them. Remember, Official Secrets are for life, not just for Christmas, so think through the responsiblity carefully. So that's kind of part of the down side. On the plus side it's all for Queen and Country (or whatever you Americans say), right?
• I wouldn't mention your fling with mail fraud. They're touchy about that one. And don't be too forthcoming about the male fraud tranny sex with quid, either.
• Yesterday you call me the "always-wise bernockle." Today I can't even make your thank-you list, Fes. Has my star really fallen that quickly?
• Yes. Quiet, you.
• Despite the (relative) coolness of the whole idea ("Secret aaaaagent man! secret... agent man!" the inestimable Johnnie Rivers, ladies and gentlemen), the more I look at this thing, the more is sounds like a giant septic sumphole of personal and professional trouble. Hmph. Private sector'll hold me just fine. Quiddy darling, we still on for Friday night? bernockle, your wisdom and sagacity does not rise or fall with the passage of the day, but remains always trenchant and erudite, though I may but silently laud it.
• Uncle Fes, if you decide to do this interview, pass it, and get this job, I'm so going to send you the *entire bottle* of guava-scented spray!
• From what I know of family friends who had to get clearance, they want to know that 1) you have personal integrity (you won't tell their secrets 'cause you're a stand-up guy) and 2) you can't be blackmailed into telling their secrets (there's no deep dark secret hanging over you that you don't want everyone to know). If my family friend could get clearance, with his past, you can too I think. (He is basically a stand-up guy, and you seem to be one, too.)
• "Mr. Fes, did you or did you not accept an entire bottle of... [papers ruffle] guava scented spray from a person or persons known by the unlikely name of 'kittenhead'?" "Er, yes." "Thank you, Mr. Fes, but Section 642 of the US Secret Squirrel Code of Behavior forces me at this time to terminate this interview. We will retain the stool sample for our records, and we appreciate that you not mention this to anyone, anywhere, for any reason. Good day, sir." "But... but..." "I said GOOD DAY!"
• Cavity search! Oh, no that was on the date with quid. Nevermind.
• Fes, keep in mind the inestimable increase in your (I am sure, already puissant) sex appeal. You are a secret agent for the gov, you carry heavy secrets you can never share. no one understands the burdens you bear. the ladies will be stacked 3 deep at yr doorstep ;)
• For what it's worth, I never once had my computer or anything at my house gone through (to my knowledge). And if they ever contacted my family or other references, none of them ever mentioned it. Matter of fact, I didn't even have contact info for my father, and that didn't even make them pause. Of course, I was voluteering for a really shitty job that was severely understaffed (and would've been severely understaffed if it was a great job). Might've gone differently if I was trying for a different job, or for a different branch. It was also pre-9/11, pre-Homeland, and pre-Bush. Dreadnought: research subject?
• The naval history of the Cold War, but applicable more generally to modern submarine warfare. When/where did you serve?
• So, basically, you say that "Yes, I did cocaine but I decided I didn't like it", or "Yes, I sold cocaine but I decided that I didn't like it". Hhmm, seems easy enough.
• I want you people to listen to me, I'm only gonna say this one more time. I. had. sex. with that woman - Miss Lewinsky. But I decided I didn't like it.
• [sprints to mailbox to wrestle package containing guava-scented spray away from mailman, ends up in the clinker for "mail tampering," yelling all the while, "I did it for Feeessssssssss!!"]
• *misses this place* By all means, go forward and seed your rowdiness. Say, my guava-scented goodness has dissipated!
• Hi sugarmilktea! How's the wee berne? We miss you!
• Sugarmilktea, you'll either have to be sure and get in my group for the next cd swap again or else go and wrestle that bottle away from Fes! And yes, we do miss you!
• For what it's worth, I never once had my computer or anything at my house gone through (to my knowledge) He he he he he...
• "FBI Locksmith" would make a great TV Show.
• "I did open & smell that guava-scented spray bottle, but I didn't inhale... oh wait"
• Damn, Fes, and I just went through and deleted all your references to the body in your basement. I can't *un*delete them, you know.
• Say, I smell a juicy Anonymous George around the corner... You can steal a peek at the little thing that has been much of the reason for not being around MoFi much of late - if you check out my updated profile page *ponders how to catch up on 2 months of MoFi backlog
• Say, I smell a juicy Anonymous George around the corner Oh! Pick me! Pick me! MCT's had, like, nineteen of them so far.
• Cute baby!
• Very cute! Congrats!
• Cuter than a baby panda.
• Awww shucks... thanks for all the fine comments. Wish I could spend all my days licking the pearly white picket fence of Monkeyfilter. Sorry Fes, didn't mean to derail your thread with cute baby talk... ooooweee da widdle boo boooh is sooo coooot!
• "For anything not on record, demonstrate that you are worthy of the clearance by demonstrating good judgement skills and an ability to keep your mouth shut." I cannot claim the personal experience you can on the subject of getting cleared, but in my dealings with literally dozens of people with S and TS this is the exact OPPOSITE advice every one of them has given. Every one of them has always been explicit in saying that when we were asked questions about them by interviewers (which might not happen with many people in your life for Secret but will DEFINATELY happen for Top Secret) we should answer each and every one of their questions completely honestly. SO, if you're going to take the above advice, be aware: just because it's not on record doesn't mean they're not going to ask your buddies about it, or your neighbors. I've had investigators knock on my door and ask me about people who live four houses down (who I have never met). In an interview for a TS for a cow orker who I have been out to a happy hour with exactly twice I was asked several questions about what I knew about her husband. Frankly Fes, I'm a little surprised by the question at all. In most circumstances the process for a civilian to get cleared to Secret, much less TS, is well over a year. If the right agencies and people are involved you can have a provisional secret fairly quickly, but the bar for TS is exponentially higher. How this organization could hire you to do a job which you would presumably not be cleared to do for several years is a mystery; it's this shortage & backlog that is responsible for the atmospheric salaries for people with existing clearances.
• How this organization could hire you to do a job which you would presumably not be cleared to do for several years is a mystery Perhaps I misspoke. I have passed the initial vetting, and am now in "stage two" for the position - meaning, my qualifications are good and match the job well, and there is a better'n 50/50 chance they will ask me to continue on and start the clearance process. My question was, basically, what does that process entail and what was the likelihood that going through the process to get Top Secret clearance would result in either my being rejected out of hand (in which I would have wasted a lot of time and energy filling out huge forms, having gov't types irritate my neighbors and having the interviewing equivalent of an afternoon-long proctology exam) or having various past indiscretions that I'd prefer not get aired get aired. I guess the root of the question was: help me determine if it's worth it for me to continue down this path. To which, I've come around to thinking, the answer is no.
• To which, I've come around to thinking, the answer is no. I'm thinking, in my mind, "well, duh", but that's just me. It would be a cold day in hell before I would willingly go through that process. Strictly out of curiosity, and also because I continue to be painfully naive, does your political philosophy come in to play at all?
• How this organization could hire you to do a job which you would presumably not be cleared to do for several years is a mystery. For what it's worth, the company I work for (in Australia) regularly hires people with no clearance and then parks them doing pointless busy work while their clearances come through. This is for S however, which generally takes 4-6 months. The few jobs that require TS are, I think, filled internally by people who already have S.
• If the question is just one of it being too onerous for the possibility of failure, the best thing you can do is actually look at form SF-86 [pdf]. This is what you'll fill out for S or TS. The only real difference is that a TS also necessitates a 10 year-span background investigation. Meaning that the doobie you enjoyed 8 years back becomes relevant with a TS but may as well have not happened for a S. If everything else about the job sounds appealing to you, I'd suggest you go for it. Contrary to conventional wisdom you don't have to be squeaky clean to get one.... it just makes the process go by much faster. That may or may not be a problem depending on the situation. I don't think you have understood my concern about the speed of getting the clearance, and I suggest you do concern yourself with this. I recently spoke with a woman who accepted a job offer from SAIC a few months before graduation, and that job required a secret clearance. Past of getting hired involved paperwork that said if she bailed out on them before 1 year of employment she was liable for $10,000, the estimated cost of getting her clearance. As a new grad she was willing to accept this limitation since it was likely one she'd impose on herself for resume building anyway. However when they were unable to get her a provisional clearance they said okay, this'll probably be through in about 8 months. We'll call you. She managed to find work in her field before she had to head to Wendy's to make rent, but she'll still have to leave there and go to SAIC once that clearance is done unless she writes them a $10,000 check. So be careful what you agree to with this job.
• Friend of a friend does computer stuff for CSIS. He was out buying a car, when the salesman joked: "So, does this mean that if you tell me the wrong thing, that you'll have to kill me?" "No, but they'll send somebody around."
• I failed a TS clearance in 1962 for an embassy related position. The reason? My mother (adopted)of 25 yrs. who I had no contact with for the previous ten was an alien who dreamed of someday returning to her native Scotland. No shit. I have been suspicious of the thought process(or lack thereof)of the FBI ever since. I mean maybe if she was Chinese or Vietnamese or Lao or Rusian or something. But a Sottish lass? Give me a break. Oh. By the way. My dad(her husband) was a decorated combat vet. from Korea. Maybe they knew about sneaky terrorist Scots way back then.
• I'm thinking, in my mind, "well, duh", but that's just me Well, it'd be a pretty good job, the pay is outstanding. Matches my skillset perfectly, too. And, while it is not even remotely what you'd consider a 007 type of job, there would be some aspects of the job that would put me in the same room with them on occasion. But, as you point out, the barrier to entry here is pretty high, and I've got baggage. does your political philosophy come in to play at all? Not really. I'm a moderate conservative at best, a live-and-let-live-r at that, and by nature a cheerful and riblad sort of guy. And the position really isn't a political sort of thing, more along the line of a military/civilian service provider for defense contractors. My politics have rarely infringed upon my work or home life, no less so for the fact that I am generally not a politically (or religiously, or whatever) charged kind of guy. Mild-mannered fatuous boddhisattva clotheshorse, that's me. There are few subjects that get me torqued. So be careful what you agree to with this job. I did NOT know that! I appreciate the heads-up, I will definitely keep my eyes peeled for that.
• You...have the gay, don't you. It's okay. You can tell us.
• So far as I know, I'm not gay. But sometimes, I dress a little... flamboyantly.
• *cancels cookie bouquet order, weeps quietly into teddy bear*
• Fes, one of my best friends spent 3 years waiting on the State Department to get around to interviewing him. It took another year to go through more interviews & the security clearance process. He spent much of his youth indulging in carefree teenage pranks with assorted pals that may or may not have caught the eyes of the local police. He also spent a young adulthood in New Orleans, enjoying all the lovely charms that Bourbon Street had to offer. He cleaned up his act only slightly during a short stint in the Marines. And now he's in Europe with his family in a cushy embassy job, the envy of all of his friends. My point being, whatever your "baggage" is, this guy had plenty of it, and the gov't still hired him. If it's a job you really want, don't let that hold you back from simply trying. /2 cents
• flamboyantly? Fes is this you?!?
• oh yeah, link above pretty much NSFW....
• My mother was offered a job out of high school as a secretary at the FBI. She ended up turning it down because she didn't think she should move so far away from her family. I often wonder how different her life might have been. Maybe my Dad would have turned out to be someone far cooler.
• I have a Q clearance. They mostly only care if you're lying. Investigating someone with an "interesting" past might take longer, but as long as you're truthful and not currently doing anything too "interesting", you'll be fine.
• Frankly, I would think they would prefer someone with a colorful past (even a pastel one). You'd be a little wiser for it, wouldn't you? I'm thinking, in my mind, "well, duh", but that's just me I meant that in the sense that I wouldn't/couldn't work within those kinds of boundaries. I have one of those personalities that dictates rebellion whenever I see fit. It's a problem. sometimes, I dress a little... flamboyantly. Would this job allow for the occasional flamboyance? If not, fuck 'em, your too good for that job!