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Secret Clearance Question


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The FBI showed up at some of my friends and family's houses to ask them about me. My clearance was for a submarine which may have been a specific type of investigation, I don't know. The work they did for the secret clearance was sufficient enough that for my TS SCI clearance no one else was contacted, as far as I know.

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The FBI showed up at some of my friends and family's houses to ask them about me. My clearance was for a submarine which may have been a specific type of investigation, I don't know. The work they did for the secret clearance was sufficient enough that for my TS SCI clearance no one else was contacted, as far as I know.

Sounds like you had a TS/SCI.

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Do they usually grant the clearances before you ship?

 

He didn't do anything involving enlisted soldiers. He said it usually took 1-3 months though to do a secret and up to a year to do a top secret.

 

I know some people don't get it before they ship though, I mean Tesla didn't get his until a week after showing up for WOCS.

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He didn't do anything involving enlisted soldiers. He said it usually took 1-3 months though to do a secret and up to a year to do a top secret.

 

I know some people don't get it before they ship though, I mean Tesla didn't get his until a week after showing up for WOCS.

So now it doesn't rly sound like there's a difference between a secret and TS.

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So now it doesn't rly sound like there's a difference between a secret and TS.

 

They got a lot more serious about them after the whole Snowden thing. My friend said that for a TS they interview everyone on your SF86, while for a secret they might interview 2 or 3. Were you already selected for WOFT? I think the timer sort of starts after your interview with the investigator at MEPs.

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No, my board interview is in March. My recruiter has done the electronic SF86 for me, but I've never met with an investigator yet. When do you usually meet the MEPS investigator and what does that entail?

 

It's after you get selected. You basically just confirm everything you said in your SF86 and he goes off and start investigating.

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Do you know if they interview past employers or just send letters/emails?

 

It's up to the investigator.

 

They break everyone you list on your SF86 into two groups, "references" or "verifies." References are typically the people you put down as having known you for the last 7+ years. They get interviewed in person typically and get asked a wide range of questions. Verifier's are usually just used to confirm you worked at a job, went to a school etc. They might get asked an additional question or two but not as in depth and possibly by mail. He also said that one "bad" review by a boss isn't the end of the world, assuming it isn't something like "Such and such was a drug addict." They basically treat it like an outlier.

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I can tell you this much. After I was selected and signed my contract, my current and previous bosses received letters from the security clearance office with a scan-tron type questionnaire to fill out about me, which they had to send back in. My recruiter told me I should expect a call from an investigator to set up a in-person interview. I'm hoping that the process can be completed before I even ship to BCT in May since it started pretty quickly.

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I can tell you this much. After I was selected and signed my contract, my current and previous bosses received letters from the security clearance office with a scan-tron type questionnaire to fill out about me, which they had to send back in. My recruiter told me I should expect a call from an investigator to set up a in-person interview. I'm hoping that the process can be completed before I even ship to BCT in May since it started pretty quickly.

 

In general, OPM tries to conduct security clearance interviews in bulk. So, they tackle locations with high volume applicants before going to obscure locations to just interview one person. They can maximize government spending on their travel if they travel once to conduct several interviews rather than once to conduct one. Does that make sense? At any rate, you could be contacted prior to BCT. That's not entirely unlikely... but don't be surprised if you are in the middle of BCT one day training and your Drill Sergeant tells you some investigators are there to speak with you. That actually happens a lot and is very convenient for OPM as there are a lot of guys in BCT at any given time who need a security clearance interview.

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  • 1 year later...

I received some pretty disheartening news from my recruiter today. I haven't actually had a security interview yet, but a security interviewer DQ'ed my form to start the investigation.

 

Back in July when I started working with my first recruiter I was up front and honest at our first meeting about having experimented with marijuana and a schedule II substance (4 times) during my college years. Throughout my whole packet building process, things have happened pretty smoothly. The MEPS doctor cleared me, and after looking at my ASVAB/SIFT scores made a joke along the lines that that the "experimentation obviously hadn't affected my test scores". Following this I made it through the flight physical and was cleared by the flight surgeon pending that I met with an ASAP (substance abuse) counselor. I met with said counselor, and he cleared me as well. After speaking with me he said that in his professional opinion these past indiscretions would not affect my performance or future Army career, and he recommended me for WOFT.

 

Since September I have been working with a new recruiter (my second). I was told that I had to get a security interview before I could move on to the Battalion Board. Just before he tried to schedule the interview I spoke with his commander (a captain) and it sounded like I had the commander's green light to move forward. The recruiter was going to schedule me for a phone interview with the security interviewer from his MEPS in late October, but she denied the appointment because I had admitted to smoking marijuana in June, before I started the WOFT process, and she said it had to be a 1 year wait since the last use to get the interview. Recently my recruiter said that there was a new OPS Flash and that you can now call a number to do the security interview over the phone with USAREC. We called in last week to do the interview, but GCR was down on the interviewer's end so he couldn't look up my SF86 and other documents. At the end of the day my recruiter tried calling them back, GCR was still down on their end, but they took down my information.

 

Fast forward to today. I came into my recruiter's office and he said he had some bad news. He pulled up my security clearance interview form, and a security interviewer had edited it. It stated that I was DQ'ed for using that schedule II substance more than 3 times, regardless of the amount of time that has passed since then. The last use was 4 years ago, and the comments made no mention of the last marijuana use from June. I made a couple of poor choices during my college years that I'm not proud of, and being honest did not pay off here. I have never had any drug related legal charges, so it is very likely that they ever would have enough found out about this had I decided to not be forthcoming. I don't regret being honest, but I am disappointed to see my prospects crash. I can see things from their perspective, but it is too bad to find this out at this stage of my packet, after doing all of the leg work to build a packet with pretty respectable stats in my opinion (GT: 139, SIFT: 58, 1st AFPT: 252, a bachelors in biology), after being cleared by all of the medical staff thus far, and without ever actually talking to a security interviewer myself.

 

Short of enlisting and proving that those days are behind me and rebuilding a packet from inside the Army does anyone here see another option to move past this? I wonder if it would be possible to let things cool down a little bit and to try and get in touch with another interviewer later on.

 

If you actually made it this far through this post, thank you for taking the time to read it, and I would appreciate your input.

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I'm not sure if this is a full-stop issue for you. Hopefully someone with recruiting experience can chime in. I have a friend who had admitted to the same, FBI said he wasn't eligible to be a special agent, DEA still took him to the next steps of the process, though he didn't end up continuing with his application. I have to imagine there is a way, but I could be wrong. I also go by the honesty is the best policy rule, but the irony is most people with clearances probably lied about drug use.

Mike

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I don't know if this will apply or not, but in AD if your Secret clearance gets denied for any reason there is an appeals process. I am not sure what that entails because it only happened to two friends of mine. Don't give up is what I would tell you and pester everyone until you get clear guidance.

 

I was also a recruiter but unfortunately I never ran into anyone with a similar situation as yours.

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  • 4 months later...
  • 3 months later...

I talked to an Imam on on this. Regarding how certain discrimination occurs during the hiring of New applicants. I don't know what religion you chose. But in islam, we cannot disclose sins (small or big) to anyone; he must keep his secrets (regarding his sins) to himself.

 

Nowhere in Islam has it been stated that a specific person or group of individuals posses the authority to grant forgiveness.

 

He should only confess to his lord as a gesture of repentance and asking for forgiveness, for one will only obtain more respect and honor when he confesses to Allah.

 

There are many ways to receive forgiveness and pardon. The army might honor them if it is for religious reasons. The Islamic chaplain might be able to help you achieve your goals. As it seems like they are using discrimination to achieve there own (such as job thievery if they are not Americans).

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I talked to an Imam on on this. Regarding how certain discrimination occurs during the hiring of New applicants. I don't know what religion you chose. But in islam, we cannot disclose sins (small or big) to anyone; he must keep his secrets (regarding his sins) to himself.

 

Nowhere in Islam has it been stated that a specific person or group of individuals posses the authority to grant forgiveness.

 

He should only confess to his lord as a gesture of repentance and asking for forgiveness, for one will only obtain more respect and honor when he confesses to Allah.

 

There are many ways to receive forgiveness and pardon. The army might honor them if it is for religious reasons. The Islamic chaplain might be able to help you achieve your goals. As it seems like they are using discrimination to achieve there own (such as job thievery if they are not Americans).

What the heck?

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No, it's not a troll post. Again, just trying to help out.

 

The Catholic church does nothing about that. That's supposed to be apart of there job. Yet, they do nothing. But in islam we are very strict about that.

 

The navy chaplains work 1 on 1 with the commanders. Advising them on how to make morally centered descisions on a daily basis. IDK how religious the army leadership is. But as you can see, it can help make important decisions like that.

 

Also, if it where my call. Then I would just do the morally centered thing and not run a background check at all. Then, tell them not to announce that information to anyone.

 

And then tell them to be on there best behavior from here on out.

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