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Comment by CodesInChaos | Hacker News Reader

Financial stability is one of the most important criteria checked when you apply for clearance.

I read through a public list of the decisions on clearance appeals a couple of years ago, and financial concerns were a very common reason for denied clearances. (Might have been http://ogc.osd.mil/doha/industrial/)

Another thing I found interesting from that list was that a lot of concerns (e.g. earlier drug consumption) could be successfully addressed, but lying on the questionnaire was pretty close to an absolute no-go. I also expected a lot more denials for political opinion to stop ideologically motivated whistleblowers, but barely found any such entries.

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I think the only politically related questions you get asked are whether or not you've ever been a terrorist, and whether or not you've been a member of or supported an organization that was attempting to violently overthrow the governemnt. You're spot on about drugs though. They really don't care what you did in your past, as long as you don't have a criminal record from it, and you're honest. They just don't want people hiding things that can be used for blackmail.

Many years ago, I worked for a contractor where we required clearance. We hired this one sysadmin "stick it to the man" type of guy that was extremely well educated and talented.

When he got to the part of the form that asked if he has ever consumed drugs, he said "yes" as he should have by being honest. The follow up question asks something along the lines of, "If yes, will you ever consume drugs again?"

The jack-ass decided to answer "I won't not do them again..." We fired him a few days later.

Are those questions about illegal drugs or all drugs? Can you answer you don't take drugs when you smoke or drink alcohol? What if you have Marijuana in a country where it is legal? What about alcohol in a country where it is not? Is the trouble for the government that you are willing to go against the law, or that yoj could be under influence?

It's a questionnaire to get a security clearance in the US. Pretty sure it's only from a US perspective and you'd be disqualified if you lived abroad where these concerns would make any sense.

"In the last seven (7) years, have you illegally used any drugs or controlled substances? Use of a drug or controlled substance includes injecting, snorting, inhaling, swallowing, experimenting with or otherwise consuming any drug or controlled substance.

[...]

In the last seven (7) years have you intentionally engaged in the misuse of prescription drugs, regardless of whether or not the drugs were prescribed for you or someone else?

[...]

In the last seven (7) years has your use of alcohol had a negative impact on your work performance, your professional or personal relationships, your finances, or resulted in intervention by law enforcement/public safety personnel?"

They also ask a bunch of other questions as follow-ons. https://www.opm.gov/forms/pdf_fill/sf86-non508.pdf form page 93 PDF page 96.

With these sort of things, it's better to tell the truth and get fired than to lie, and wonder if you're going to get prosecuted somewhere down the line for lying to a federal agent. Jobs aren't so rare; you should think twice before lying.

Edit: Yes, it is better to work at a car wash than to get convicted for lying to federal agents. Don't believe me? Ask any federal prisoner if they'd be willing to work at a car wash in exchange for their freedom.

> I also expected a lot more denials for political opinion to stop ideologically motivated whistleblowers, but barely found any such entries.

Realistically this could be a concern with nearly any ideology, so unless you were going to reject anyone who had political opinions at all (and to be honest I’d be pretty suspicious of people who claimed not to on such a form) that’s probably a nonstarter.

I'm not talking about partisan politics or opinions irrelevant to the clearance. But rather about people being opposed to mass surveillance or other important activities conducted by the the intelligence community or military which might tempt the individual to whistleblow if they learned about unacceptable behaviour in those areas.

People opposed to intelligence work wouldn't apply for a job doing just that and requiring a secret clearance.

Not true. There may be people looking to get into that field who hope to have the chance to leak information. Imagine someone inspired by Snowden who wanted to unmask some other clandestine program that they didn't agree with or viewed as immoral.

Not for the current administration, apparently.

"...Ms. Newbold also asserted that the Trump administration had made changes to security protocols that made it easier for individuals to get clearances. The changes included stopping credit checks on applicants to work in the White House, which she said helps identify if employees of the president could be susceptible to blackmail."[0]

[0]: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/01/us/politics/trump-securit...

Not sure why the parent comment is being downvoted —- the allegations against the current administration for bypassing the financial and credit checks for high-level security clearances are very relevant to the discussion.

The whistleblower, an 18-year civil servant, allegedly received retribution from superiors for speaking out against the abuse, which puts our national security at risk by inviting foreign powers to leverage government officials.

These are exceptions made for a very small hand-selected group of Trump's cronies working in the White House. It doesn't really have much to do with the procedures in place for normal clearances, and they didn't change the regulations, they just granted e.g. his kids a waiver. I don't approve of it, but don't extrapolate it to a policy change.

Interesting, thanks.

Regarding the last point, I might add that I would expect any denial that is really based on political ideology to be offically due to anything but.

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