Comment by strictnein | Hacker News Reader

Comment by strictnein | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

Had an interview with them about three months after I applied. Well, had a phone interview with them at least. It lasted about three questions because, unfortunately, I had smoked pot in the last year (the one time I had done it in my life actually).

I'm actually not sure if I should have failed it after the second question, which was whether or not I work closely with any foreign nationals. Doesn't everyone in the tech sector? I work closely with a Romanian, a Filipino, and a guy from Sierra Leone. They may all be US citizens now, but i have no idea, so I said "no", after trying to get some guidance from the interviewer (she offered none).

Strangely, after my failed three question phone interview I still got an in person interview request and it took two calls to straighten that out.

If I lived in the Denver or DC area, I'd probably apply again in six months or so (once my one year has lapsed), but I just don't think it's worth moving across the country for a job there.

The pot question won't immediately disqualify you -- you'd just have to sign a waiver saying your employment means you're not allowed to use illegal substances. They'd also ask you and confirm this in the lifestyle polygraph.

The foreign nationals question is a matter of seeing how deep your clearance process is going to go. If you're in Kansas and the only people you know are from Kansas and all of your Facebook friends live in Kansas, it's going to make it easy for the FBI agents (who conduct the clearance work) to do the required interviews. If you start listing foreign national contacts, each one of them has to be investigated individually (the ones who are close relatives), and that's a lot of work. It's basically easier to fail someone on that and hire the person in Kansas.

Can't speak for NSA, but CIA bans all illegal substances in the last 365 days. That may have changed in the past 10 years though. If you have any history of substances, you'll have to do the waiver.

That is the standard for DOD clearances in general. No illegal substance use in the past year, and any at all needs to be adjudicated (to use their terminology).

Strange, because the phone interviewer told me that I was ineligible because of the drug usage and ended the call.

Interesting point about the foreign nationals. Good to know it's not an immediate disqualifier.

Generally, for something like pot, agencies are going to want a year of abstinence before they'll talk to you. Likely, it'll come up in your clearance interviews and you may have to sign a piece of paper stating that you won't do it again. For longer term drug use or other drugs, the agencies may funny about it. If you're curious the Adjudicative Desk Reference (ADR) gives some guidelines on how the process works:

http://www.dhra.mil/perserec/adr/ADR_Version_4.pdf

As far as foreign national contact, most of the time, the feds just defer to the wording on standard form 86 (SF-86):

http://www.opm.gov/Forms/pdf_fill/sf86.pdf

It's long, but gives a pretty clear indication on the kinds of questions asked. Basically, they're looking for foreign contacts for which you've had "close and/or continuing contact" whose nature falls under 4 categories

1. Affection 2. Obligation 3. Influence 4. Common interest

If I recall correctly, that fourth one was added about five years ago. Anyway, check page 59 in the link.

You failed the interview for not pulling a James Clapper and lying.

Surely, to investigate foreign nationals, they just put their details into XKeyscore and...

> FBI agents (who conduct the clearance work)

Nitpick (since I just noticed it): general clearance investigations are handled by the Office of Personnel Management; special clearance investigations are handled directly by the program or agency granting the special clearance.

Is asking such questions (smoking pot, questions about your social life) in a job interview legal in the US? From what I know, this would be illegal in most European countries.

Yes, it's totally legal, depending on the state you live in (I think there are regulations in, e.g. California, about some questions).

There is no compulsion to answer, however.

> There is no compulsion to answer, however.

With the understanding that there's also no compulsion for them to hire you if you don't answer.

For national security positions; absolutely. Those questions are due to the potential for coercion as well as character determination. As far as Europe, MI6 definitely asks those questions. Not sure about DGSE in France though. If you answer in a way that's "negative" that doesn't hurt you as much as lying. If everyone knows about your transgressions, there is less leverage for cohesion by a foreign agency. But if you're keeping a secret, that's exceptional leverage that can be used to blackmail you into betraying secrets.

You hit on a great point. The possibility to be coerced is pretty much the single biggest part of the entire security investigation. It includes being coerced because:

-Financial debt, so all of your finances are inspected

-Family connections, so all of your family is investigated

-Marital affairs, so you're asked about it during the poly

-Pirating software, again asked about it on the poly

...and all sorts of other things. The big thing you hit on is that this isn't very painful unless you try to hide it. If you try to hide something and it comes out in the investigation, you'll almost certainly be disqualified.

One thing I learned in the briefings I saw after getting my clearance was that the single biggest motivator for betrayal was a thrill-seeking narcissistic personality, followed closely by political agendas. Financial (including bribery/blackmail) and romantic blackmail concerns were so tenuously correlated as to be laughable to suggest they are meaningful as a potential exploitation.

Also, polygraphs are pseudoscientific nonsense.

The coercion justification is really bizarre though. The only reason anyone could coerce you because they know you smoke pot is because it's a big deal to the NSA, so the NSA asks because they know that because of their self-imposed policy it creates the possibility for coercion.

If instead they just decided that if they found out one of their employees smoked pot that they wouldn't care the coercion potential would magically disappear overnight.

But I guess that's too logical for the government to consider.

The only reason that "smoking pot" has potential for coercion is that the US government makes such a doggone huge stink about it. Homosexuality and mental health issues lie in the same category - if they didn't make a stink about it, being gay or whatever wouldn't be an issue, and nobody would be able to coerce anyone about it.

The NSA, at least, is not without imagination. They will have perceived the issue with making a stink about X causes X to be a handle for coercion. Therefore, the NSA wants pot smoking to be in issue they can disqualify people with, they want other arbitrary categories of actions to be disqualification issues. Why? My guess is control: mental health issues and sexual behavior outside of vanilla are pretty darn common. Finding such problems gives the NSA itself a handle on their own people, to coerce things from them.

And as far as "character" goes, haven't we heard enough about that in the past few years to realize that "good character" is just another form of racism/elitism, like "good breeding" or a "gentleman's C" grade at an Ivy League school?

Or it could be that a cocaine addiction is a huge avenue for coercion, and pot is still grouped into the same schedule as cocaine etc.

At least in Sweden you can in principle ask any question you want, but you open yourself up to lawsuits if the person being interviewed feels they didn't get the job due to their answer (or refusal to answer) any question about family/politics/religion/sexuality etc. etc.

Varies by state and a lot is illegal (age, race, marital status), but in this specific case they're talking about clearance questions which are different (getting a secret/top secret clearance). For these questions basically anything goes.

In EU, are they prohibited from asking even if it's a matter of national security?

It differs from country to country.

In Germany you can only ask about drug use if the people will work with heavy machinery. No questions about race, gender, kids, or age are allowed and can be used to file a lawsuit if asked.

The federal police and intelligence agencies will also background check your friends and family. That being said, amongst German IT professionals people working for the government have the image of being a bit slow and only there for the job security. The best graduates certainly don't go there, and because patriotism/nationalism is very low the agencies cannot even advertise with "Do it for your country, if not for the money".

I think it's funny that anyone anywhere thinks that whether you smoked pot in the last year is "a matter of national security".

Well, sure. In itself. But in terms of a security clearance, a use of drugs means you might be susceptible to bribery/ extortion/ blackmail over such use (or someone might helpfully keep you supplied in exchange for information).

I don't see how this is any more likely than a teetotaler taking cash bribes for information.

It's an illegal substance; it must be bought from illegal merchants; engaging in black market commerce exposes one to the risk of blackmail, coercion &c.

It'd be weird if it weren't disqualifying.

(I think it ought to be 100% legal, but until it is, users are too great a risk)

It is very routine to require job applicants to go pee in a cup.

> Is asking such questions (smoking pot, questions about your social life) in a job interview legal in the US?

I suppose you can ask any question you like in a job interview.

It isn't that certain questions are illegal; it's that there are certain bases on which employers may not discriminate - so called protected classes of individuals[1]. If you ask someone a question about whether they are married or pregnant, you might create the perception that you are discriminating on those bases. Not delving into those areas in interviews is merely a prudent HR policy to avoid the appearance of impropriety; actually discriminating on those grounds, however, is illegal.

Job interviews are not the same as security clearance checks (which some govt/govt contractor jobs require). I don't know what if anything is "out of bounds" in the context of those...

[1]: http://www.eeoc.gov/laws/types/index.cfm

EDIT: For a bit more information on the types of questions you might run into during a clearance check, here's a PDF of the form you fill out, SF86[2]. I don't know how closely they hew to this in the in-person interviews but I've heard anecdotally that the investigators primarily clarify and confirm responses you gave on the clearance form. Note that it is 127 pages long. The first 60 or so pages are basic information about you, your relatives, your marital status, people who know you well, education, personal military history and employment. Here are some of the more interesting sections along with the page number they start on:

- Foreign Contacts (p62)

- Foreign Activities (p66)

- Foreign Business, Professional Activities, and Foreign Government Contacts (p75)

- Foreign Travel (p83)

- Psychological and Emotional Health (p87)

- Police Record (p89)

- Illegal Use of Drugs and Drug Activity (p96)

- Use of Alcohol (p103)

- Financial Record (p109)

- Use of Information Technology Systems (p116)

- Association Record (p119) features the question: "Are you now or have you EVER been a member of an organization dedicated to terrorism, either with an awareness of the organization's dedication to that end, or which the specific intent to further such activities?" along with a form which you can helpfully use to provide the name and street address of the organization as well as any contributions you made:

[2]: http://www.opm.gov/Forms/pdf_fill/SF86.pdf

> Are you now or have you EVER been a member of an organization dedicated to terrorism, either with an awareness of the organization's dedication to that end, or which the specific intent to further such activities?

At a guess that question is only there so you can be prosecuted if the answer you give is in contradiction to what is already known about you. I highly doubt they actually expect to find anything new like this.

As a technicality, they're not asking it as part of the job interview itself, they're asking it as part of either a security clearance, or a "pre" security clearance to see if they should even bother.

Regarding the pot question, they came to my college and gave a group interview and someone asked the pot question and they told a story about a girl who had applied and passed, but they found pot in the last year, even though she passed the polygraph. They figured out she was sauced at a party and smoked, and were unable to let her in. Granted this was 10 years ago, so something might have changed.

Why do you want to work for the NSA?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com