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This is surprising because it's the exact wrong thing to do. Past drug use will not disqualify you from a clearance, but lying absolutely will. Depending on the
by matwood 4y ago
This is surprising because it's the exact wrong thing to do. Past drug use will not disqualify you from a clearance, but lying absolutely will. Depending on the clearance level they will interview a number of people, including second degree connections. I know someone who used to be an investigator, and it surprised me when they told me how often first degree connections would say bad things about their 'friend'.
- notafraudster 4y agoYeah. My father didn't do secure work, but he was an immigrant to the country where I was born. As part of the immigration process, he was asked whether he had ever been arrested (maybe it was charged, I don't recall and he's long gone so I can't ask). He said "no". In fact, he had been arrested as a pre-teen for stealing an idling tractor and joyriding in rural post-war England. Immigration authorities don't care that a teen went for a joyride on a tractor. They care that he lied. Took a bunch of lawyering and paperwork to resolve the issue. I guess fundamentally the distinction is "if they can catch you, tell the truth, and if they can't, make yourself look good", but I guess it can be hard to know.
- walrus01 4y agoOn the other hand, you can answer this too truthfully and just screw yourself up for no reason. Example: I know Afghan former translators/employees for ISAF projects who have been arrested by Pakistani "authorities", local police in various cities just for the purpose of shaking them down for bribes/money. I can guarantee you that no record of any such arrest exists in paper or electronic form anywhere in a database that can be queried in Pakistan, even if US immigration authorities had a way to get cooperation from Pakistani federal police authorities without involving very high-level diplomatic contacts. Answering truthfully on a question like that will just fuck up your own case. Is it still being legitimately arrested if you've been detained unlawfully for a shakedown by corrupt police? The same happens in many developing nations. It's actually more like being kidnapped. Some of the process of using other data sources to verify that what a person has said is truthful/factually accurate only works if you're dealing with people coming from places with non-corrupted legitimate record keeping and bureaucratic processes.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- cardiffspaceman 4y agoBut what if you said you were kidnapped by people in police uniforms and forced to pay a ransom?
- walrus01 4y ago'have you ever been kidnapped' is a different question than 'have you ever been arrested', I suppose.
- cardiffspaceman 4y agoSo in context, they ask if you've been arrested, you say no. But this is because you characterize an incident as unlawful, while others characterize it as a lawful arrest.
- stephen_g 4y agoSurely the answer for the example is "I was falsely arrested because I refused to pay a bribe". Since paying bribes is illegal in most countries, that shouldn't be an issue and you can't be accused of concealing it if it came up later.
- drdaeman 4y agoI don't think any consular officer would hold it against someone if they truthfully tell "yes, I've been arrested", even if the documentation doesn't confirm it. During an interview they would most likely ask about the circumstances (whenever they know no record of it exists or not), and telling them "I was arrested for [cite the reason if there was any or say "an unexplained reason"], they openly told me they wanted my money, but still it is being detained by some formal authorities (or someone pretending to be such) so I had to answer truthfully" is very unlikely to be a problem. They'd tell the truth, and it's not like they did something wrong. I mean, immigration is extremely stressful process (been there, done that, currently repeating for my spouse), consular staff are demigods who literally rule over people lives, and people have a lot of superstitions, but I highly doubt it's going to be an issue. I had a late passport renewal, which is considered an administrative infraction where I've lived. I have no idea how this translates to "have you been arrested or convicted of any offense or crime" on DS-260, so ticked the box just in case. Naturally, I was asked about it - I've explained that I don't know if this counts but that's what happened, and that I'd rather mistakenly mention this than fail to disclose. And everything went perfectly fine.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- Symmetry 4y agoThat's been my impression with myself and several friends going through the process. The defense establishment is looking for honest people without drug abuse problems, not people who've never tried a joint. But I understand the opposite is true when applying for a job in law enforcement.
- robcohen 4y agoPolice typically have a 5 year period they want for zero drug involvement. The military is more dependent on the position and clearance level, but the max limit numbers are arbitrarily set. They set the numbers high enough to make recruiting possible, but it isn’t based off of any science.
- Symmetry 4y agoI meant that lying was more acceptable on police applications because police, in the course of their duties, often have to lie whether its telling a suspect that you have proof of their guilt and they just need to confess or using boilerplate language like "there was a strong smell of marijuana" to justify a search in the paperwork whether you smelled anything or not.
- leoqa 4y agoThis is absolutely not the case. Law enforcement background checks are more intense than clearance, and drug use policies are very black-white. The general principle is that you must be unimpeachable such that your testimony is valid in court.
- throwaway2016a 4y agoA friend of mine has the same experience. They answered yes to the marijuana question and still got clearance. Another friend lied and said no (this was for a college internship so I knew a couple people working there) and got rejected once their story didn't check out with their personal references.
- sybercecurity 4y agoThe interview/form is looking for potential blackmail or tendency to lie or obscure facts. If you are honest, that's fine, although they sometimes ask that you are currently using as well and that is a strike against you.
- evouga 4y agoI was talking to an NSA recruiter last year, though, and they told me they routinely report applicants to the FBI for confessing to crimes during a polygraph. So damned if you do, damned if you don’t… (For a recruiter he did an uncanny job at convincing me never to work for the NSA)
- gateorade 4y agoI mean, that might be true if someone confesses to heinous/violent crimes (and shouldn't they?) but its definitely not true for things like minor drug use/sale etc.
- CrazyPyroLinux 4y agoSee also https://antipolygraph.org/ https://antipolygraph.org/
- euroderf 4y agoBut if the crimes that you confess to are skilled hacking crimes and the NSA hires you anyways, then the FBI never finds out ? Thus making the NSA judge & jury.
- TigeriusKirk 4y agoRight after high school a friend of mine went into the military and needed a clearance for his assigned job on a nuclear missile submarine. Investigators came around and asked his friends back home about him, we all lied a little in his favor. I remember explicitly thinking at the time "Of course people's friends are going to lie a little for them. What's the point in asking these questions?" Then I realized the real red flag would be if you weren't stable enough to have friends who would help you out a bit.
- KMag 4y agoYea, sounds like terrible advice. I tried pot a couple of times in college, honestly really disliked what it did to my memory, and disclosed it on my EPSQ 2.2 clearance paperwork. I had absolutely no problems. The background check folks never even asked me about it. The main reasons people betray their country are MICE (Money, Ideology, Coercion, Ego). Drugs might be expensive (money), might themselves be a secret you hold (coercion/blackmail) or might cause you to do dumb blackmailable things (e.g. fall into a honey trap). So, that's what background check folks are looking for w.r.t. drugs. Hiding drug use makes it look like maybe it could be used to blackmail you, and suggests that maybe you're hiding other things. Also, they're looking for people who follow the rules, won't bring classified material home, won't try to impress people by revealing classified info, etc.
- walrus01 4y agoThe "MICE" model of understanding behavior like Robert Hanssen, etc has also been extended to RASCLS: http://dustinkmacdonald.com/recruiting-intelligence-assets-with-rascls/ http://dustinkmacdonald.com/recruiting-intelligence-assets-w... https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=RASCLS+intelligence+asset https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=RASCLS+in...
- Aeolun 4y agoIf two US presidents in a row (and probably more) can bring classified information home, who are they to request me not to?
- godelski 4y agoI'd be careful, a friend of mine answered yes (and doesn't smoke anymore/at the time of the question) and got denied a clearance for it. But we can also see others who are suggesting interviewers are pressuring them into a "no" answer, which I had some personal experience with. But it seems different people are having different experiences. I understand why people lie though. I always found this odd too because I agree with the sentiment that you're expressing. It's always been told to me that the reason they don't want people with a history of drug usage (different from current usage) is that it can be used as blackmail against them. But the explanation of blackmail is that it can get them fired, from a job where the only reason that happens is because you lied on your clearance. Wouldn't they want no skeletons in the closet?
- JenrHywy 4y agoAFAIK they never tell you why you fail. It's quite possible/likely that your friend failed for another reason.
- DoctorOetker 4y agoI would also expect lying to be a bigger red flag compared to past drug use, and while it seems these stories invalidate such an idea, I believe they actually validate it: these are stories of people who did get security clearance and they were honest, the ripping up part is more like a symbolic gesture from the system "let's both pretend none of that happened". These stories don't mean the person would have past when immediately denying the past offense... While growing up, and during my studies I had often considered job roles where security clearances would presumably be required, but I decided to stay away from that world for multiple reasons: 1. when a sector is heavily propagandized / advertised in media (books, films, ...) then usually it's to attract more talent who wouldn't spontaneously apply. lots of people get disillusioned in armies etc around the world, which is why the experience is artificially inflated in movies etc... 2. I understand that in some situations people in certain job roles need to sacrifice some of their personal freedoms in order to protect the freedoms of the population at large, think for example freedom of expression vs secrecy, and the need of secrecy say among the Polish, French, British, ... in the context of the cracking of the Enigma coding system. To join and apply for security clearance entails signing away certain rights and freedoms. The mere thought that the only way to find out if that's a good decision or not is by taking that decision for life is nauseating to me. Even if I were to become an employee and the practical experience would be that the organization and the individual that signed up agree on the need for secrecy 99% of the time (which sounds very optimistic), I would balk at that 1% or more of the time where I disagree, where I might be convinced the secrecy is creating more problems than solutions. That thought seems unbearable to me, so I'd rather have no security clearance at all and feel ... free.
- berniedurfee 4y agoThat's my understanding as well. Lying on a clearance application is far worse than admitting to many criminal acts. The thought is that someone could blackmail you into revealing secrets by threatening to expose your lie, thus causing you to losing your clearance, job or worse.
- dragonwriter 4y ago> Lying on a clearance application is far worse than admitting to many criminal acts. For one thing, admitting to past criminal acts doesn’t add a new criminal act with the statute of limitations clock at 0, whereas lying in any official government process, like a security clearance application, does.
- sailfast 4y agoThis is the right answer. Drug use (outside the past 12 months) should not rule you out for clearances.