Chances are good that only a close acquaintance or family member, perhaps two, know how you handle your money, what you go to the doctor for, and what landed you in jail for a night when you were 18. Perhaps you prefer not to share personal information with strangers, but you want a job with the U.S. government or a government contractor that requires access to classified information.
Soon you’ve embarked on a journey designed to determine if there is reason to believe you can be trusted with sensitive information that —if put into the wrong hands — could threaten national security. The journey could take a year or more, or a couple of months. It all depends on the workload of the government’s investigators and adjudicators, what they find when they delve into your past and present, and what kind of information you’ll ultimately need to access on the job.
“It’s sort of an unusual process, particularly the first time you are going through it,” but many people approach it with needless apprehension, said Larry Den, senior vice president of information technology at Vredenburg in Reston, Va. Vredenburg’s 300 employees support agencies such as the CIA, FBI, National Security Agency and Navy. More than 70 percent are cleared to at least the secret level.
“People think the security clearance is a lot more than it is,” he said. “It is just making sure there are not things that could force you to compromise yourself and that you handle yourself in a responsible manner. [The investigators] want you to succeed.”
Because the demand for cleared people is so great, employers routinely apply for clearances for new employees. The companies’ work must continue as they wait for the clearances to come through, however, so employers also try to lure cleared workers away from competitors with the best compensation packages and most interesting work they can offer.
“It can easily take a year to go from zero to a top secret,” Den said. “I don’t often have that luxury ... it’s worth paying a premium to ensure that [cleared] person stays in place.”
Despite ongoing efforts to improve the clearance process, applicants are unlikely to see a dramatic drop in the time it takes — six to 18 months on average — because caseloads are growing in response to the war in Afghanistan and the domestic war on terrorism, federal agency officials said.
“The proliferation of IT is going to be one driver ... and all of the military actions going on in the Middle East will drive our immediate requirements up. We know that it is going to get busier because the services have told us their needs are increasing,” said Tom Thompson, director of the Defense Security Service personnel security investigations program. The Alexandria, Va., Defense Department agency conducts investigations for the military services and military contractors. DSS expects its 1,100 investigative agents and other personnel to handle about 600,000 applications in fiscal 2003, Thompson said.
The Office of Personnel Management, which conducts investigations for some civilian agencies, has new work conducting investigations on air marshal candidates. It will also help the Federal Aviation Administration and Transportation Security Agency get 30,000 airport security screeners in place by Nov. 15, said Richard Ferris, former associate director of OPM’s investigations service and now director of its office of human resources and equal employment opportunity. The agency will conduct up to 1.7 million clearance investigations this year, Ferris said.
