Crossing the line

[Fenito]

For those wondering....if you have or are applying for a job requiring a TS clearance, that current process is taking from 1yr to 1 1/2 yrs. I'm re-enlisting in the army and the position I want is requiring my clearance to go from a secret to TS and i was told I should be prepared to wait. A secret clearance can take as little as 30 days depending on cleanliness of record and information provided on SF86. As far as crossing the line goes, there's a big gray area. If it was malicious and harmful, then that would be crossing the line. But there are some lower level things that would probably be looked over. The main thing is honesty. If you're willing to be open about what you have done then there may be some leave-way. I mean cmon.....they can't expect you to just read stuff and not experiment.....you do gotta prove yourself....right?

[audit]

It all depends on where your interviewing at, I was told last year that mine would be done in 6 months. I ended up taking another job and letting them know that I would not be following up with them because of the new job. I still get e-mails and calls from the agency that I was interviewing with asking me if I'm interested in coming in and working with them.

The kicker is, I've wanted to work for that agency for as long back as I can remember and I have family members that work there also, 10 years ago it wouldn't have been a problem but now with a wife and 2 kids, it was too much of a gamble to move my family over to another state when it came down to it.

[Alt3R3g0]

Did anyone happen to get the names of any of the Feds on the panel? Assuming they actually used their real names, I was interested in who the representatives from the feeble eye and NSA were .... hypothetically speaking of course ;-)

Alt3R3g0
........................................
No FSCK You!

[murakami]

Hmm...my SF-86 required more than 10 years worth of previous addresses. Maybe that has changed (this was 1998).

I'm always interested in anyone else's experience with the polygraph. It really is the unfair part of the background check, and please believe me when I say that you can have a spit-shine clean record and be a goodie-two-shoes and still fail that test continually. I have an old friend in the FBI who says applicants can continually test Inconclusive and are usually re-invited to test until they pass (to a reasonable extent). According to him, the TLAs are far more interested (currently) in keeping BAD people out, even at the expense of not letting GOOD people in. I guess in that respect the graph is a useful tool (its true positive rate is 90%+ for someone who is being deceptive).

Did you take the pledge of allegiance poly or the lifestyle poly?