By Tahreem Jan
Most TS/SCI clearance disqualifiers are not disqualifiers. Three statutory bars reach SCI access, one bars any clearance, and the rest carry mitigations. The thirteen adjudicative guidelines are security concerns with mitigating conditions, not disqualifiers. Four statutory bars are absolute, and three of them reach only SCI, SAP and Restricted Data access. Search for TS/SCI clearance disqualifiers and you expect a list. One exists, and it holds four items. Everything else people call a disqualifier is a security concern with mitigating conditions printed beside it. The four hard bars come from one statute, the Bond Amendment at 50 U.S.C. 3343. Three of them reach only access to sensitive compartmented information, special access programs and Restricted Data. The fourth reaches any clearance at all, and it carries no waiver. The thirteen adjudicative guidelines that fill most articles on this subject work differently, and that difference decides cases. Thirteen Guidelines, Not Disqualifiers Security Executive Agent Directive 4 (https://www.energy.gov/oha/articles/personnel-security-adjudicative-guidelines) sets the criteria. It took effect on 8 June 2017, and its guidelines "supersede all previously issued national security adjudicative criteria or guidelines". Every executive branch agency applies it to a final eligibility determination. The directive lists thirteen: - A, allegiance to the United States. B, foreign influence. C, foreign preference. - D, sexual behavior. E, personal conduct. F, financial considerations. - G, alcohol consumption. H, drug involvement and substance misuse. I, psychological conditions. - J, criminal conduct. K, handling protected information. L, outside activities. M, use of information technology. Open any one of them and the same structure repeats. The directive prints conditions that "may be disqualifying", then conditions "that could mitigate security concerns". Defense Office of Hearings and Appeals judges say it plainly in their published decisions: these guidelines "are not inflexible rules of law". SEAD 4 calls that weighing the whole-person concept. Its nine factors include the frequency and recency of the conduct, your age at the time, and the likelihood of recurrence. One warning sits inside that flexibility. A single criterion "may be sufficient to make an unfavorable eligibility determination even in the absence of a recent occurrence or a recurring pattern". Mitigation is available. Nobody promises it works. The Real TS/SCI Clearance Disqualifiers The statute (https://uscode.house.gov/us/usc/119-142/t50/s3343/) runs barely a page. Subsection (b) stops an agency head granting or renewing a clearance for an unlawful user of a controlled substance or an addict. Appendix B of SEAD 4 adds the line that matters: "A meritorious waiver may not be authorized with reference t
The thirteen adjudicative guidelines are security concerns with mitigating conditions, not disqualifiers. Four statutory bars are absolute, and three of them reach only SCI, SAP and Restricted Data access.
Search for TS/SCI clearance disqualifiers and you expect a list. One exists, and it holds four items. Everything else people call a disqualifier is a security concern with mitigating conditions printed beside it. The four hard bars come from one statute, the Bond Amendment at 50 U.S.C. 3343. Three of them reach only access to sensitive compartmented information, special access programs and Restricted Data. The fourth reaches any clearance at all, and it carries no waiver. The thirteen adjudicative guidelines that fill most articles on this subject work differently, and that difference decides cases. Thirteen Guidelines, Not Disqualifiers Security Executive Agent Directive 4 (https://www.energy.gov/oha/articles/personnel-security-adjudicative-guidelines) sets the criteria. It took effect on 8 June 2017, and its guidelines "supersede all previously issued national security adjudicative criteria or guidelines". Every executive branch agency applies it to a final eligibility determination. The directive lists thirteen: - A, allegiance to the United States. B, foreign influence. C, foreign preference. - D, sexual behavior. E, personal conduct. F, financial considerations. - G, alcohol consumption. H, drug involvement and substance misuse. I, psychological conditions. - J, criminal conduct. K, handling protected information. L, outside activities. M, use of information technology. Open any one of them and the same structure repeats. The directive prints conditions that "may be disqualifying", then conditions "that could mitigate security concerns". Defense Office of Hearings and Appeals judges say it plainly in their published decisions: these guidelines "are not inflexible rules of law". SEAD 4 calls that weighing the whole-person concept. Its nine factors include the frequency and recency of the conduct, your age at the time, and the likelihood of recurrence. One warning sits inside that flexibility. A single criterion "may be sufficient to make an unfavorable eligibility determination even in the absence of a recent occurrence or a recurring pattern". Mitigation is available. Nobody promises it works. The Real TS/SCI Clearance Disqualifiers The statute (https://uscode.house.gov/us/usc/119-142/t50/s3343/) runs barely a page. Subsection (b) stops an agency head granting or renewing a clearance for an unlawful user of a controlled substance or an addict. Appendix B of SEAD 4 adds the line that matters: "A meritorious waiver may not be authorized with reference t
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