Classified Information on Your Security Clearance Application?

Welcome back. This is Sean Bigley and Lindy Kyzer of ClearanceJobs.com. We’re talking with this segment about Lindy, what I think is a pretty interesting but very rarely discussed topic, which is how to deal with classified information on the SF 86 or in your background investigation interview. And this is something that I have seen come up from time to time in my law practice or saw come up from time to time in my law practice over the 10 years that I represented security clearance holders and applicants. And the way that I would see it come up was typically one of a couple contexts. One, somebody who had foreign contacts who classified in some respect. For example, they had been working as some sort of intelligence community operative, and they had developed foreign contacts with people who were working in foreign governments or things like that.

(01:31)
The fact that they had those contacts and the fact that those people were maybe foreign government assets, it was something that in and of itself was classified. And so I would get questions sometimes from people like, well, how do I deal with this? Because the SF 86 explicitly asks about foreign contacts. It explicitly asks about foreign government contacts. So I don’t want to lie, but what’s the solution? How do I thread that needle? Especially if I’m submitting this form to a different federal agency. Maybe I used to work for agency A, now I work for agency B, or I’m in cleared industry and I used to have these contacts that were developed as a result of official business with the former agency. What do I do? And then the second context that I would sometimes see this come up in, and this was a little rarer.

(02:21)
The applicant themself was working or previously working in some sort of a undercover capacity or as a confidential informant of some sort. And so they would say, well, look, am I allowed to say on my SF 86 that I was working for the government during this time period? Am I allowed to say that I was being paid for these services by the federal government? What’s the solution here? So I would imagine, and correct me if I’m wrong, I would imagine that this is not something that typically comes up on clearance jobs because I’m assuming that people who were operating in these contexts are not likely to be posting about it, but have you ever seen this come up? No.

Those secret squirrels are not trusting an internet forum with any of their information. No. It’s funny, when you first talked about this, I was like, man, some people just can’t get over themselves. We do get some folks who ask that if they’re asking me 99.9% of the time, I’m like, you are way overselling your job with the government that none of that sounds classified. Answer the form. Honestly, you don’t need to share classified information. Nobody’s asking for the SAT programs that you worked on as your bonafides. And I talked about this in the job search process too, where you can list your clearance level on a resume, but there is never any reason to list classified information on your resume. I mean, we get that question come in like, well, how do people can read between the lines in this industry? Trust me if they know the agency you worked for baseline information, you do not have to share anything classified.

(03:52)
People can figure it out. I always say share less, but the interesting one that you bring about is the foreign contacts one, because I actually did not think of that one when this topic came up. And I do think there’s a lot of folks who just assume that if it’s a contact that you made in the course of official duties, the government’s not expecting you to list that on the form. This is also probably the reason why the IC gets super skittish about the crossover, the clearance crossover between the IC and DOD. We do have this system now where if you’re an IC security clearance person, that information is contained and held in Scattered Castles. And the reciprocity piece of it is always like  -DoD is very content just to send your SF-86 over to the IC, no issues. IC on the other hand, gets a little squirmy about sending what’s in Scattered Castles and communicating that back over to the DoD system. And this exact example is probably why that is the case and why that reciprocity piece, you’re going to probably have a lot of. You have basically two security clearance application processes because there is some more sensitive information the IC does not want out and into a DOD system.

You raised a couple of interesting points here. The first one being my top line recommendation to all of my clients was always, well, let’s start by reading the questions carefully. What are they actually asking? And it was amazing to me how many times people would go, oh, I guess I didn’t read carefully enough. And you’re right. In many contexts, travel for example, or foreign contacts that are made within and solely within the scope of official government business are not reportable and they have never been. But in many cases there is also bleed over and you get convoluted situations where someone says, Hey, I initially met this person as a result of official government business, but I was stationed in Country X and then we became friends and we would go out to dinner or we had a romantic relationship that the agency didn’t know about. What do I do about that?

(05:45)
A lot of scenarios that would come up in these contexts, but they could be disposed with simply by saying, Hey, read the question more carefully. And so that’s piece of advice number one. It may sound really, but it’s amazing how some of these questions don’t get adequately parsed out. To your other point, this issue of people self-inflating their importance to the US government, I mean, yes, you are 100% right. The vast majority of people who ask this question are not and have not been working in a classified position. And I always used to say to people, look, if you were working undercover, it’s not a mystery. It’s not a surprise if you are asking the question. The answer is no, you weren’t. There are also people who legitimately had these questions come up and we would have to say to them, look, you need to do one of two things, either A, you need to go ask agency A that you used to work for how they want you to handle this, and you need to have a paper trail to back it up, or you need to put a notation on the form that says something along the lines of, I’m answering this question, no.

(06:56)
However, I have additional information of a classified nature that is relevant to this question that I can disclose in the appropriate setting. Something along those lines to kind of establish a clear paper trail one way or the other that you didn’t just decide subjectively that I’m not going to disclose this information and the government’s not going to care. Well, they might care and there might be a reason why they want to know about it. As I said earlier, you were on official business and you were having these contacts as a result of official business, but you also were having an affair or you also were hanging out as friends and the government didn’t know about that. And so I don’t want to freak anybody out here because 95% of the time this is a non-issue. And in fact, ironically, there were some rare situations that I would see where this stuff could actually be very helpful.

(07:55)
Every once in a while I would stumble across a case where somebody was concerned or the government was concerned that they had some sort of foreign influence issue or they had some sort of allegiance issue based on something that they were previously involved with overtly or something that they had lived overseas or something along those lines. And they would say, well, I was doing that because I was being directed to do that by my FBI handler or my whatever. And so then we would say, well, okay, that’s relevant. Why don’t we bring that to the agency’s attention in a discreet way and then that would sort of solve the problem. So in the big picture, this is something that obviously impacts a very small group of people, but if it is something that is relevant to your situation, just be aware that this is not something that lends itself to asking for forgiveness. You don’t want to sort of wing and just answer the question and move on. At minimum, you need to have some sort of a paper trail from the security office at the agency that’s relevant here, instructing you on how they want you to answer the question or putting down some sort of clear record, some marker on the SF 86 itself saying, just to be clear, there’s relevant information here. It’s classified. Tell me how I bring this to your attention, and then that’s how it’s dealt with.

Yeah, I think you had two points that are really good using the additional comments piece of it. I never cease to be amazed. Folks who have these very paranoid questions and then don’t seem to understand that they can always provide some, I mean very small, but some clarification in that to say, Hey, I do have additional information I would love to provide during a personnel subject interview. And the other piece of it’s knowing background investigators are cleared for a reason, and I think knowing and verifying that is a good information though, too. So I think nothing would send a red flag further than getting your background investigator one-on-one at a Starbucks and starting to unleash a lot of classified information to them. So, I think that just be wary of that, but then also know, hey, if you do have some sensitive information to disclose, I was recently talking to somebody in government about this, and I think sometimes applicants fear the process so much that they fail to ask for accommodation that’s necessary.

(10:15)
I’m coming across this now, like the PAC PMO is program management office is doing a ton of stuff to talk about candidate engagement and actually improving the candidate process for this, the equity/inclusion piece of it. What I find is sometimes you might have things that you don’t want to talk about one-on-one with a background investigator, or if you’re a female applicant and you have some issues that you would prefer to talk about with a female background investigator. I was recently told that you can request that – most applicants don’t know that that’s possible. Before I say this out loud, I should verify that with the government that they actually mean that, because sometimes they tell me something and then I find out, well, so-and-so said that they couldn’t do it. But I think being proactive and saying like, Hey, I should be able to ask things in the process and ask a background investigator.

(11:00)
I think that’s something that if you have a very sensitive case or you have some crazy wonkiness around that, getting some clarification and making sure that you’re having the right conversation with the right background investigator is good. And if it turns out you happen to be crazy and you don’t need that conversation, then the government wants to know that too, if that makes sense. If you’re like, Hey, I’ve got a lot of classified information to share, then that seems to help all parties. If you just disclose that upfront and then the investigator can get you in a classified facility and find out that’s not true, then net positive. I don’t know.

Yeah. The big irony here, and this always used to make me chuckle, is in many cases, the people who would call my office claiming that they were undercover or something, they were totally just nuts, and they had no reason to be applying for a security clearance. They weren’t being sponsored for anything, but the aliens were coming and they weren’t going to save us all. And so hopefully that’s not the majority of people. Those are the rare cases

Those are just the fun ones to talk about.

Yes, yes. But in all seriousness, I mean, I do think the bigger picture issue here, and the takeaway hopefully for folks is don’t make assumptions ask. And that is the thing I think that really would keep a lot of people out of trouble. A lot of folks that used to call my office who could have avoided frankly the problems that they’re dealing with because of making assumptions. If they had just asked, and when I say ask, I mean obviously you have to ask somebody who is authorized and empowered to sort of give a credible answer, but that being your security officer or manager or something like that. But you need to do it in writing rather get a paper trail. I would occasionally encounter people who said, well, I did ask, so-and-so, but then conveniently they have a different recollection of the conversation. So if it’s something of a really serious nature, like I’m concerned that my resume might have some classified information on it before I send this to anyone, can you look at it and confirm employer that this is legit to send out? You want a paper trail of that and a paper trail of them saying, yes, our security office has reviewed your resume and we’re comfortable that there’s nothing classified on it so that if someone has a different opinion later down the road, you’re inoculating yourself. And the same goes for the SF 86. The same goes for LinkedIn profiles and all that sort of stuff. So I think ultimately a lot of these things are avoidable by just asking the right person and getting a paper trail to back it up.