I generally encourage clearance holders to develop a positive working relationship with their employer’s security office. Security managers are an underused resource for helping clearance holders avoid problems handling classified or other protected information; and if your security manager sees you making the effort to be proactive about compliance, that can help minimize fallout in the event of an inadvertent slip-up.
But proactivity isn’t a panacea for avoiding problems. You can be the best intentioned, most pro-security employee in the workplace and still lose your clearance with enough incidents of forgetting to lock your safe, leaving classified information unattended in a space not approved for open storage, or bringing your cellphone into a SCIF. I call these folks security office “frequent flyers.”
Notice how I used the term “enough” to describe the requisite frequency of security lapses for clearance revocation. That term is vague by design – not because I’m a slippery lawyer, but because the National Adjudicative Guidelines for Security Clearances don’t assign hard numbers to the degree of negligence that warrants clearance revocation or allocate freebies.
In fact, the Guidelines alternate between extremely vague language implying one mistake is enough to warrant revocation (e.g., “any failure to comply with rules for the protection of classified or sensitive information”) and language that implies some indeterminable number of mistakes beyond a one-off (“negligence or lax security practices persist despite counseling by management”).
Most clearance holders – especially the engineering and science-types who thrive off precision – don’t like this. They want to know specific parameters for their conduct and exactly where the line is that they cannot cross. To that end, I’m often asked questions like, “how many screw-ups is too many” or “do I get a freebie before I get in trouble?”
Unfortunately, as I alluded earlier, there is no clear answer to those questions. There are, however, some general principles in which even the most anxious clearance-holder can find solace.
First, as I’ve written about previously, there is a difference between security infractions (no compromise of classified information) and security violations (compromise of classified information). Most security mistakes fall into the former category and for obvious reasons tend to elicit less of a penalty. If you’re unlucky enough to have harmed national security with your error, expect a higher standard and a harsher response (“failure to comply with rules or regulations that results in damage to national security, regardless of whether it was deliberate or negligent”).
Second, my experience has been that most minor, good-faith infractions don’t result in the loss of a security clearance in the first instance. With rare exception for truly egregious lapses of judgment, it almost always takes a demonstrable pattern of negligence for common incidents like the aforementioned examples to rise to the level of clearance revocation. Before that, the clearance-holder can expect progressive discipline, starting with something like a verbal counseling, written warning, and/or some remedial training. Again, there is no brightline rule here, but the principles of probability speak of once as a mistake, twice as a coincidence, and three or more times as a pattern. That’s merely a theoretical observation, though – not a license to violate security rules twice or something to bank on.
Finally, even those of you who have earned or are concerned about earning the least desirable “frequent flyer” status aren’t entirely without some self-help recourse. Just like there is value in proactively avoiding problems, there is also value in proactively mitigating errors. If the issue is a perception of negligence on your part, two ways to blunt that are proactively seeking out remedial training and implementing a system like an end-of-day checklist to help yourself avoid another mistake. Neither may be a complete shield against consequences, but both can be helpful in making the case for a lesser penalty than outright revocation of the clearance.
This article is intended as general information only and should not be construed as legal advice. Although the information is believed to be accurate as of the publication date, no guarantee or warranty is offered or implied. Laws and government policies are subject to change, and the information provided herein may not provide a complete or current analysis of the topic or other pertinent considerations. Consult an attorney regarding your specific situation.
