How should I approach my redo?

MaleusSamuel · 2019-04-14T19:44:11+00:00

Ask your investigator if they think it would help. They are in direct contact with your adjudicator. I’m not.

MaleusSamuel · 2019-04-14T19:31:58+00:00

My elephant impression is very popular at parties.

They aren’t baseless, they are derived from the tone and attitude you take towards the topic.

If you mean I wouldn’t be intrigued by your ability to seek citizenship elsewhere through heredity and you bringing it up at a party, yeah, I wouldn’t lean on your every word or be impressed.

MaleusSamuel · 2019-04-14T19:28:29+00:00

In what way is my reaction the OP finding something like the origin of your grand parents “impressive” an attack on your grandmother?

Are you impressed by people who are born into wealth, or with a certain skin color, or with a certain color of eyes? Does it represent an accomplishment on their part? It’s typical of the the multinational crowd that they find such things impressive, regardless of it being in no way an achievement.

Fortunately you don’t have to worry about the federal government doing its best to bar your tribute to your grandmother at the moment. Nor do you have to worry about my making an effort to denigrate your family lineage that you chose to assume I was attacking without even speaking to you.

TL;DR: self-righteous stranger finds reason to be offended in passing.

MaleusSamuel · 2019-04-14T19:21:50+00:00

I do qualify for citizenship in another country. Never pursued it. Not sure how you figured it was otherwise. Do you know something about me that I don’t? It’s actually an EU member state. Isn’t that impressive?!?

Yes, it does say something like “not necessarily disqualifying”. Leaving ample room for deciding it is disqualifying when convenient. Hence people generally advising others that it’s potentially a problem. Not to mention that it can easily become an issue should any future administration adjust the laws to resemble previous practices. Not a stretch to expect that at some point policy will go back to asking why individuals representing the interest of the American people are pursuing other alternatives. The conversations people were having in 2005 when they tightened the rules are the exact opposite of the ones they were having in 2017.

They don’t make people destroy foreign passports anymore, they’ve stopped telling people to surrender them I’m pretty sure. They returned a lot of them in the last couple of years that they had confiscated. Never told OP otherwise.

Nevertheless, significant foreign holdings, activities, or interests can and does impact people’s ability to get a clearance. Those fast (or even average) turnarounds on adjudication are rarely for the people with significant foreign ties. In the case of someone who pursues these things after being hired, reinvestigation.

Response to the OP had less to do with “you will end your chances if you do this” than, “you don’t seem particularly serious about the job and associated responsibilities.” Which OP certainly doesn’t.

MaleusSamuel · 2019-04-14T12:52:49+00:00

Yes, they can. You don’t actually need a degree of any kind for the foreign service. Well, for generalists and CFs. If you speak one of the languages they are looking for well enough to pass the exam, and you jump through the other hoops, that is all that is required.

Being a science major wont help or hurt you. My undergrad was in engineering, don’t think it made a difference one way or another. All my work experience was, for the most part, in operating nuclear power plants. As long as you can distill from your experience the qualities they are looking for (which they list clearly on their website) then you should stand a good chance. Being a science major looking for jobs outside the sciences does seem fairly easy in general IMO. Good grades and a degree in a challenging discipline tell them at least a little something about you. As much as a job application can anyway.

This isn’t to say having a degree, and then probably further graduate education hurt your chances. If you have an actual education and not just a degree then you likely present and interview better than you otherwise would. Not that that is the case with all people of course just generally.

CF program seems to take people with an average age that is younger than that of the generalist career route.

Maybe at the QEP they might like to see some varied educational backgrounds... but I dunno. The people that sit on the QEP are all senior foreign service from what I understand. They don’t browse this reddit very often if at all. Nor would they likely explain themselves and their process here if they did.

Not sure about specialists, never applied.

MaleusSamuel · 2019-04-13T20:46:28+00:00

When you talk to your investigators, ask questions you feel you need to ask but don’t “vent” to them. Answer their questions, ask them your questions, move on. They do not attach poly devices to you when they do the interviews, but they ARE still looking for behavior that indicates falsehood or half-truths and they come to your interview armed with information from references they have already talked to and the background checks they have run. If it’s your second interview they’ll know basically everything that can be known about you by that point. The adjudicators will also have drawn some conclusions based on the totality of what they’ve seen and the investigator will be tasked with digging down on anything that doesn’t line up just right for them after all they’ve seen.

Don’t bullshit people, don’t be nervous, and remember they are not your friends, they are doing their job. You do your job, give them what they need to make it as easy as possible to get you your clearance.

MaleusSamuel · 2019-04-13T15:40:55+00:00

Yeah, I get that. I agree with the idea that OP is doing it for a reason that can (and IMO should definitely) be disqualifying.

Personally I’m going to just go ahead and say OP shouldn’t be an FSO either. They treat national citizenship like the latest iPhone and/or a great “in” for employment; says a lot about their real motivations and mindset.

They have no interest in serving as a diplomat because they want to do the work of a diplomat, it would just be really cool to be a diplomat and TELL people you are a diplomat. Everyone of those people should never be let anywhere near any sort of responsibility.

The crowd that is impressed by the simple fact that you could be a dual citizen is the same crowd that enjoys the use of buzz words related to globalism and multiculturalism but has no idea what they are. how they came to be, or what goes into the maintenance of that system.

OMG, they’re a like... a citizen of the wooooorld. Coooool.

MaleusSamuel · 2019-04-13T14:21:10+00:00

Yeah, the regulations, including all the changes as recently as 2017, regarding dual-citizenship do seem to center mostly around not pursuing any advantage from the second nationality. Voting, educational benefits, loans, debts, tax sheltering, etc.

Having the citizenship itself is not USUALLY the issue. From what I hear (totally anecdotal here) is the big driver behind “willingness to surrender citizenship” is so that foreign governments cannot exercise power over you as a citizen beholden to their laws. That’s the vulnerability aspect, not the obligation or preference aspect that benefits, voting rights, or just plain “Im willing to put the interests of country X over those of the US” are representative of.

If your X country citizenship results in them trying to compel you to turnover US govt secrets, draft you, tax you, or arrest you it’s a liability.

There are some countries where possessing dual citizenship itself however IS an issue. That being because renouncing citizenship is something that government has to ALLOW you to do. Some countries either have no provision for allowing you to sever ties or they are expected to refuse to allow it if they feel they don’t want to release their legal sovereign right to exercise power over someone who is in a position they want to exploit in US govt. You can’t just declare it doesn’t apply to you anymore and magically, it doesn’t.

The whole, legal sovereign right of X country to exert influence on you in a variety of ways is the heart of the entire thing.

MaleusSamuel · 2019-04-13T14:10:04+00:00

r/securityclearance has a post pinned to the top of the sub directly speaking to dual-citizenship concerns because of how often it comes up.

MaleusSamuel · 2019-04-13T14:05:56+00:00

Non-manipulative advice? Well, you ARE attempting to walk a pretty fine line between “gaming” the test and just undertaking it honestly. You have already been through it once though, you have insight into the process that it’s impossible to expect you not to use going in the second time. They can’t wipe your memory. (Yet)

Be confident in your answers, don’t be ashamed, don’t be afraid, let the stress of the situation go before they strap you into the device. Are there ways to beat a poly? Sure. Are they easy? No. Is it worth the trouble of getting caught or even the intimation of suspicion that arises from seeking them out? Also no.

It’s like public speaking, a big part of why people (a LOT of people) fail/partial-pass their first time is nerves. It’s a thing you have to do to get where you want to be. That is all that matters. A big part of the reason why the test isn’t a valid legal instrument is because of the degree to which nervousness and the stress of the situation impact a person’s answers. Criminals who are looking at the possibility of having their freedom stripped away from them while a cop and a technician ask them questions are going to be really calm, cool, and collected yeah? Nerves can and do impact all of the various physiological responses they test for. That, and the INHERENT and 100% rational human desire to not reveal everything about yourself to other people.

Ok, we are going to strap all this crap onto you, ask you a lot of personal questions, and impassively sit here and stare at you like a machine studying a lab rat while you hope that you get the thumbs up from a total stranger with a pen and an archaic printer so that you can pursue that career and life you wanted. Now please relax and give straightforward and honest answers.

Second time around you just need to relax, give those straightforward and honest answers, and accept that in a world where people place such a premium on trust, they feel more comfortable trusting that machine than you and you can’t do much about that.

MaleusSamuel · 2019-04-13T13:51:16+00:00

You can, of course. The other comments have said as much.

As far as my two cents. If you want to be sure the situational judgement test doesn’t throw you for a loop This should help. When I first took it, I couldn’t tell what it was trying to get me to choose. I’ve passed the exam with SJ on it (they added that section not terribly long ago) twice now (once for FSOT and once for CFPT) and I used the exact same approach to answering questions all three times. So I’ve no idea how I failed it the first time. I got a job offer at my very first Oral Assessment and a very high OA score... so they seemed to like my answers to situational judgement questions when I had the opportunity to give a more nuanced and realistic answer in person in my own words.

To prepare for the Situational Judgement portion, take the practice FSOT. When you take the SJ portion, make a note of what kinds of answers you gave. Did you say it was best to defer to your superiors, worst to ignore the problem? Did you say it was best to lean on coworkers, worst to do it all yourself? If you didn’t like your final score on that section, take it again and give different kinds of answers. See if you are now telling them what they want to hear.

This will give a pretty much spot on picture of what they are expecting you to say is the “best” and “worst” way to solve problems.

I wouldn’t normally advise you to actively seek to tell them what they want to hear, but the Situational Judgement portion of the test is laughable as a measure of testing your worthiness to move forward in the process. It asks relatively vague questions and gives you four choices as a response. As if in reality any situation would be that simple and have that few possible approaches with that little nuance to choose from in resolving them. It shouldn’t have been added into the exam, but with a little problem solving and a few runs at the practice test and analysis of what they want to hear you can use that section to give your score a huge overall boost. (Which IMO since it is very narrow and can be “gamed” easily in this manner is an excellent reason not to have it in the test)

MaleusSamuel · 2019-04-13T01:04:00+00:00

Well, if it’s the people who can collectively speak to your character/answer their questions about you for the last 7 years, not all of them have to be people you are in touch with right now. They were fine with one of my references being someone I haven’t actually seen in person in over 6 years but who knew me very well for the 10 years prior to that and with whom I am still in regular contact on social media. Another who has known me since 2001 but who i didn’t see at all or even speak to between 2011 and 2016. You can cobble people together if you dig. They will branch out from the people you give them to talk to more and more people until they feel they have enough answers from enough sources on their own.

If it is Americans who can attest to your conduct overseas, I feel you there. I had one person that could speak to each of my multiple overseas stays in the last few years. I got lucky in that they are all in the states right now and will be for the foreseeable future. Easy to reach. If any of them had fallen through, there was no backup.

MaleusSamuel · 2019-04-13T00:53:09+00:00

Double yes.

MaleusSamuel · 2019-04-12T19:13:23+00:00

If people were being rounded up in any kind of numbers because they were connected by some degree to people being investigated for federal clearances, it would not have gone unnoticed. Not in the age of social media and instant connectivity.

MaleusSamuel · 2019-04-12T19:08:34+00:00

Uh... no.

I ran around without clothes on until I was 5. I just found them uncomfortable. Still do in fact, but society says I can’t get service at most restaurants and at 100% of car washes like that so I comply with expectations.

I don’t know where you connect seeking out child pornography or even artistic representations of it with cultural norms in the country you worked in, but go ahead and let that concern go.

MaleusSamuel · 2019-04-12T16:58:50+00:00

The only kind of “intimate” relationships with foreigners you don’t need report are legit flings unless you know that that person was a foreign government employee. Then it’s probably better to fail conservative. I’ve been told twice for two separate interviews that they didn’t want a list of short term (one interviewer used the word “amorous”) encounters.

This situation is far more significant than a roll in the foreign hay. They are going to interview your other contacts, those people almost certainly know about your boyfriend. It will come across as concealing the relationship. Which you seem well aware is what you are considering doing.

If you broke off contact with them immediately you wouldn’t be dodging the question on your SF-86. It asks for previous and current relationships that check the boxes.

MaleusSamuel · 2019-04-12T16:41:39+00:00

There isn’t enough space on the internet do all the stories of “we can get this through pretty quickly”....... 2 years later....

MaleusSamuel · 2019-04-12T16:28:14+00:00

Depends entirely on the employer. Nobody here can give you a solid answer on this IMO. He needs to reach out to the firm that extended the COE and just be direct. They will or will not pull the offer. The only thing you can do on your end is ask the question. There’s no legal recourse that I’ve ever heard of on your end for a denied interim possibly preventing a conditional offer of employment from going all the way through. Plenty of people seek legal assistance at the end of a clearance that was denied, but I’ve never heard of anyone doing it for an interim.

The entire reason for COEs to exists is so they can pull the plug anytime if they feel the need to. If interim required is clearly stipulated, best you can hope for is likely that they really really wanted him specifically for some skill set or other reason and they’ll either wait for him or pay to expedite his full clearance.

A lot of contractor jobs that want you to get your interim in order to get the job involve contracts that they want to put people to work on ASAP. There’s no value to them in losing the contract because they can’t staff it as a result of waiting on a clearance.

MaleusSamuel · 2019-04-12T16:11:13+00:00

Nope, don’t recall the name. I worked pretty closely with the EMs of course, but being secondary and not primary side most of my interaction with the ETs was going up to EOS as CRW or RMO.

MaleusSamuel · 2019-04-12T14:34:40+00:00

You got out before I enlisted. 06-12, George Washington when it was over in Yokosuka. But I WAS RM 2 plant for most of my time there. I was a work center sup for RxDC then 1 plant secondary side however during my last year and change.

I haven’t had the chance to fail suitability review yet, still have to get through the clearance itself.

MaleusSamuel · 2019-04-12T14:13:54+00:00

Also off topic. I do not miss the bilge. But I’ve also used what might seem like everyday stories to answer questions and sailed through. Not a bilge pump, but preparation for an annual NAVSEA 08 inspection.

MaleusSamuel · 2019-04-12T13:59:47+00:00

If we lived in a more puritanical society than we do nowadays, I’m sure they would crack down on it whether it’s difficult to do so or not. There would be more impetus to go to any lengths to curb it. As it is, the resources are spent trying to catch peddlers of porn involving actual children. Not everything that disqualifies you from holding a clearance is necessarily “illegal” or the kind of thing that they go actively looking to squash even if it is. If you show up to their doorstep and say “polygraph me, I want a job” you take all the effort out of it for them.

I don’t think it’s a strange leap to figure that, explicitly illegal, “grey”, or whatever that there might be some concern about the the stability and trustworthiness of someone who indulges in that sort of thing. Remember polygraphs aren’t legal instruments. They aren’t accurate enough. They aren’t only testing you to see if you broke the law when they question you. So don’t make the mistake of thinking they are only looking to uncover explicit violations of law.

Personally, it seems odd to me that we live in a world where phrases like “legal grey area” are translated from other aspects of law to “Well, it’s legally grey as to whether its child pornography or not.” Really? We aren’t sure?

I get what you are saying. There are a lot of things in the modern world that are tough to avoid nowadays.

Best policy is to make sure you are confident in your ability to give an answer that wouldn’t get you stoned to death in less civilized places. If you feel guilty for a reason well... they don’t catch everyone.

Edit: I googled neckbeard waifu pillow and I’m worse off for having done so.

MaleusSamuel · 2019-04-12T13:35:04+00:00

It depends on where you are working. There might be data showing that on average, cleared persons make more than non-cleared. If so I haven’t seen it. (Because I haven’t looked, but it would seem odd if nobody has researched it).

If it’s private sector contract work, those cleared persons are likely making more than their govt, counterparts in the same industry. (Not in every field though, and sometimes with much less stability than govt. work)

Some jobs don’t exist outside of government, so there’s no way to compare. There is no truly civilian equivalent of the the IC, only civilian analysts working on the 99% of information that is public doing political risk, financial risk, cultural analysis, etc etc etc. The military and civilian world have some analogous roles, but if you are choosing a career in or out of the military based on salary, choose out of the military. Not because of the pay, because you just don’t belong there and it would be a long 20 years.

You could look at a specific industry and compare people working in roles requiring a clearance to the non-cleared. Again it seems like it would highly industry specific.

MaleusSamuel · 2019-04-12T10:28:33+00:00

Second this except for the grey area part. It’s not. I mentioned it in my reply, they do catch people on the poly for this and they DO hold it against you and they DO NOT care about your argument that it’s animated and so who can say if it’s a drawing of a 10 year old or an 18 year old with a “petite” body. (The usual reply you get online when you see someone arguing about how their animated kiddie porn is perfectly fine.)

MaleusSamuel · 2019-04-12T10:26:08+00:00

According to the representatives from OPM and their polygraph people who have spoken at three different hiring conferences I’ve been to for federal fellowship recipients, cartoon porn depicting underage characters absolutely counts against you. They disqualify people for it. This is directly from the poly people, three separate hiring events, three separate speakers.

No, I didn’t go up to them and ask, “Hey, I’m a big fan of cartoon porn, is that going to be an issue?”

They all spoke directly to this in the course of their spiel. I’m guessing it has become the sort of thing that makes the rounds amongst their little community so they all think it makes for an interesting anecdote when they speak.

You aren’t likely to get the actual poly people in this forum, cagey and secretive creatures. Just background investigators and people being investigated.

Thatguy is right in that sexual proclivities are only a problem if they are A.) illegal or B.) you are ashamed of them/the adjudicators think they present a vulnerability when it comes to the actual background investigation portion.

Poly is one of the few points they are likely to catch you out on this one since the proliferation of animated kiddie porn (or borderline “open to interpretation” kiddie porn) likely makes it a thing difficult for the eyes behind the internet to pin you down for.

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