Special Agent Background Check & Security Clearance
As a new Special Agent, you will most certainly have access to sensitive information, whether it's mere investigatory notes or full-blown national security secrets. Because of this, you will need to pass some pretty tight scrutiny of your background to determine that you're fit to trust with this information. In short, the agency that hires you is going to ask itself during the security clearance background check whether you have the character, loyalty, trustworthiness and reliability to do the job. In this section, we talk about the types of security clearances out there, how they're decided, and the 13 aspects of your life that every federal agency considers when making a decision. To make navigating easier for you, we've put links to each of these 13 sections on the right of every page.
Top Secret, Secret and Confidential
The level of trust the government will place in you (or that your job demands) is broken down into three categories by Executive Order 12968: Confidential, Secret, and Top Secret. Contrary to popular belief, these are the only three clearances granted by the U.S. Government. Many related clearances, like SCI (for national security matters), and Q (for nuclear arsenal matters) are simply extensions of the Top Secret clearance with need-to-know compartmentalization built in.
As a new Special Agent, your clearance will likely be Top Secret. A handful of agencies will grant you only Secret clearance initially, and then upgrade you later if your duties demand. Furthermore, a Top Secret background check may also by conducted with an eye toward future SCI clearance -- Secure Compartmented Information -- that requires tighter need-to-know considerations, special eavesdrop-proof review rooms, and stronger storage containers. Regardless of whether you need Secret and Top Secret clearance, however, both clearances will require a sit-down interview with the background investigator who will run your background check. And the clearance will need to be re-evaluated every so often, in particular, 5 years for the Top Secret clearance most new Special Agents receive. While this re-evaluation can often be simply a cursory re-examination of your paperwork, particularly if there have been no significant changes, it can entail as much as another full interview of you, a new wife, new relatives and neighbors and places you have moved to since you started your job.
The Whole Person & Background Check Security Clearance
The U.S. government has a single set of guidelines that all agencies must follow in determining whether you get your security clearance. In one short summary, they come down to this: what are your competing loyalties? Are there conflicts of interest in your life that would put you in the situation of having to choose between your commitment to the United States and some other interest? On first glance, almost everyone would say "of course not" to this question. However, the government can and does consider many behaviors "competing loyalties," and spells them out clearly for the background investigators who conduct the background checks for security clearances. And they weigh you as a "Whole Person," a phrase used in every agency in the country to consider all aspects of your background and character -- not just single, isolated incidents in one aspect of your life. The sum total of the interactions you've had with friends, family, employers, schools, police departments, civic groups, banks and courts are under the microscope.
If the security clearance investigator finds something derogatory in your background, there are nine very specific questions they will ask about what you did:
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