Over the past two years the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) has increased the price of their standard investigations an average of about 48 percent. In October 2014 OPM introduced Tier 1 and Tier 2 investigations to replace the National Agency Check with Inquiries (NACI) and the Moderate Risk Background Investigation (MBI), respectively. In October 2015 they introduced Tier 3 investigations to replace both the National Agency Check with Law and Credit (NACLC) and the Access National Agency Check with Inquiries (ANACI)…

January

Interim Clearances—The Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence (USD-I) issued a memorandum with an effective date of February 1, 2014, regarding new minimum standards for interim secret clearances.  Actual implementation may take more than a year.  More information about this change is available at an article on interim clearances…

During 2012 the Government continued to take small steps toward fulfilling the goals of the Joint Security Suitability Reform effort that began in 2007. However, some anticipated changes failed to occur. No action was taken to implement changes to Periodic Reinvestigation intervals for Confidential and Secret clearances as announced in late 2011. The multi-volume DOD Manual 5200.02 that will replace the decades old DOD Regulation 5200.2, “Personnel Security Program” was not finalized. A revision to the December 2005 Adjudicative Guidelines was not approved. Reciprocal acceptance of security clearances between Intelligence Community agencies remained a significant problem…

In mid-February 2013, the report of the National Industrial Security Program Policy Advisory Committee’s (NISPPAC) November 2012 meeting was posted at the Information Security Oversight Office’s (ISOO) website. Some highlights from the meeting include:

The Defense Security Service (DSS) reported that some intelligence community (IC) members are now using the National Industrial Security Program (NISP) for submitting their Periodic Reinvestigations, which is a departure from past procedures…

In January 2012 a bill was introduced in the Maryland State Senate that proposed a State income tax credit for costs incurred to obtain federal security clearances. The first reading of the bill (SB296) proposed a requirement for “the Governor of Maryland to make a $6,000,000 appropriation in FY2014 and FY21015 for the tax credit, applying the Act to all taxable years beginning after December 31, 2011.” The bill was unclear as to what costs would qualify for the tax credit and who could claim it. Basically it just appropriated money for the tax credit…

In February 2011 the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) made its final report on security clearance processing in compliance with Title III of the 2004 Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act (IRTPA).  Under section 367 of the 2010 Intelligence Authorization Act, beginning this year and annually thereafter, ODNI is required to submit a new more comprehensive report on security clearances to Congress…

There’s a general misconception that federal security clearance investigations cost thousands and thousands of dollars and that federal contractors must pay for these investigations. Some reputable websites perpetuate this myth with statements like:

“The average cost to process a TOP SECRET clearance is between $3,000 and about $15,000, depending upon individual factors. . . . The law requires that contractors pay most of the costs of obtaining clearances for their employees.” ¹…

Under the 2005 Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) process, 10 Department of Defense (DOD) Central Adjudication Facilities (CAF) will move from their current locations to a newly constructed building at Fort Meade, MD by September 15, 2011. To varying degrees BRAC will cause most of the CAFs to experience higher than normal personnel attrition rates this year. This could in turn increase the average amount of time it takes to adjudicate a security clearance. The 10 DOD CAFs are…

January

OPM announced the roll-out of the New SF86 — The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) announced that in February they will begin a phased implementation of the Electronic Questionnaires for Investigations Processing (e-QIP) version of the new Questionnaire for National Security Positions (Standard Form 86—SF86) that was approved by the Office of Management and Budget in March 2010. The last version (July 2008) of the SF86 was phased in over a period of about 5 months from September 2008 to January 2009. DOD contractor personnel were among the last to begin using the form…