This article makes the asinine inference that hiring a ts worker somehow magically grants you access to ts data. Sf86 makes it perfectly clear: you can be tried for treason up to and including capital punishment for leaking state secrets at the ts level. The information is on a need to know basis and requires the company be certified by disa, NSA, and cleared to have a compartmentalized government facility that includes an FSO and yearly dod inspections. The government also chooses you for classified work and sensitive data. Not the other way around.
Tech Firms Seek Washington’s Prized Asset: Top-Secret Clearances
21–30 of 46 posts
Re: Tech Firms Seek Washington’s Prized Asset: Top-Secret Clearances
#22Article is wrong if you had clearance you don't get to transfer it if you move to a civilian job is my understanding. So is there an equivalent to List X companies in the USA who are allowed put staff through clearance. And for TS clearance I doubt that any dual national other than those because of birth circumstances will be getting clearance any time soon which sucks for SV company employees who are immigrants
Why would the US give a Top Secret clearance to an immigrant? edit - You can't immigrate to a country then expect to receive a Top Secret clearance regardless if it is the US or any other country. I don't suspect Russia will give me a clearance if I were to immigrate and find employment at a tech company. There would be a major national security incident waiting to happen.
As an Australian who lives in our national capital, I can assure you that our friendly local FVEY agency will happily employ Australian citizens at a Top Secret Positive Vetting level who are naturalised immigrants or dual citizens (a huge chunk of this country are dual British citizens, in particular). I get the impression that it makes your life a bit more difficult, but it's definitely achievable.
Re: Tech Firms Seek Washington’s Prized Asset: Top-Secret Clearances
#23> The average annual salary for a systems engineer working for the U.S. government with a security clearance is about $119,000...
In other words, the average USG systems engineer is roughly a GS-14 Step 6 based on 2017 Rest-of-US locality...GTFO with this garbage.
Re: Tech Firms Seek Washington’s Prized Asset: Top-Secret Clearances
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
You are mistaken. Security clearances go with the person and not the job. Indeed, there’s an entire industry available to people with the correct clearance. Yeah, there's paperwork to do when you move to a new job. https://www.state.gov/m/ds/clearances/c10977.htm#9 https://www.clearancejobs.com/ For example, Edward Snowden had a clearance and worked for a private company, Booz Allen after first working for the NSA as…
The first link you have makes it sound like clearance does not transfer, unless I’m reading it wrong
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Re: Tech Firms Seek Washington’s Prized Asset: Top-Secret Clearances
#25The article uses the Russia election situation as an example, but one doesn't need a clearance -- or any classified information, for that matter -- in order to prevent a large number of these recent "hacks" or, at the least, make the attackers work much harder to be successful.
When companies can't even be bothered to install security updates on public-facing applications or web sites (cf. Equifax), is anyone really surprised that they're being broken into and having all their private data stolen?
In my experience, these public/private information sharing "partnerships" are heavily weighted in the government's favor. That is, the private companies share their detailed, specific data with the government but the information that the government shares with the private companies is laughable. When I was on the "receiving end", it was typically bulletins and notifications that were vague and lacked enough detail to actually be useful or actionable (and even those were limited with regard to distribution).
It's been a few years since I was involved with that stuff so perhaps things have changed. I would be really surprised if they have, though.
In addition, it seems to me that this is a good way for the government to get these tech companies to "go along with" some of their "requests". Oh, you have some private data that the government would like to have access to but you don't want to turn it over? Or, the government has a "black box" they want you to install in your network but you don't want to? Boy, it sure would be a shame if your employees' security clearances got denied, wouldn't it?
Re: Tech Firms Seek Washington’s Prized Asset: Top-Secret Clearances
#26Article is wrong if you had clearance you don't get to transfer it if you move to a civilian job is my understanding. So is there an equivalent to List X companies in the USA who are allowed put staff through clearance. And for TS clearance I doubt that any dual national other than those because of birth circumstances will be getting clearance any time soon which sucks for SV company employees who are immigrants
Why would the US give a Top Secret clearance to an immigrant? edit - You can't immigrate to a country then expect to receive a Top Secret clearance regardless if it is the US or any other country. I don't suspect Russia will give me a clearance if I were to immigrate and find employment at a tech company. There would be a major national security incident waiting to happen.
I know literally hundreds of immigrants (meaning naturalized citizens) with TS/SCI clearance. Did you mean to say "non-citizen"?
Re: Tech Firms Seek Washington’s Prized Asset: Top-Secret Clearances
#27> The average annual salary for a systems engineer working for the U.S. government with a security clearance is about $119,000... In other words, the average USG systems engineer is roughly a GS-14 Step 6 based on 2017 Rest-of-US locality...GTFO with this garbage.
Most with that high of clearance are working in the DC area, one of the highest locality pay in the country
Re: Tech Firms Seek Washington’s Prized Asset: Top-Secret Clearances
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
You are mistaken. Security clearances go with the person and not the job. Indeed, there’s an entire industry available to people with the correct clearance. Yeah, there's paperwork to do when you move to a new job. https://www.state.gov/m/ds/clearances/c10977.htm#9 https://www.clearancejobs.com/ For example, Edward Snowden had a clearance and worked for a private company, Booz Allen after first working for the NSA as…
Security clearance does not stay with the person once they leave the job unless their new employer is (or is sponsored by) the same granting agency (i.e. DOD or DOE) and even then there is paperwork involved to set up the transfer.
You are correct. The clearance comes in the form of a designated position with sponsored need to access certain cleared information. When you are no longer in that job you no longer have the need to access, and hence no active clearance.
When you start in a new job, if it is a security clearance designated position, your clearance can be reactivated. If there has been a gap between old and new your eligibility for a clearance will have to be re-evaluated, also when changing employers. (You could have been fired or left under a cloud, a significant marker for security concerns.)
All clearances require a government sponsor. So tech companies can't maintain someone with a clearance unless they are working on a govt program. IC may be a little more flexible on that.
Re: Tech Firms Seek Washington’s Prized Asset: Top-Secret Clearances
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
> ...one path to citizenship in the US is to serve in the military. True statement. > So, if all members of the military have some degree of clearance... False assumption. Jobs that fall under services, personnel, public affairs, medical, contracting, vehicle maintenance, and supply come to mind. This is far from an exhaustive list and will vary in scope between branches of service.
I have personally met foreign nationals who were infantrymen. It is possible my statement is overly broad. But if being in the infantry, like my ex was, grants some degree of clearance, then I have personally known foreign nationals in the US military who must have had a security clearance to do their job at all. I based my remarks on a remark my ex made. I spelled that out as clearly as I could. My conclusion is cor…
People are confusing 'security clearance' with 'background investigation'. Non-citizens very rarely have any US security clearance.
It is normal for Army units to have many non-SECRET cleared members. It is one of the challenges of distributing ISR information to frontline units. Signals (communications) will tend to have clearances, and they couldn't progress if they couldn't get one. Officers are cleared.
Re: Tech Firms Seek Washington’s Prized Asset: Top-Secret Clearances
#30Article is wrong if you had clearance you don't get to transfer it if you move to a civilian job is my understanding. So is there an equivalent to List X companies in the USA who are allowed put staff through clearance. And for TS clearance I doubt that any dual national other than those because of birth circumstances will be getting clearance any time soon which sucks for SV company employees who are immigrants
Ok, a bunch of confusion in this thread...
A clearance is held by a specific agency. Say I work for contractor company C, on a contract with three-letter agency TLA. TLA grants me a clearance at whatever level, and they keep track of it. If I switch jobs to another position that requires a clearance -- maybe I go to company D, maybe I stay at C but on a contract for four-letter agency FLA [1] -- then TLA can transfer the clearance to the new agency FLA, and now FLA is the holder. Depending on the specifics of TLA and FLA, this can be "quick" (in government time), or in the worst cases it will take just as long as getting a clearance from scratch.
If I go to company D, but the new position does not require a clearance, then it becomes inactive. I can say I previously had a clearance, and if not much time has passed then getting it reactivated (if I go to a third job that needs it again) may be a relatively quick process. But if I am not at a job that is keeping it active, then I have no right to access classified data or anything.
In other words, if Facebook is hiring cleared people, they have to be working with a government agency that is holding the clearances.
On the other topic: obviously you have to be a US citizen. Immigrants/naturalized citizens are fine; I've known many cleared immigrants. Dual-citizenship I'm not sure about, you might have to renounce your old citizenship.
[1] This is an NGA joke. NGA: because the intelligence is silent. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Geospatial-Intelligen...