Section 6601 of the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act (https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/PLAW-117publ263/pdf/PLAW-117publ263.pdf) states “The heads of the elements of the intelligence community, including the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, shall implement the plan submitted under subsection (d) and take all such actions each head considers appropriate and necessary to ensure that by December 31, 2023, the median duration of the onboard period for new employees at each element of the intelligence community is equal to less than 180 days.” The time is defined as beginning when the candidate applies for the job.
I received a CJO from NSA and when I submitted the security paperwork, my recruiter said “The security team will review the forms, and it may take them up to 4 weeks before sending out links for scheduling polygraphs/psych interviews.” After waiting a year and a half (from the time of applying) and having never been scheduled for those interviews and with none of my references contacted, I was told that the position for which I received the offer was eliminated and therefore my processing would be discontinued. The recruiter had confirmed multiple times throughout the wait that I was “actively processing”. My investigation should not be particularly complex.
So I contacted my representatives and the official statement that NSA sent to one of them includes this: “Please be assured that NSA meets all requirements contained in the portions of the fiscal year 2020 and fiscal year 2023 National Defense Authorization Acts (NDAA) that address timeliness associated with security clearance processing. However, while timeliness of security clearance processing is important, it must always be balanced with the critical need to conduct thorough security investigations in order to properly protect highly sensitive national security information.”
How could that be possible considering:
- My recruiter told me “the average time is about 6-12 months between offers”. How many NSA timelines posted on this forum are under 180 days?
- The median DCSA time for initial top-secret cases for the fourth quarter of Fiscal Year 2024 was 249 days (https://news.clearancejobs.com/2024/11/13/how-long-does-it-take-to-get-a-security-clearance-times-go-up-in-2024/). That number excludes the slowest 10% of cases while the Sec. 6601 requirement does not. Also, DCSA’s definition is “from the time of agency initiation of information collection from an applicant to the date adjudication is reported in a repository” which is less time than in the Sec. 6601 definition.
- It’s widely known that NSA and other intel agencies tend to take longer than DCSA. Even the intelligence careers website itself says: “The Intelligence Community hiring process can take a little longer than other agencies” and “The entire process takes, on average, 9-12 months and having a security clearance already may not speed up the process” (and they define the start of the process as when the CJO is given).
Considering all this, how is it plausible that NSA and every other intel agency is meeting this legal requirement to keep their median processing times under 180 days?