I just had my subject interview over the phone. Few interesting things came out of it and I would greatly appreciate your input:
It’s with agency B. I have an ongoing BI with agency A. The investigator told me they won’t be conducting their own, instead, they will use the info gathered from Agency A.
I need to list every foreign contact on my social media accounts accounts, even if I just liked their pic. It doesn’t matter if we haven’t spoken since 2005.
Agency B informed me that they will scheduled me for a poly soon. The investigator said that there is no need to take the poly if I pass with either agency since agencies should be able to rely on the results due to the similarities in process. (Do you think this might shorten the process?)
Other than going over some of the info in the document, I wasn’t asked about anything. I find it interesting considering the fact that this is for top secret.
We see this discussed back and forth constantly. On another thread a person was told they could not initiate a new clearance request because there was an old one still open and running with OPM 3 years later. If so that is hard broke. Reciprocity doesn’t always mean what the literal definition is. Some investigators post that absolutely all foreign contacts must be listed to include the ones you clicked “like” for. Others say they do not want all that. The standard as I understand it is simple: real, known, continuing. You have to know they are foreign, you must continue contact regularly not once every 6 years. But, if you re-initiated contact recently…you are continuing. A simple hello to a foreign person daily in the hall at work isn’t reportable. If you go out for drinks later, send birthday cards, BBQ, go to a ball game…that crosses over into friendship and must be reported. I can tell you getting one agency to trust another and use their clearance BI or parts of it…is a mixed bag at the minimum, a farce at worst. I have successfully crossed over clearances from State and it requires heavy lifting. Recently my client said they will no longer even try to cross their clearances over even though federal law requires it. Some agencies are just not easy to work with and in my personal experience State is the worst. So do not count on one agency sharing anything.
As an investigator, do not believe anything an investigator says regarding a poly. We have nothing to do with polys nor do we administer them. Don’t take that info as fact and get your hopes up.
Second, the question on the form is to list all foreign contacts you have close and or continuing contact with in the last 7 years. If you have social media friends but you do not feel that they fall into this category you can say… to be safe… I have a friend on social media Jane Doe who is a (insert country) citizen who I met (wherever you met).
Now if this relationship is merely just liking a picture there’s no need to mention it at all.