Clearance Adjudication "waiver"

Has anyone ever heard of a “waiver” or an “exception” for adjudicating a clearance?

One of my colleagues looking to transfer to another company says the FSO at said company can see their TS has a “waiver”.

Any idea what that even means? My friend never had issues with their clearance process (everything went smoothly in the pipeline, no appeals or anything)

Assuming the adjudicating judge follows the 13 guidelines for eligibility, why would there even be a need for a waiver, if such a thing even exists

I have seen some reports of people getting some kind of “Letter of Concern” or something, like maybe if they had recent drug use, where it says “we are granting your clearance but want to make sure you stay away from drugs” or something like that.

I am not too clear on the details as this has never happened to me or anyone I know, I’ve just read about it on this forum… dont know if they even do this anymore.

Only thing I can think of…

Seen dudes with foreign wives or family members get an exception, but subjected to more onerous reporting requirements (eg quarterly check ins with seceutity manager to discuss, etc).

It happens. And the government watches you with a magnifying lens. Persons under these waivers sign and legally agree to certain requirements and criteria as part of maintaining their job. There is no room for any error, and they are given the boot and walked off the job ASAP if any slip up is seen.

That’s the thing though. They didn’t sign anything (apart from the standard NDA type stuff when they were briefed the first time). Is it possible to grant waivers without the applicants knowledge? Would a FOIA request help shed light to that?

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As Harpoon mentions…it happens. If you are valuable to the government then they ‘bend’ the rules so that you can continue to provide whatever level of support they need you at. It’s completely selfish of the gov’t, and I can’t say I disagree, but at the same time from an outsiders perspective, say someone who was turned down, they might give it the old WTF?! you know.

On the subject of foreign wives and family members, and I speak from experience here, those aren’t really in the ‘waiver’ category. It more comes down to can the risk be mitigated by looking at country/city of origin (Prague vs Mexico/England/NZ/etc) and how at risk are you of being manipulated via ‘foreign affections’. Are they an allied country or adversarial you know?

A true waiver would be like SBU mentions - you’ve done something, it was a one off, reported and now you’ve ben counseled, etc. You get a ‘letter’ and told not to do it and then you stand up take it on the chin and dont do it again.

Exceptions have been around for a long time and explained in regulations covering SCI eligibility. More recently (June 2017) “exceptions” were explained in Security Executive Agent Directive 4 (SEAD-4), which includes the National Security Adjudicative Guidelines at Appendix A. There are 3 types of Exceptions–Waivers, Deviations, and Conditions. These are explained at Appendix C to SEAD-4. Waivers have long been used when an applicant for SCI had an immediate family member in a hostile country. To confuse things, the Bond Amendment (at Appendix B to SEAD-4) also allows “waivers” for certain types of conduct and conditions. The bottom line is that agencies don’t have to reciprocally accept clearances granted with an “exception” or a Bond Amendment waiver by another agency.

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If you’re a genius scientist who believes he was reincarnated and demands everyone at work play along or a military pilot who had 5 to 10 million in training spent on him…yea you get a waiver.

Thanks for the detailed explanation! It is interesting to see the amount of gray area when determining eligibility. When some one asks “I have a foreign wife/husband can I get a clearance?” or “I am a dual citizen, do I qualify?” based on reading SEAD-4, the answer is “it depends” Instead of a straight Yes or No.

Not taking a stance or anything, just interesting how things are always open to interpretation.

The Dual Citizen thing used to be an absolute NO but in the last ~5/8 years or so, someone may need to correct me, the feasibility for at least one of the FVEY countries is pretty much a YES so long as you continue to show allegiance to the United States. Certainly having a foreign spouse and dual-nation children is allowed as well when the same country is involved.

The problems arise when you end up with someone, dating or more serious, who is from an east-europe country, several s. american countries, and asian countries. One of the big three even has a ‘hit list’ of no-no countries that you CANNOT be involved with in anyway e.g. one night stands, dating, marriage, etc. Unless you want to be removed from your work that is.