~ The Security Clearance Process ~

I wrote this for the deppers on my NavyDEP website, but I will put it here since a couple of you that have asked about security clearance stuff.....

Note: I will say "He", instead of saying "your sailor" each time

Well, I'll explain the entire process just in case someone wants to know....

He will need to get a Top Secret security clearance, along with a SSBI (Single Scope Background Investigation) access. Some of the old timers call it SBI (Special Background Investigation), but that was replaced in December 1991 with SSBI. The 1st step in getting a DOD clearance is he will be sat down and talked to. They need to see if he has any "Dirt" in his background. Does he do drugs? does he commit crimes? has he hidden anything? Does he have foreign relatives? Things like that. The investigators work for either the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) or the Defense Security Service (DSS), and the actual investigators are usually contractors, not actual government employees. Once they get done with him, then they will start on family, friends, neighboors, and school teachers. They want to find what kind of guy he is. These investigator do not determine if he is eligible or not, they are only investigators who collect the data.

The Secret clearance only takes a few months, and more than likely already approved while in DEP. However, the Top Secret, and SBI access can take months...due to the huge numbers of people that need a clearance. There is a backlog of people waiting to have their investigations started, and a huge backlog of people waiting to have their clearances adjudicated once the investigations are done.

There are only three levels of security clearances--Confidential, Secret, and Top Secret--but there are many Special Access Programs (SAP) and many individually named compartments within SCI, SAPs and SCI are categories of classified information (not clearances) that require special access authorization.

There is an SSBI which is an investigation method to grant TS clearance. Then there is an SCI (Sensitive Compartmented Information) which is another level of access to a certain type of information i.e. TS-SCI. An SSBI is used as a determination for allowing an individual access to SCI information. SCI is a program that requires the person to go through an in-briefing prior to being granted access; this is often referred to as "being read in".
Once an investigation is complete, the information is passed to an adjudication facility, Department of the Navy Central Adjudication Facility (DONCAF). http://www.ncis.navy.mil/securitypolicy/DONCAF/Pages/default.aspx

At that point, the adjudicator uses a matrix to determine what level of clearance a person can be granted. Once the adjudication is complete, the person is granted clearance to the determined level. It is up to the command to determine what level of access the person will need. For example, if SN Stains (great name huh?, I love funnin') goes through an SSBI (they won't do these for a person who would only need access to Secret or Confidential their entire career) and is adjudicated a TS clearance, but his command has determined that the job he will be doing while there is only at the Secret level, then the command should only grant him access to Secret. Now when Petty Officer Stains transfers three years later to his new command, they determine he will need access to TS, then based on the SSBI he was granted (good for five years) he can be cleared for access to TS. Then the command decides PO Stains will need to access SCI material, they read him into the program and he now has access to TS-SCI.
Of course Need-to-Know is another thing entirely.
So there you have it.... It will take months to get the Top Secret clearance and the SCI access....