Most security clearance applications that are rejected by the Defense Industrial Security Clearance Office (DISCO) and the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) are due to missing or incomplete information. Applicants can help expedite the clearance process by ensuring their application is filled out completely and accurately with current phone numbers, addresses, and contacts.  If you have lived and worked overseas you should list references that are located in the United States who can verify the overseas activities. All employment, whether part-time or volunteering, and periods of unemployment are required to be listed.  All educational institutes attended within the scope of the question are required to be listed; if none then the last degree awarded should be listed.

A recent news story from New Mexico highlights the seriousness of conduct that is directed towards law enforcement officials. According to an article filed by Reuters, Yolanda Arguello, a kitchen employee working as a contractor for the New Mexico Department of Corrections licked the cheese on sandwiches and sucked on ice cubes or placed them on the floor before serving them to probation and parole officers. As a result, she is facing felony battery charges on a peace officer and her security clearance was revoked.

A recent Federal Register report discussed the possibility of using DNA testing as a part of the applicant screening process. DNA testing, it was noted, could be used in the same way fingerprints are currently, and be checked against criminal investigations using DNA evidence.

“The Federal Government is looking into the feasibility of using biometric identifiers other than fingerprints in the security clearance process,” the Pentagon said. It was also quick to point out that any DNA collection would be covered in a separate rule-making (and I’m guessing it would also include a lot of very friendly back and forth with federal employee labor unions, the ACLU, and other interested parties).

Among the proposals on the table as Congress looks to reform the security clearance process in the wake of the Navy Yard Shooting – better cooperation with local law enforcement, continuous monitoring, and allowing background investigators to use the Internet when conducting background investigations.

This week the House of Representatives Oversight and Government Reform Committee released the findings of a new 44-page report outlining the flaws in the security clearance process.