Background Investigations

Professionals from the security clearance industry and Pentagon insiders both agree that when the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) took over responsibility for processing background investigations, the quality of investigations suffered because priority was placed on speed and efficiency in getting the investigations completed. This is the latest topic of

This week the Department of Justice filed a new complaint against security clearance investigation firm USIS. The filing accuses the company of filing incomplete investigations approximately 40 percent of the time, at least 665,000 cases. USIS has been under fire in recent months, as congress steps up efforts to reform

This article is not designed to be an item-by-item instruction manual for completing the Standard Form 86 (SF 86)/electronic Questionnaire for Investigation Processing (eQIP), but I hope to provide general information about completing the form and where to get help if you need it.

The latest step in the wave of security clearance reform is a renewed effort to apply ‘continuous monitoring’ to security-cleared professionals. The 2014 Intelligence Authorization Bill included a provision for ‘continuous evaluation’ – a requirement for agencies to evaluate public records such as credit histories and criminal backgrounds. Such electronic