Background Checks

The FBI.

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What is the best background check service anyone has used?

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The US Military’s for a high clearance. They spent around two months digging through my background interviewing neighbors and people who knew me. Two agents for two months on almost a daily basis.

My entire home town (well those who knew me) thought I was being suspected of some serious crime. The calls my mom got were hilarious.

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The FBI

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Until they write a dossier on your arse

DISA

OPM

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It costs under $1000 to do that background check. You had one or two agents from a nearby office and they maybe spent a few hours total just hitting a few of those you had as references. I've gone through the process twice (non-TS-SCI lasts 10 years) and it's not a big deal, the worst is filling out the post-9/11 SF86.

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Interesting opinion but wrong.

There were more than 20 people interviewed and those are known first degree contacts (people I listed directly). Those 20 were asked for other to interview. Yes I realize the agents were out of the nearest field office but the process was not nearly as high level as you think it was.

There are acronyms way above the ones you listed and when your talking about the lates 80s and developing some of the cryptology used to fend off the Soviets prying eyes it gets extremely stringent.

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There are acronyms way above the ones you listed

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"Way" above Top Secret - Sensitive Compartmented Intelligence (TS-SCI)?

Not really.

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when your talking about the lates 80s and developing some of the cryptology used to fend off the Soviets prying eyes it gets extremely stringent

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Still not "above" TS-SCI.

There is a lot of misinformation/poorly understood information out there about clearances versus background checks (they are related, but not the same thing), "access", classified levels, etc.

So - bottom line up front - there are exactly three security clearance levels - confidential (which is almost irrelevant, as virtually no one has a "confidential" security clearance, absent very unusual circumstances), secret and top secret.

Now, merely holding one of those clearance levels does not mean you get to see/read/listen to all of that. You need 2 things for access: clearance (minimum required for the information) AND "need to know." If you have those things, you are then "read on" to the information (meaning, you are placed on a roster of those with access, and the start date). When you no longer need access, you are "read off" (taken off the list and the date is recorded).

There are "code word" or what have you that are further compartmented but virtually all of them would be available to someone holding a TS-SCI clearance. That is the "SCI" portion. A "plain" TS is essentially worthless (or worth little to nothing more than Secret) in the modern classified information environment. I suppose it would have some trace value if you worked solely and exclusively in a coalition environment, but even then I would consider it more of a burden than an asset.


My bona fides are that I held a TS-SCI clearance for almost 30 years.

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The FBI.

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yep

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Like what?

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I'll give you an example of a situation that I came across. This was a lifetime ago so I don't recall everything exactly. It was my job to do interviews of soldiers that were trying to obtain a security/top secret clearance. This would involve us having to interview the soldier, or some of the people they listed that knew them well.

That's where we would often uncover things they were trying to hide. The people they listed would always say glowing things about the individual. During our interviews we would always ask for someone else that may have known them well. That's where the good stuff came from. That person would sometimes give a name of someone that the individual needing the clearance would not list. We'd reach out to that person and that person would not always have the best thing to say.