1878

Super dumb if true as reported.

1879

It’s troubling, but also clear that we’re getting one side of a story. Fired employees tend to tell stories that may omit some things. For instance, I was struck by this line from the story:

Some of these dismissals, probations and remote work appointments could have potentially been a result of inconsistencies that came up during the background check process, where a staffer could have, for example, misstated the last time they used marijuana.

In other words, someone needing a fairly reasonably high-level security clearance may have disclosed previous pot smoking…but said they stopped in 2017. And then an occurrence was found in background check interviews that’s more recent than that. That’s not criminal, just an honest mistake…but it probably could be disqualifying for the security clearance needed for the job they may have been hired for originally.

Anyone who’s ever had to give a background check interview for another person as a reference knows that the investigators who conduct them are looking for everything if the security clearance is high enough.

1880

But mostly they are looking for out for if that person ever openly planned to overthrow the government. My background check interviews maybe haven’t been for more than the low level security clearances.

1881

As is probably imaginable, when I was managing a restaurant in McLean, VA that hired a lot of college students who were locals, I got roped into at least 10 background interviews for different employment references over the years. Some are pretty relaxed and yes, “overthrow the government” is a biggie.

But some are WAY more interested in far more personal matters. Dating and if I observed out of the ordinary promiscuous behavior. Drinking. And yes, lots about casual drug use.

One of the most intensive interviews I had to do was for a casual friend I’d known since high school and then (in a weird set of coincidences) went to the same university, worked the same restaurant in college, and then briefly worked in the same restaurant after college. She was applying for a fairly high-up job in financial crimes with the FBI, and those questions were incredibly in-depth, and some were clearly meant to try to trip up her personal disclosures or interview statements. And at first that was puzzling to me, but then it made sense, I think. That financial crimes unit is probably dealing with folks who can fairly surreptitiously and digitally move gigantic amounts of money that may be trivial to them in order to cover up their criming. And so the FBI wants to make sure they don’t have anyone who even remotely waffles on the whole honesty and integrity thing.

It’s worth noting: marijuana use remains a federal crime. And there are a ton of job postings, especially with DoJ and DoD for both official government but also subcontractor work that stipulate no marijuana use within 1 year of employment/application for employment.

1882

Yeah, this is why the feds need to decriminalize MJ.

Until you do that, the feds can’t really just ignore it. It’s either illegal or its not. It shouldn’t be.

1883

I agree that it shouldn’t be illegal. For now, it is.

And honestly, I can see someone they really want getting a probationary hire if it turns out that person smoked pot in the last year and fully discloses it.

What might be the killer on that is if someone said they hadn’t in an interview and then the background check turned up some occurrence. That discrepancy is likely at least as much a deal-breaker I think.

1884

I had to go through an SSBI to get clearance to be a nuclear trained officer in the Navy. They ask a lot of questions/do background research on your finances. The number one reason people sell secrets to foreign governments, by far, is for money. So they’re looking for evidence of financial insecurity, recurring debt, gambling problems, etc.

1885

Matt, you probably have a better sense of this than I do, but I also thought they were looking for reasons why a foreign adversary could blackmail someone. For example, if they used MJ and lied about it, not only is that something which speaks poorly to their character, but it’s also something that a hostile power could use to blackmail someone.

I used to live a few doors down from a guy who worked at NSA (no idea what he did or how senior, only that he was super-weird, secretive, and never talked to anyone). We were interviewed about him multiple times. Similarly, we were interviewed re: a friend who worked at CIA a couple of times over the course of a decade or so. Joys of living in the DC area!

1886

@Aleck, that’s a good point. Ultimately, what it comes down to is that we really need to decriminalize marijuana at a federal level. As @triggercut said, it is a federal crime, as stupid as that is. When you’re talking about the White House, I can see the security precautions of making sure you don’t have people there breaking federal crimes.

Which is really stupid. We shouldn’t be losing talented young staffers due to these stupid and racist laws. We legalize marijuana and so many problems go away.

1887

You’re right, it’s been a few years since I’ve done one, but the other questions largely revolved around foreign contacts and financial issues.

1888

Yeah, in the end “marijuana” may be a red herring here.

When they’re doing interviews for background checks, as @aleck mentioned, they’re looking for things that make a potential hire at even medium clearance levels vulnerable. And deal-breakers may be perfectly legal shit. Does the person drink too much past a certain frequency? That’s sometimes a deal-breaker…but not illegal. Hell, if they found out you had two engagements in five years that broke off because of your own infidelity, THAT can be a reason to turn down the clearance request. If they find out from separate friends that you have what might be considered by some to be odd behaviors, even…that can be a flag. So yeah, someone can say “I got reassigned or turned down after my preliminary hire because they found out I smoked pot in the last year.” But what may be the reason is “We did a background check and found out you’re Seth Rogen.”

1889

Same here. They went and found some of my middle school classmates as well. It was crazy in-depth.

1890

Yeah it was really odd to get a clearance as a 18 year old kid because they wanted contacts and addresses for 10 years prior. You want to interview people about what I was like as an 8 year old? Suddenly all those “permanent record” threats from the teachers become serious.

When I got mine I was told mj use was not a deal breaker (and this was way back in the 90s). But LYING about mj use was an absolute deal breaker.

1891

This has been my experience as well. According to the Daily Beast article that broke the story, FBI and the NSA both say that MJ up to a point is okay, as long as you don’t lie about it.

Also, Psaki is leading the pushback.

1892

It was a long time ago for me but any mj use at all, admitted or not, was disqualifying in naval nuclear power.

1893

If I remember correctly, anyone who interfaces with any part of the nuclear program directly had tougher clearance standards. I know for the Department of Energy they had pretty strict standards.

1894

I was under the impression several agencies were doing away with the have ever part of these policies and now it’s like a handful of years back or a few. If they’re not addicts, laying off for a few years shouldn’t be too difficult.

It should just be legalized federally though. I mean it’s not just a problem for federal jobs. Because it’s illegal federally, even in the states that legalized it, you’d be an idiot to risk your job for it. I guess that’s why so many retirees just have at it.

1895

I think this is the case. But, I believe anything related to the nuclear program still has pretty strict standards, like Energy.

As a bit of deviation, this is getting a fair bit of play right now.

1896

I looked into becoming an auditor for the FBI a few years ago. At the time you could not have used marijuana at all in like, the past 3 years, and any other illegal substances for 10 years. You also could not have “abused” medication beyond the recommended dosage without a doctor prescribing it. This included using ibuprofin beyond the recommended dosage. I use 800mg of ibuprofin from time to time to help with my back, which from experience is what my doctor would prescribe me anyways, and was allegedly a disqualifying event. I did some brief research to see if there were any ifs/ands/or buts - but the fact that I enjoyed mushrooms in Amsterdam about 6 years ago seemed to be enough to not pursue that avenue.

Critics from inside and outside the FBI have said that the marijuana piece has made it very difficult to recruit for the FBI the past few years. Especially within the IT/cyber fields. I think the FBI had to relax the policy a bit for cyber folks specifically, or otherwise they couldn’t find any candidates.

1897

I mean there is certainly a case to be made some job clearances should have higher bars than simply ‘is this illegal’. Financial stuff, such as gambling debts, can be perfectly legal, but disqualifying for good reason. So I can see some jobs still restricting access for any pot use (even if I have a hard time thinking of a valid case for this).

But 100% agree. Legalize. This is an easy political win for Dems. If even states like Utah have medical exemptions, and Missouri and Arizona full legalization, there isn’t any downside.