While most people are usually concerned about the collateral damage caused by a criminal arrest or felony conviction on their employment prospects, your major concern should be the effect of a felony conviction or criminal arrest on your security clearance. Prior to performing any military related job, it is imperative that you obtain security clearance. Unfortunately, a criminal conviction or felony arrest can affect your ability to be considered for the job. Therefore, before obtaining a government or military contract, it is important that you consult a criminal defense attorney if you have a prior criminal conviction or arrest in order to weigh your options.

Any kind of government or military contract which entails some level of access to restricted information needs security clearance. There are no exceptions to this rule. Generally, there are three different types of security clearance:

• Confidential
• Top secret
• Secret

Top secret security clearance is further classified into two classes - SCI (Sensitive Compartmentalized Information) and SSBI (Single Scope Background Investigation). Most individuals are normally overly concerned about:

• Obtaining security clearance
• Renewing existing security clearance

Besides cyclic arbitrary re-investigations for a majority of personnel, it is also important to point out that top secret security clearance is normally reappraised after every five years. Secret clearance on the other hand is normally reassessed after every ten years, while confidential clearance is reexamined after every fifteen years. You can be prohibited from obtaining security clearance in the United States if:

• You are an addict or constantly use controlled substances such as marijuana.
• You are mentally unstable.
• You are a former military staff that was dishonorably discharged

Since people are normally appraised based on loyalty, honesty, reliability, trustworthiness and responsibility, it is imperative that you consult a criminal defense attorney in your area to determine if you are either eligible or ineligible for various security clearance based on your criminal convictions or felony arrests.

In contrast to popular belief, not all criminal arrests and felony convictions will automatically make you ineligible for security clearance. Then again, it is important to point out that criminal arrest and felony convictions can prove to be problematic, particularly if there are other factors that may reflect negatively on your character. This is because examiners tend to view certain crimes such as driving while intoxicated, grand theft, solicitation of a prostitute or embezzlement harshly. According to most examiners, persons with criminal records are susceptible to blackmail thus the reason why certain crimes can affect your security clearance.

In the event that your security clearance has been revoked or declined, you have the right of appeal. But since you have limited knowledge in criminal law or legislations relating to security clearance, it is important that you hire an experienced criminal attorney to represent you at the appeal hearing. Appeals are normally granted to with an aim of providing persons whose security clearances have been revoked or declined with an opportunity of presenting their cases for consideration.

An assessment of past adjudications indicates that the board can overlook a wide range of criminal arrests and felony convictions so long as the individual shows willingness to assume responsibilities for their actions. It is for this reason that you need to hire a criminal attorney to help you schedule an appeal with the Defense Office of Hearings and Appeals.

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Christopher J McCann is an OC DUI lawyer and has 12 years of experience with criminal defense cases in California. You can follow him on twitter at @CJM_Law_Firm to learn the latest updates on drunk driving.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 20th, 2013 at 9:01 am and is filed under Career, Career Coaching, Legal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.