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For use by the United Nations, see Security Clearance (UN) UN and U.N. redirect here. ...
A United Nations Security Clearance (SC) is a required procedure and document for United Nations staff travelling to areas designated as security phase areas, with numbers ranging from one to five (no-phase areas are calm countries where no SC is required). ...
A security clearance is a status granted to individuals allowing them access to classified information, i.e. state secrets. The term "security clearance " is also sometimes used in private organizations that have a formal process to vet employees for access to sensitive information. A clearance by itself is normally not sufficient to gain access; the organization must determine that the cleared individual has a need to know the information. No one is supposed to be granted access to classified information solely because of rank, position, or a security clearance. A typical classified document. ...
Secrecy is the condition of hiding information from others. ...
In this day an age of security checking, bombings, money laundering etc. ...
Government organizations, especially those related to defence and intelligence, often deal with information which is considered very sensitive. ...
Canada
- Further information: Information Classification in Canada
A typical classified document. ...
Background Government classified information is governed by the Treasury Board Government Security Policy (GSP), the Security of Information Act and Privacy Act. Only those who are deemed to be trustworthy and have been cleared are allowed to access sensitive information. In the government of Canada the Treasury Board is the only statutory cabinet committee. ...
Checks includes basic demographic and criminal record check for all levels, and depending on individual appointment's requirement, credit checks, loyalty and field checks might be conducted by the RCMP and/or CSIS. RCMP redirects here. ...
“CSIS†redirects here. ...
Clearance is granted, depending on types of appointment, by individual Federal government departments/agencies or by private company security officers. Those who have contracts with Public Works and Government Services Canada are bound by the Industrial Security Program, a sub-set of the GSP. Public Works and Government Services Canada, also referred to as Department of Public Works and Government Services, is the department of the government of Canada with responsibility for the governments internal servicing and administration. ...
Hierarchy 5 levels of clearances exist[1]:
Security Screening Individuals who needs to have RS/ERS because of their job or access to federal government assets will be required to sign the Personnel Screening, Consent and Authorization Form (TBS/SCT 330-23e). - Reliability Status (RS)
- Basic reliability checks are done by verifying personal data, educational and professional qualifications, data on previous employment and references. As well, a name check of criminal records may be required.
- This level of clearance does not grant the right to access to protected or classified information. Anyone who has access to unclassified or undesignated information/assets of the federal government requires this level.
- Enhanced Reliability Status (ERS)
- In addition to the basic reliability checks, enhanced reliability status includes a criminal records name check and may require a fingerprint check and a credit check.
- This level of clearance will grant the right to access protected A,B & C information/assets on a need-to-know basis.
Government organizations, especially those related to defence and intelligence, often deal with information which is considered very sensitive. ...
Clearances Individuals who needs to have C/S/TS clearances because of their job or access to federal government assets will be required to sign the Security Clearance Form (TBS/SCT 330-60e). - Confidential (Level I)
- In addition to the ERS checks, foreign employments, immediate relatives and marriages/common-law relationships must be declared and be screened.
- This level of clearance will grant the right to access to protected and classified information up to Confidential level on a need-to-know basis. Department Head have the discretion to allow for an individual to access Secret level information without higher level clearance on a case-to-case basis.
- Secret (Level II)
- Same as Confidential.
- This level of clearance will grant the right to access to protected and classified information up to Secret level on a need-to-know basis. Department Head have the discretion to allow for an individual to access Top Secret level information without higher level clearance on a case-to-case basis.
- Top Secret (Level III)
- In addition to the checks at the Secret level, foreign travels, assets and character references must be given. Field check will also be conducted prior to granting the clearance.
- This level of clearance will grant the right to access to all protected and classified information on a need-to-know basis.
In order to access protected information, one must have at least ERS, as of any Government of Canada employees, or those who have access to information or assets that are protected by the Federal Government. However, Government employees by Order-in-council are not subjected to this policy. [2] Government organizations, especially those related to defence and intelligence, often deal with information which is considered very sensitive. ...
Government organizations, especially those related to defence and intelligence, often deal with information which is considered very sensitive. ...
Government organizations, especially those related to defence and intelligence, often deal with information which is considered very sensitive. ...
A typical classified document. ...
An Order-in-Council is an executive order issued in Commonwealth Realms operating under the Westminster system. ...
Clearances at the RS/ERS/C/S level are valid for 10 years while TS is valid for 5 years. Because security clearances are granted by individual departments instead of one government agency, clearances are revoked at the end of appointment or when an individual transfers out of the department.
Legal Prior to granting access to information, an individual who has been cleared must sign a Security Screening Certificate and Briefing Form (TBS/SCT 330-47) indicating their willingness to be bound by several Acts of Parliament during and after their appointment finishes. Anyone who have been given a security clearance and release protected/classified information without legal authority is in breach of trust under section 18(2) of the Security of Information Act with a punishment up to 2 years in jail. Those who have access to Special Operational Information are held at higher standards. The release of such information is punishable by law, under section 17(2) of the Security of Information Act, liable to imprisonment for life. [3] In Westminster System parliaments, an Act of Parliament is a part of the law passed by the Parliament. ...
The Criminal Code of Canada, Section 748 (3) states that no person convicted of an offence under Section 121 (frauds on the Government), Section 124 (selling or purchasing office), or Section 418 (selling defective stores to Her Majesty), has, after that conviction, the capacity to contract with Her Majesty or to receive any benefits under a contract between Her Majesty and any other person or to hold office under Her Majesty unless a pardon has been granted. (This effectively prohibits granting of a Reliability Status to any such individual.) [4] The Canadian Criminal Code (formal title An Act respecting the Criminal Law) is the codification of most of the criminal offenses and procedure in Canada. ...
United Kingdom - Further information: UK Security clearance
Clearance is checked at four levels depending on the classification of materials that can be accessed — Counter-Terrorist Check (CTC), Baseline Check (BC), Security Check (SC), and Developed Vetting (DV). Security Check allows an individual long-term unsupervised access to protectively marked SECRET material, whilst for TOP SECRET Developed Vetting is required. All Officers within the British Armed Forces are cleared to SC by default. Those with security clearance must usually sign the Official Secrets Act. This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ...
Official Secrets Act warning sign, Foulness. ...
History After America's entry into WWII, Britain changed its security classifications to match American classifications. Prior to the US coming into the war, the classifications included the top classification: "Most Confidential". Documents were then shared with the US, when they entered the war. Unfortunately these British classifications were not understood in the US and classified information appeared in the US press. This spearheaded the uniformity in classification between the UK and the US.
United States
Hierarchy -
A security clearance is generally granted to a particular level of clearance. The exception to this is levels above compartmentalized access, when an individual is given access to a particular type of data. An example of a U.S. classified document; page 13 of a U.S. National Security Agency report[1] on the USS Liberty incident, partially declassified and released to the public in July 2003. ...
Confidential The simplest security clearance to get. This level typically requires a few weeks to a few months of investigation. A Confidential clearance requires a NACLC investigation and must be renewed (with another investigation) every 15 years. However, this level of clearance is no longer used in the US military and has been replaced with For Official Use Only (FOUO), which does not require a background check. National Agency Check with Local Agency Check and Credit Check (NACLC) is a type of background check required in United States for granting of security clearances. ...
Secret A Secret clearance, also known as Ordinary Secret, requires a few months to a year to fully investigate depending on the individual's activities. Some instances where individuals would take longer than normal to be investigated are many past residences, having residences in foreign countries, or having relatives outside the United States. Bankruptcy and unpaid bills as well as criminal charges will more than likely disqualify an applicant for approval. Poor financial history is the number one cause of rejection, and foreign activities and criminal record are also common causes for disqualification. A Secret clearance requires a National Agency Check, a Local Agency Check, and a Credit investigation; it must also be reinvestigated every 10 years.
Top Secret Top Secret is a more stringent clearance. A Top Secret, or "TS", clearance, is often given as the result of a Single Scope Background Investigation, or SSBI. Top Secret clearances generally afford one access to data that affects national security, counterterrorism/counterintelligence, or other highly sensitive data. There are far fewer individuals with TS clearances than Secret clearances. A TS clearance can take as little as 3-6 months to obtain, but more often takes 6-18 months, while sometimes taking up to 3 years to obtain. The SSBI must be renewed every 5 years. This page is a candidate to be moved to Wikisource. ...
Security measures taken to protect the Houses of Parliament in London, England. ...
Counter-terrorism refers to the practices, tactics, and strategies that governments, militaries, and other groups adopt in order to fight terrorism. ...
Counterintelligence or counter-espionage is the act of seeking and indentifying espionage activities. ...
Compartmented Information As with TS clearances, Sensitive Compartmented Information (SCI) or Special Access Program (SAP) clearances are assigned only after one has been through the rigors of a Single Scope Background Investigation. SCI access, however, is assigned only in "compartments." See Compartmentalization (intelligence). These compartments are necessarily separated from each other organizationally, so an individual with access to one compartment will not necessarily have access to another. Each compartment may include its own additional clearance process. Sensitive Compartmented Information (SCI) is a type of classified information. ...
This page is a candidate to be moved to Wikisource. ...
In matters concerning intelligence, whether public or private sector, compartmentalization of information means to limit access to information to persons who directly need to know certain such information in order to perform certain tasks. ...
A representative lists of kinds of information that may require compartmented access, without using specific national terminology, includes:
Such compartmentalized clearances may be expressed as "John has a TS/SCI", where all clearance descriptors are spelled out verbally. For example, The US National Security Agency used to use specialized terms such as "Umbra", [5] [6] [7] This classification is reported to be a compartment within the "Special Intelligence" compartment of SCI [8]. The various NSA compartments have been simplified; all but the most sensitive compartments are marked "CCO", meaning "handle through COMINT channels only". The German Lorenz cipher machine, used in World War II for encryption of very high-level general staff messages Cryptography (or cryptology; derived from Greek κÏυπτός kryptós hidden, and the verb γÏάφω gráfo write or λεγειν legein to speak) is the study of message secrecy. ...
The £124 million Taranis UAV built by BAE Systems An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) is an aircraft with no onboard pilot. ...
IMINT, short for IMagery INTelligence, is an intelligence gathering discipline which collects information via satellite and aerial photography. ...
SIGINT stands for SIGnals INTelligence, which is intelligence-gathering by interception of signals, whether by radio interception or other means. ...
The mushroom cloud of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, Japan, 1945, rose some 18 km (11 mi) above the epicenter. ...
“NSA†redirects here. ...
SIGINT stands for SIGnals INTelligence, which is intelligence-gathering by interception of signals, whether by radio interception or other means. ...
The US Department of Defense establishes, separately from intelligence compartments, special access programs (SAP) when vulnerability of specific information is exceptional; and the normal criteria for determining eligibility for access applicable to information classified at the same level are not deemed sufficient to protect the information from unauthorized disclosure. The number of people cleared for access to such programs is typically kept low. Information about stealth technology, for example, often requires such access. F-117 stealth attack plane Stealth technology is a sub-discipline of electronic countermeasures which covers a range of techniques used with aircraft, ships and missiles, in order to make them less visible (ideally invisible) to radar, infrared and other detection methods. ...
Jobs that require a clearance A common misconception is that security clearance holders work as spies or in intelligence fields. Anyone with access to classified data requires a clearance at or higher than the level the data is classified at. For this reason security clearances are required for a wide range of jobs, from senior management to janitor.
Jobs that require a security clearance can be found either as positions working directly for the Federal government or authorized Federal contractors. Over time, more clearance jobs are being outsourced to contractors. [1] Due to an overall shortage in security-cleared candidates and a long time frame to obtain the credentials for an uncleared worker, those with clearance are often paid more than their non-cleared equivalent counterparts. [2][3]
Requirements for a clearance The vetting process for a security clearance is usually undertaken only when someone is hired or transferred into a position that requires access to classified information. The employee is typically fingerprinted and asked to fill out a detailed life history form, including all foreign travel, which becomes a starting point for an investigation into the candidate's suitability. This process can include several types of investigations, depending on the level of clearance required: In this day an age of security checking, bombings, money laundering etc. ...
This article is about human fingerprints. ...
- National Agency Check with Local Agency Check and Credit Check (NACLC). An NACLC is required for a Secret, L, and CONFIDENTIAL access. (See: Background check)
- Single Scope Background Investigation (SSBI). An SSBI is required for Top Secret, Q, and SCI access, and involves agents contacting employers, coworkers and other individuals. Standard elements include checks of employment; education; organization affiliations; local agencies; where the subject has lived, worked, or gone to school; and interviews with persons who know the individual. The investigation may include an NACLC on the candidate’s spouse or cohabitant and any immediate family members who are U.S. citizens other than by birth or who are not U.S. citizens.
- Polygraph. Some agencies may require polygraph examinations. The most common examinations are Counter Intelligence (CI) and Full Scope (Lifestyle) polygraphs. While a positive SSBI is sufficient for access to SCI-level information, polygraphs are routinely administered for "staff-like" access to particular agencies.
If issues of concern surface during any phase of security processing, coverage is expanded to resolve those issues. At lower levels, interim clearances may be issued to individuals who are presently under investigation, but whom have passed some preliminary, automatic process. Such automatic processes include things such as credit checks, felony checks, and so on. An interim clearance may be denied (although the final clearance may still be granted) for having a large amount of debt or having admitted to seeing a doctor for a mental health condition. National Agency Check with Local Agency Check and Credit Check (NACLC) is a type of background check required in United States for granting of security clearances. ...
A background check is the process of looking up official and commercial records about a person. ...
This page is a candidate to be moved to Wikisource. ...
This article is about the forensic instrument. ...
In the United States, a credit score is a credit rating that represents an estimate of an individuals financial creditworthiness as calculated by a statistical model. ...
For the record label, see Felony Records The term felony is a term used in common law systems for very serious crimes, whereas misdemeanors are considered to be less serious offenses. ...
Mental health is a term used to describe either a level of cognitive or emotional wellbeing or an absence of mental illness. ...
Investigations conducted by one federal agency are no longer supposed to be duplicated by another federal agency when those investigations are current within 5 years and meet the scope and standards for the level of clearance required. The high level clearance process can be lengthy, sometimes taking a year or more. The long time needed for new appointees to be cleared has been cited as hindering U.S. presidential transitions.
The security clearance forms are available at http://www.gsa.gov/Portal/gsa/ep/formslibrary.do?formType=SF by searching for SF86 and SF85.
Security briefings In the U.S., once the clearance is granted the candidate is briefed on "the proper safeguarding of classified information and on the criminal, civil, and administrative sanctions that may be imposed on an individual who fails to protect classified information from unauthorized disclosure." He or she is also required to sign an approved non-disclosure agreement (e.g. form SF-312). High level clearances are reviewed periodically and any "adverse information" reports received at any time can trigger a review. When a cleared person leaves their job they are often "debriefed" -- reminded of their ongoing obligations to protect the information they were allowed to see. A non-disclosure agreement (NDA), also called a confidential disclosure agreement (CDA), confidentiality agreement or secrecy agreement, is a legal contract between at least two parties which outlines confidential materials or knowledge the parties wish to share with one another for certain purposes, but wish to restrict from generalized use. ...
Standard Form 312 (SF 312) is a non-disclosure agreement required under Executive Order 13292 to be signed by employees of the Federal Government or one of its contractors when they are granted a security clearance for access to classified information. ...
Individuals who have had security clearances revoked In the post World War II era there have been several highly publicized, and often controversial, cases of government officials having their security clearances revoked. These officials include: Combatants Allied powers: China France Great Britain Soviet Union United States and others Axis powers: Germany Italy Japan and others Commanders Chiang Kai-shek Charles de Gaulle Winston Churchill Joseph Stalin Franklin Roosevelt Adolf Hitler Benito Mussolini Hideki TÅjÅ Casualties Military dead: 17,000,000 Civilian dead: 33,000...
J. Robert Oppenheimer[1] (April 22, 1904 – February 18, 1967) was an American theoretical physicist, best known for his role as the director of the Manhattan Project, the World War II effort to develop the first nuclear weapons, at the secret Los Alamos laboratory in New Mexico. ...
Wen Ho Lee (Chinese: æŽæ–‡å’Œ; Pinyin: LÇ Wénhé; born December 21, 1939) is a Taiwanese American scientist who worked for the University of California operated Los Alamos National Laboratory and was accused of stealing secrets about the U.S.s nuclear arsenal for China. ...
John Deutch John Mark Deutch (born July 27, 1938) was Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) from May 10, 1995 until December 14, 1996. ...
This article is about the American national security advisor. ...
Alan Mathison Turing, OBE, FRS (23 June 1912 – 7 June 1954) was an English mathematician, logician, and cryptographer. ...
References - ^ Security Policy-Manager's Handbook
- ^ Guide to the Audit of Security - March 2004
- ^ Security of Information Act]
- ^ ISM Chapter 2 Part I
- ^ NSA Bibliographies. NSA Bibliographies (2007-09-27).
- ^ William H. Payne v. National Security Agency. William H. Payne v. National Security Agency (2007-09-27).
- ^ US Spying on Indian Nuclear Scientists. The NSA has been spying on Indian nuclear scientists by tapping phone conversations (2007-09-27).
- ^ National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 24. Declassified documents and Archive publications on U.S. Intelligence (2007-09-27).
Year 2007 (MMVII) is the current year, a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar and the AD/CE era in the 21st century. ...
is the 270th day of the year (271st in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ...
Year 2007 (MMVII) is the current year, a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar and the AD/CE era in the 21st century. ...
is the 270th day of the year (271st in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ...
Year 2007 (MMVII) is the current year, a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar and the AD/CE era in the 21st century. ...
is the 270th day of the year (271st in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ...
Year 2007 (MMVII) is the current year, a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar and the AD/CE era in the 21st century. ...
is the 270th day of the year (271st in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ...
See also In matters concerning intelligence, whether public or private sector, compartmentalization of information means to limit access to information to persons who directly need to know certain such information in order to perform certain tasks. ...
The following list of terms is used to indicate type, level, or scope of security clearance and background investigation in the United States. ...
A National Nuclear Security Administration identification badge indicating the bearer has a Q clearance Q clearance is a United States Department of Energy (DOE) security clearance equivalent to a United States Department of Defense Top Secret (TS) clearance. ...
Yankee White is a security clearance given in the United States for personnel working with the President. ...
Security Advisory Opinion (SAO) or Washington Special Clearance,[1] commonly called security clearance, administrative clearance, or administrative processing,[2] is a process the United States Department of State and the diplomatic missions of the United States use in deciding to grant or deny a United States visa to certain visa...
External links - (DoD) Factors Used for Determining Security Clearance Approval/Disapproval
- UK MOD's Defence Vetting Agency
- Crown Prosecution Service (UK) document on security classifications
- [4] First person account of NSA interview and background investigation (also applicable for CIA, FBI, etc.)
- [5] Questions and answers related to US government-sponsored security clearances in accordance with the National Industrial Security Program (NISP)
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