Security Clearances and Indefinite Suspensions: Federal Circuit vs the MSPB
A recent decision on an indefinite suspension and revoking an employee’s security clearance highlights a conflict between two courts.
A recent decision on an indefinite suspension and revoking an employee’s security clearance highlights a conflict between two courts.
If a federal job requires that the employee maintain a security clearance, then if the clearance is revoked the employee no longer meets the job’s requirements. No clearance, no job.
Fathers who work for the federal government or for defense contractors make many sacrifices for their children. But sometimes their children can cost them their security clearance. The author explains why this is the case.
What happens in a federal employee’s bedroom can haunt him or her in the office.
The government’s need for people who can be trusted with sensitive information is not abating. The ranks of federal employees and contractors who held a security clearance rose by 3.3 percent in FY 2011 according to a new report from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
Nexus was not an issue when a Navy Security Specialist was arrested for taking photos in the wrong places. The arrest led to the suspension of his clearance, and that led to suspension from his job.
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence recently reported a 5 percent decline in the number of federal employees who held top secret clearance in the 2010 fiscal year as compared to the previous fiscal year.
A Physicist/Scientist with the Naval Surface Warfare Center was not able to persuade the appeals court to overturn an indefinite suspension that lasted 370 days after the Navy pulled his security clearance.
A federal employee who lost her security clearance was reassigned and subsequently issued an indefinite suspension because she was no longer qualified for her regular position. The employee argued the agency took too long to take action but a federal court does not agree.
It’s not a good day at an appellate agency when a court writes: “We explain these reasons in some detail in hopes that the MSPB and litigants before the MSPB will better understand the applicable law.” The court upheld the firing of a former Secret Service agent for not having the required security clearance.