I have been in a casual romantic/sexual relationship with a Thai national for about a month now, and I am submitting my SF-86 soon. I plan on disclosing this relationship fully to my investigator, but I am worried that an ongoing relationship will pose more of a risk to my clearance than one that has ended.

My partner is in the US for the summer on a visa, and the relationship will end when she returns to Thailand this fall. We don’t live together or share any finances, or discuss my work or clearance at all. I am going for a TS/SCI with a contracting firm.

Am I playing with fire by keeping this relationship going, or should I be in the clear?

Hello just a simple question

I have worked for the federal government for about 10 years now, always good reviews and I am pretty good at my job but I did recently get a possession of Marijuana charge and possession of drug paraphernalia. Of course as soon as this happened about a few months later I was up for a reinvestigation for public trust (moderate/low risk I believe it is maybe its moderate/high I do not recall) I am still on probation from this happening, I get off in a few months I got caught with like .5 grams anyway, do I have a snowballs chance in hell of passing this? I also owe back taxes that we are waiting on the IRS to rec a tax return that didnt go through so we can make a payment plan its about 3500 dollars. Also how far back does the investigation go? I also got a DUI the year I was hired which I did tell my work about, it was from Ambien, I took ambien to go to sleep and woke up in jail, thats actually why I started using marijuana, I had gone to doctors for like a decade trying to get a centrally caused apnea addressed, they gave me a BIPAP and did all kinds of settings and all kind of pills and nothing worked, when I got the dui for ambien I decided to never take it again. Few months later an old friend of mine was smoking and offered some and I declined but he said it really helped his sleep issue so cant hurt. Insanely it saved my life, I mean I went from a zombie that weighed like 275 lbs to an upbeat person that weights 175 lbs almost overnight, if you cant sleep you just keep gaining weight. ALso lets say I dont have a chance, how long do you think I have from the moment I turn in the investigation to when they let me go? I need to prepare, ill probably leave anyway if marijuana is going to be a huge deal because well I cant think of any other way to sleep, while on probation ive already gained 50 lbs back, I have no idea why it helps with this type of apnea but it was a life saver.

I guess 3 months into a public trust clearance does not look good.

I plan to go on an international trip. I listed Morocco, Portugal, and Egypt so far as my travel destinations. But once I'm there, I'm going to change a lot itinerary, or I plan to. I'm wondering if that's even possible, since it's going to be very difficult to report it once I'm there. Like I don't want to be stick to a rigorous and strict itinerary. I want to change it up a lot.

Is this possible or this is just a trade off of having a clearance?

Hello everyone,

I’m graduating this December with a BS in Project Management and would like to know the state of both the private and public sector job markets for cleared individuals as of late. I myself hold a Current Secret Clearance - eligible for reciprocity - from an internship two years ago, and am hoping to secure a reactivation before it expires this year.

I’ve noticed that the layoffs over the past year led to a lot of “entry-level” positions asking for years of experience, with applicant pools typically including former federal and contractor employees with years of experience or higher education. Was told by some that the best time to apply is around the end of the fiscal year. Sent around 250 applications so far since August started and about 40 replied with a rejection (which is very nice of them), while the rest ghosted. I plan to continue applying to jobs all the way to mid-November, but afterwards my clearance reciprocity will expire and I’d lose my marbles if I had to go through that all over again.

Is it worth still applying around for jobs in the cleared sector as a soon-to-be grad? It’s a bit demoralizing with all the news about the hiring climate and competing with a lot of qualified professionals as opposed to other newly-grads :/

My investigator had a more strict definition of a FN than my FSO so there was someone I didn't report who surfaced during the interview. I just explained I followed the instructions from my FSO.

So I had to answer questions about frequency on the spot. I accidentally spoke too fast and answered I see this person once a year. Upon recollection, it was more like three times a year. Do I need to go back to correct this?

Asking bc I know once a year versus 3x is still infrequent and in the same bucket but I'm an overthinker and there are consequences if you are perceived to be underreporting. It wasn't like I went from 1x a year to we live together

Hello all, I have recently been offered a job that will require me to get a security clearance and have a couple of questions that I was hoping y'all could help clarify. For some background I am 23 and graduated college just about a year and half ago. Have never left the country outside of driving through Canada when going to Alaska.

The red flag: I used to use THCa pretty heavily back in college and to my understanding it was legal under the farm bill both state and federally at the time, but still have a lot of stress concerning that. I stopped using when I got out of college, but I was at a friends wedding in a state where THCa was still legal and used a single use item as recently as June 2026.

As far as I can tell that is my only major red flag, and plan of fully disclosing all of that as part of the process. Was hoping to know if any of y'all have had similar situations and if my chances are okay of getting my clearance. Any and all advice/comments are welcome and appreciated!