In response to my last article, many people were curious on what the limitations are on their free speech and what ability the government has to pierce someone’s anonymity. This is a really hard question to answer, because the Federl Government1 does not want people to know how to game the system or the full capabilities of their investigations. I don’t have any particular insight into the investigation process, besides what I was able to gather from public sources, a few informal interviews, and a lot of research. But since the public sources are scattered and hard to find, I wanted to make a single, consolidated source for all of my best, educated guesses, on what can and cannot be said.2
Federal Applicants, including internal promotions, essentially go through 3 screenings, HR, Interviews/Hiring Manager, and Security Clearance. Any of these 4 groups can essentially prevent you from being hired, but the processes have very different incentive structures. After that, there is the additional challenge of keeping your job.
HR
HR is the least likely screener to eliminate you because of a political or religious opinion you expressed. This might go against your stereotype of HR, but the simple fact is, none of us have the time or motivation to violate a policy to prevent you from getting a job. HR is expected to read every single resume determine if they meet the minimum qualifications for a position. We are prevented from using any AI tool, besides a questionnaire screener, that is quite frankly a joke. Each job posting can have 100 applicants, and we can go through several of these in a day. We simply do not have the time to facebook stalk any applicant and disqualify them based on a political opinion, especially since we can get sued and disciplined for doing so.
The only possible exception is if you include something political on your resume. Then it is right in front of them, and we could let their bias quickly put you in the not referred pile. I still think that is extremely unlikely, because none of us care enough to do that. But you should keep political stuff off your resume to the extent practical anyways for the next step which is...
Interviewers and Hiring Manager
Usually, the Hiring Manager is one of three interviewers, though sometimes there are multiple rounds of interviews. Usually, everyone that interviews you will be your coworkers in some capacity, and they have essentially the same incentives as your hiring manager, so I will treat them as one group. These people have the biggest incentive to refuse to hire you based on what your political opinions. Some of this could be malicious, but most commonly it is that the government culture is very nonpartisan, considering you have to work through multiple administrations, and they don’t want to have to deal with the guy who brings up politics during the water cooler talks. This culture is so strong that even when January 6 was actively happening, none of my coworkers even commented about it one way or another.
To get past this screen, anonymity and privacy are your keys skills. They are fairly likely to put your name in a google search, but they have no ability to dig deeper and find out your hidden secrets. Avoid political posts in social media, political bumper stickers, and don’t mention politics in your job interview. They usually don’t care about how you vote and are just trying to confirm you will not be obnoxious to work with and that you will not do something that gets you cancelled, or their office picketed.
Security Clearance/Suitability
The most opaque part of the process, and the one most people are worried about. There is an initial suitability process that everyone goes through, but they are not going to disqualify you for speech. They also have a massive case load, and are just going to run your credit, check for criminal record, and make sure that your credentials are accurate. Security Clearance is a separate process and after reforms, there are now 3 main levels of security clearance with different investigation standards. They now do continuous automated vetting on all security clearances, so if you are ever arrested or declare bankruptcy, they will know about it quickly.
These investigations are focused on whether you are loyal to the US, loyal to any foreign country, have ever advocated to forcibly overthrow the US government, use force or violence to prevent others from exercising their rights, engage in terrorism, or been a member of an organization that believed any of the preceding. I do not believe that this is a high hurdle to clear, and are acts I’ve never done, even anonymously, and unequivocally condemn. But if you say, advocated support for the January 6 insurrection, or the Unite the Right Rally, you could be in trouble.3
Confidential
This is an easy level to pass. They check to make sure you are a citizen, run a credit check, and look for criminal history. There are self-report questions in an SF-85 that ask for additional information, but they do not even verify it.
Secret
This is a slightly higher hurdle, but only slightly. You will have to full out an SF-86 which asks for a ton of information. It is 136 pages long, and if you’re serious about getting a secret position, you should read through it now.
The ways they verify the information are included here, but they are all automated and not looking at social media. You might be interviewed, but only if the automated screening turns up something concerning. Posting something online is not going to get you in trouble at this stage.
Top Secret
Absolutely brutal. Everything above, plus an in-depth interview with you, your family members, and your references. They also ask your family and references for additional people to interview, that you won’t know about. And here is where they do an in-depth check of publicly available social media. They will comb through the last 7 years of publicly available social media, but they are prevented from asking your social media passwords, and nowhere are you required to disclose pen names you write under. Anonymity should still protect you at this stage.
https://www.odni.gov/files/NCSC/documents/Regulations/SEAD_5.pdf
The other thing they check is that you did not lie in any of your previous security clearances that did not have as strong vetting. The makes honesty, usually the best policy, but never volunteer more information than is necessary.
SCI/SAP/Yankee White
These are technically subdivisions underneath Top Secret, but the way the operate is clouded in mystery. These are often parts of the Intelligence Community, and arguably the deepest of the Deep State. There is essentially no public information on the methods they use. Polygraphs are a likely addition to these jobs. Theoretically, the SEAD memo should apply to those positions as well, but I don’t trust it. Examples of these positions are designing spy satellites for the CIA and personal security for the President. Anonymous, private, and deleted social media posts could be fair game for as little as we know. Assume they will find out everything about you.
There are a lot of arguments that the IC has weaponized the Security Clearance Process against the Right to prevent them from gaining power. I disagree. Based on personal conversations with members of the IC, they have weaponized the security clearance process on all extremists regardless of whether they are on the Right or the Left. They couldn’t care less who you vote for, but they are trying to keep out anyone against general neoliberalism, globalization, the American Hegemony. This possibly disadvantages the Far Left more, since every communist is automatically viewed with suspicion.
If you want one of these jobs, be as maximally boring as possible. Never attend any protest, never join an organization, and never post anything online. Many think the Feds specifically encourage protests to get violent just to get everyone in the protest blacklisted or arrested. But if you never go to one, you can’t be implicated. Personally, these are not the kind of jobs I am interested in, which is the only reason I feel comfortable even posting this much.
After Being Hired
While you are working as a Federal Employee, you have further limitations on your Free Speech Rights. The most notable one is that you are not allowed to profit from your job as a Federal Employee. They take a pretty broad view on this, so if you do work for the Feds, it is best to either make sure your Substack does not mention that you are a Federal Employee anymore and does not have any insider knowledge, or you demonetize it. Personally, I think your taxes are already a generous contribution, so I am happy to not monetize any of my content.
The Feds will only really find out about outside income during a security clearance check. They run your taxes and bank records, and make sure that you are not receiving money from foreign entities. They theoretically might not dig deeper once they see the payments from Substack, but I personally wouldn’t risk it. If you never want to work a job with any security clearance, and you want to write anonymously, you will probably never be caught.
Next thing to note is fairly obvious, but worth mentioning; your official speech is not protected at all. This is anything you say at work, write during your work shift, and anything you write on an official looking account. This is one of the reasons why I only publish things on Weekends and write anonymously. Do go on Anti-LGBT tirades at work claim free speech. I have fired someone for that before.
Finally, anything else that you say or write is subject to the Pickering Balancing Test and the Nexus Requirement. These are complicated legal tests that have a variety of factors, but to grossly simplify it, they allow to be fired if most of your coworkers refuse to work with you or the public starts picketing your Agency based on what you wrote or said. Cancel culture can get you fired as a Fed. The one small advantage is that it does actually take both a mob and your supervisory chain to fire you. In the private sector, just your supervisor could fire you for political beliefs.
Conclusion
Based on this research, I should have no trouble continuing to post anonymously on this platform while gaining promotions and getting a secret clearance. Getting a top-secret clearance seems difficult, but achievable, as I am completely loyal to America and only support peaceful means of changing it. I still think I will try to stay at Secret Clearance or below. Consider which of these standards you could pass if you want to be a Public Servant.
I was originally going to include a UK section but decided against for two reasons. First, I have no special expertise in their government anyways. Second, they actually have their information open and consolidated better. Maybe they are lying and are actually doing something worse, but I would not know.
Something to note, this article will be based on current technology and policies. A long-term concern I have is that in the future an advanced AI will be conducting the investigations and be much better at doxing applicants. You may want to be even more cautious and avoid posting anything to stay fully safe.
This standard should also prevent every single member of Antifa from getting a security clearance after they set fire to a Federal Court House, but that requires those on the Right to be in the position to deny leftist terrorists security clearances.
Very helpful. Thanks for putting this together