Bankruptcy Lose Security Clearance

It will actually help.

Bankruptcy lose security clearance. Members of the armed forces employees of the transportation security administration and others in federal service or employment have security clearance to do their jobs. As a general proposition and in our experience we have seen that one bankruptcy in a lifetime will not cause any security clearance issues. What many security clearance holders and applicants fail to realize is that its not the bankruptcy itself that is an issue. So if you are worried that you ll lose your security clearance if you file bankruptcy don t.

Filing for bankruptcy relief will not automatically prohibit you from obtaining a security clearance. If however there are other issues then that could be problematic. In fact getting rid of debt in a chapter 7 case could increase your chances of approval. The short answer is that the filing of a bankruptcy case itself will not affect your security clearance.

In fact the federal law prohibits a governmental entity from discriminating against a bankruptcy debtor and section 522 specifically states that the government may not. However the reasons that a person might file a bankruptcy case could cause a security clearance problem. I have even had clients tell me that their security officer told them that they needed to file for bankruptcy or they would lose or not get their clearance. By itself bankruptcy is not a condition that could raise a safety concern and is not listed amongst the factors for which one can be denied a security clearance.

Security clearances and bankruptcy as a general rule people who already have a clearance and who aren t in trouble for anything else do not lose their clearances because of bankruptcy. It enhances your reliability and trustworthiness and makes you less of a risk that someone will offer to take care of your financial problems in exchange for your password. People who are applying for a clearance for the first time should do everything possible to keep everything current until the clearance is approved. Not only will filing show that you are taking a positive step towards resolving your financial problems but debt free people have less incentive to accept a bribe or commit some other illegal act thereby becoming a better candidate for a.

In fact declaring bankruptcy can actually help save a security clearance in certain cases because it helps resolve the security clearance holder s susceptibility to coercion or bribery. This is a very important question with a nuanced answer so we will go through our explanation carefully. Loss of a security clearance can be a big worry for those that have them but also have unmanageable debt. You will not lose your security clearance after you file for bankruptcy.

Not one has told me that a bankruptcy filing had any impact whatsoever on their security clearance their job or their advancement. For instance we have seen situations where two bankruptcy filings fifteen years apart were enough to revoke a clearance. They worry that if they file bankruptcy to get rid of the debt it will get rid of the security clearance as well.