LOL! Snowden's background check? Outsourced! Company that did it now under investigation.

[MADem]

104. Look, the doggone SF-86 is the basis for the BC.

I'm not "talking down" and I don't especially like to argue, I've just been through this stuff before and those are just the facts. We aren't talking about his first dance with this document, this is the renewal--the 2nd go-round after the seven year period is up.

See, if you have a valid (within seven years) SF-86 on file, there's no NEED to check your old bona fides, because your last employer, a government agency, has already done that. All the new employer needs to do is get the hand-off from the last employer, and then start working up their own shit, assuming the employment is reasonably continuous. At least, that's the way it's always been done in the past.

Mister Snowden tripped a wire at personnel--maybe they paid people with Master's degrees more, so he thought he could fib about that, or maybe he forgot a lie he tossed on his old SF-86.

I think they need to go all the way back to the beginning, and find the documents that would have accompanied his enlistment packet. Remember, that enlistment would have triggered an ENTNAC (entrance National Agency Check--very cursory) and when he shipped off to boot camp, given his supposed trajectory, they would have started in on the NAC. Maybe, because he left boot camp, the NAC was never completed, or maybe it was, sloppily, and no one bagged him for any discrepancies in his record or even noticed them. Why bother? He was out the door, no longer an issue. But again-- he would have been IN THE SYSTEM.

As for those supporting documents, these should be on file in either St Louis or Overland, MO, depending on where USA keeps their shit for entry level separations. They're probably stored in digital format as well as a paper archive, but if it was done right, there should be supporting documents in there that accompanied him throughout his journey through Army recruiting, to MEPS, to boot camp. There very well might be a fake high school diploma in that packet, and / or a faked college transcript giving him that GED.

This happens all too often--every year, dozens of recruiters do this, and they try to sneak these people with faked paperwork in on the busiest shipping/physical days at the MEPS, because everyone is overworked and they hope that no one will examine the paperwork too closely. If he joined the Army on the 29th, 30th, or 31st of the month, I can almost guarantee he's got some squirrelly shit in his record, particularly if he was an all in the same month ASVAB, physical and ship.

I know more about this shit than I should, because many years ago, I had to serve as a PIO in a courts martial case that involved dozens of recruiters in a single command, shipping dozens of unqualified recruits over more than a year using phony documents--including faked green cards. I saw some quality forgeries--impressive stuff.

If you fail to register for the draft, it's a crime. It has nothing to do with there being a draft, it's more about having a record of people to call up. Three quarters of the draft-age population is too unfit to serve, anyway, but if we went to World War Three, they'd take 'em and whip 'em into shape.

I can answer your questions about your in-laws. If you have children, I would definitely list them--they are the grandparents, and you'd be welded to them for life through that connection unless they hated the kids. If it was a painless divorce and you barely knew them, you could leave them off. If you didn't like the spouse, but liked the in-laws and wanted to stay in touch with them, you list them. As for the employer, you just do the best you can with his last known address. That's all you can do.