Weird little guys who lie on Special Form 86

September 18, 2024 3:58 PM

Everyone who joins the US military, seeks a security clearance, or applies for some government jobs must, as part of the background check process, fill out Standard Form 86. Questions on this form require applicants to disclose if they're members of organizations that seek to overthrow the US government or deprive people of their civil rights. Lying on this form is a felony, a serious crime that can result in months in prison, but indictments involving lying on this form are quite rare. Molly Conger, host of the Cool Zone Media podcast Weird Little Guys, looks into why this is, and the history of its use, in the episode titled Liar, Liar (57 minutes).
posted by JHarris (32 comments total)

The whole podcast has been interesting, if really depressing.
posted by GenjiandProust at 4:13 PM on September 18 [2 favorites]

Among the LDS they speak of “Lying for the Lord”. With a few tweaks this stratagem can, I suppose, be repurposed toward Fibbing for the Führer. Or, if need be, Dissimulating for Donald.
posted by non canadian guy at 4:25 PM on September 18 [10 favorites]

oh I'm having flashbacks
posted by NotMyselfRightNow at 4:26 PM on September 18

Section 1: Full Name. Provide your full name. If you have only initials in your name, provide them and indicate "Initial only". If you do not have a middle name, indicate "No Middle
Name". If you are a "Jr.," "Sr.," etc. enter this under Suffix.

This is a form from a system that has learnt many of the Falsehoods Programmers Believe About Names.
posted by egypturnash at 4:28 PM on September 18 [23 favorites]

and Ronly Bonly Jones
posted by glonous keming at 4:39 PM on September 18 [6 favorites]

Molly is cool, and I really like her dogs.
posted by valkane at 4:54 PM on September 18 [4 favorites]

...because the SF-86 is filled out by everyone down to the lowliest cleaner of toilets and you don't need people thinking they're taking their entire futures in their hands by applying for a federal job? In most cases, far easier to just fire people for lying about smoking pot or having an outstanding collection on their credit history or whatever.
posted by praemunire at 4:55 PM on September 18 [2 favorites]

I've just spent the last 20 minutes going through this form and thinking how i would answer.My life is relatively uncomplicated but holy crap the odds that i'd make a mistake are astronomical!!! i haven't even gotten to the hard questions yet! Does a long-term situationship count as anything? aaaah! i am not cut out for government work
posted by capnsue at 4:56 PM on September 18 [2 favorites]

It’s not that bad. I mean by Federal employment forms standards. Or maybe after almost 15 years of such forms I’m becoming jaded.

Much of my job is creating new forms. I might be jaded. I’ll have to fill out SF2319, Are You Too Dead Inside to find out
posted by caution live frogs at 5:08 PM on September 18 [23 favorites]

so, special form or standard form?
posted by nofundy at 5:10 PM on September 18 [1 favorite]

Recruiter: Are you now or have you ever been a member of a political organization dedicated to the violent overthrow of our democratic form of government, such as the Communist Party of the United States of America?

Me: Well, I was on the national committee of the International Socialist Organization.

Recruiter: But that was just socialists.

Me: Common misconception. You see, the ISO is a Trotskyist organization, and the socialist-communist distinction is kind of mislead...

Recruiter: Okay, but the violent overthrow ...

Me: I mean, we'd have preferred not to have to, but ...

Recruiter: You were experimenting in college. I'm gonna put "no."
posted by mph at 5:10 PM on September 18 [41 favorites]

It's mildly remarkable/alarming how much of the required information I can retrieve from my Amazon account history.
posted by aramaic at 5:18 PM on September 18 [8 favorites]

I have a long standing aversion to filling out forms taller than I am.
I did my first one in 1982, and when I filled out the form 5 years later, I tried to put 'same' in many fields, which did not fly.
When it came time to renew in 1992, I just said 'No, thanks'.
posted by MtDewd at 5:26 PM on September 18 [2 favorites]

I love this bit.

Public Burden Information
Public burden reporting for this collection of information is estimated to
average 150 minutes per response, including time for reviewing
instructions, searching existing data sources, gathering and maintaining the
data needed, and completing and reviewing the collection of information.
Send comments regarding the burden estimate or any other aspect of this
collection of information
posted by eustatic at 5:49 PM on September 18 [2 favorites]

I promise you, the podcast episode is more interesting than the form and definitely worth a listen. The whole podcast has been pretty interesting, although it’s about the kind of low lives that would join far-right organizations. A warning though: almost everyone profiled so far has sexual crimes in their story, distressingly often toward children. No graphic discussion, but it’s worth knowing going in. Even Conger is surprised, and she’s writing the thing.
posted by GenjiandProust at 5:57 PM on September 18 [5 favorites]

150 minutes per response, thirty questions - yup, sounds about right, you lose about two weeks of your life trying to get all the information together.

If you mean 150 minutes for the entire questionnaire - get outta here.
posted by Barbara Spitzer at 6:00 PM on September 18 [1 favorite]

It's mildly remarkable/alarming how much of the required information I can retrieve from my Amazon account history.

No joke, that is exactly the guidance I used to give employees.
posted by NotMyselfRightNow at 6:41 PM on September 18 [4 favorites]

Although if this sort of thing amuses you, there's the perennial howlers over on r/SecurityClearance where you get applicants asking if, like, it's cool that they just stopped doing meth last week on their application to work at the DEA. Sure, just fill that out on the form. They get you either way, buddy.
posted by Kyol at 7:56 PM on September 18 [2 favorites]

And the "good" news, considering the OPM's historic data leaks, is that (at least as of the last time I applied for a clearance job a couple of years back) renewing your SF86 these days pulls up your old form and asks you to correct anything that has changed since the last time you filled it out. New neighbors, new jobs, etc. I'd actually be surprised if it actually took me much longer than 150 minutes all told - probably some of the longest was figuring out the ground truth for my immediate family - birthdays, middle names, etc. But yeah, honestly most of this (up to Secret, anyway, TS/SCI is a whole other beast that I can't speak to) is scrounging through your personal, long-form resume and address book.

But yeah, you can aaaaaaabsolutely overthink it once you get down into the personal attestations.
posted by Kyol at 8:07 PM on September 18 [2 favorites]

renewing your SF86 these days pulls up your old form and asks you to correct anything that has changed

I was just about to say that - it's SOOO much nicer. That way you don't have to worry about inadvertently contradicting any of your previous answers and getting flagged. It's pretty quick to fill out now.

But it's not over then. It doesn't count until a security agent "goes over" your answers with you, form in their hand, not yours. That can go fast, or... not.
posted by ctmf at 8:39 PM on September 18 [2 favorites]

Recruiter: Are you now or have you ever been a member of a political organization dedicated to the violent overthrow of our democratic form of government, such as the Communist Party of the United States of America?

"Yes. In college, I was a registered Republican."
posted by Faint of Butt at 8:53 PM on September 18 [32 favorites]

Flashbacks to filling out the green card application 40+ years ago, by hand, in septupulet
posted by mbo at 9:14 PM on September 18

Faint of Butt gets to the heart of the matter. Listening to the podcast and comparing it to how the govt treats non violent environmentalists its stunning how much the neo-nazis get to play on easy mode.
posted by No Climate - No Food, No Food - No Future. at 9:31 PM on September 18 [9 favorites]

It's mildly remarkable/alarming how much of the required information I can retrieve from my Amazon account history.

I've been suffering from pretty severe memory loss recently, particularly of my medical history, and if it wasn't for my Google Maps timeline I'd be screwed. Google remembers 10 times as many doctors as I do.
posted by Jacqueline at 2:12 AM on September 19 [2 favorites]

We think China exfiltrated all the SF86 data during the OPM hack. Moxie Marlinspike argues the OPM hack might've exploited the Dual EC_DRB backdoor created by the NSA. If true, this makes the NSA's clever "nobody but us" backdoor responsible for one of the worst intelligence debacles in U.S. history (previous discussion). LOL
posted by jeffburdges at 3:04 AM on September 19 [8 favorites]

I'd like to enjoy this, but no matter how I try to access Liar, Liar, it plays the White Terror episode. I don't have an account there, and won't.
posted by scruss at 7:20 AM on September 19 [1 favorite]

Scruss: here's a direct link to the audio file.

Iheart (nee: ClearChannel) does provide standard XML for their podcasts, but it's sometimes hard to find, because they want to keep you on their own site/app, and apparently play you the wrong episodes sometimes. Here it is for Weird Little Guys. Any podcast app should be able to parse that link.
posted by toxic at 8:37 AM on September 19 [4 favorites]

50th doctor to ask: do you have a family history of heart disease?
Me: uhhhhhhh

Barber every month: how do you want your hair cut?
Me: uhhh kind of short but not too short.
Barber: so like a #4 clipper ? Or #3?
Me: uhhh what do the numbers mean again?

My point is I have a mostly Boy Scout-like past but there’s no way I could fill this out.
posted by caviar2d2 at 8:58 AM on September 19 [5 favorites]

toxic: Any podcast app should be able to parse that link.
Thank you, but I get "Not available in your country" -- (also) I want a transcript (please) because I read faster than people talk.
posted by k3ninho at 10:21 AM on September 19

But it's not over then. It doesn't count until a security agent "goes over" your answers with you, form in their hand, not yours. That can go fast, or... not.

I was lucky, my agent interview was remote due to the pandemic and his biggest hangup was that my job titles didn't agree with what they got from their investigation. I was using resume friendly titles (Senior Zookeeper) and not the anodyne HR-friendly job titles (Employee Specialist III or whatever), whoops. I suspect that discrepancy might still be on my permanent record.
posted by Kyol at 10:40 AM on September 19 [1 favorite]

→ I want a transcript (please)

If you can access the main link, there's a transcript in it
posted by scruss at 12:46 PM on September 20

Weird Little Guys has a new (and very sad) episode about Terrorgram, a Telegram channel where users egg each other on to commit mass murder then kill themselves. What kind of horrible world is this?
posted by JHarris at 11:23 PM on September 20 [1 favorite]