If You Hold A Security Clearance Of Secret Or Better

either directly, as a member of the armed services, or by virtue of you being employed by a company that holds a contract with the NSA, or Hill AFB, you are a special needs client because you may have affirmative duties to report the police “contact” to your C.O. or Supervisor by virtue of a signed agreement you executed when you obtained or applied for the clearance. If you hold a Top Secret Clearance you must immediately report this to your C.O. and some instances minutes may count because your position; in other words you must avoid reporting for work or in some cases even stepping on base without first notifying your C.O.

In employer/employee cases where you obtained the clearance through your employer the situation is muted by the employer/Government relationship and generally all you have to do is call your immediate supervisor and they should be able to advise you. It is very important that you contact an attorney for a number of reasons, not the least of which is to provide some insulation between you and the government or employer and hopefully mitigate the damage that the DUI ticket alone can do to your position. But whatever you do, do not try to “hide” the fact that you were arrested by keeping it to yourself until you find out what your obligations are because by then you may have violated the agreement you previously executed and the very last thing you want are potential federal charges being considered because you were less than forthcoming.

Much of the NSA for example has direct contact or search functions that check the arrest databases against employee logs and spit out any police contact; thus the fact that you haven’t been charged with a crime yet (since the district attorney has not formally filed on you) may not insulate you from reporting the initial contact (and ticket) you received from police. It is always better to be lawyer-ed up in this situation at least initially because then you can say my attorney advised me to clear all statements through them. However if you haven’t called a lawyer yet, you should not say anything that might be even partly obfuscating, and especially because you may not remember all the facts it is best to say nothing at all and take a sick day the day after to get prepared and hire a lawyer.

If you were on base when the arrest occurred chances are good the MP’s have likely called the on duty staff defense attorney with whom you may be completely forthcoming as long as a formal attorney/client relationship exists (you don’t necessarily need a signed agreement, but most bases employ one anyway to avoid any possible confusion).