Issue Encyclopedia · Guideline B · Foreign Influence
Business or Professional Associate in foreign country
Does business or professional associate in foreign country affect a security clearance?
Basis: 54 decided hearing-level cases raising this issue. Descriptive history of decided cases, not a prediction.
Decided cases
54
hearing-level decisions raising this issue
Granted
69%
37 granted · 17 denied or revoked
Official mitigating conditions cited
| Condition | In granted cases | In denied cases |
|---|---|---|
| ¶ 8(a) · A conflict between foreign and United States interests is unlikely | 16 | 1 |
| ¶ 8(b) · Deep and longstanding ties to the United States | 12 | 1 |
| ¶ 8(c) · Contact so casual and infrequent that there is little risk | 7 | 0 |
| ¶ 8(f) · Foreign interests too small to be used for influence | 3 | 2 |
¶ 8(a) · A conflict between foreign and United States interests is unlikely
- In granted cases
- 16
- In denied cases
- 1
¶ 8(b) · Deep and longstanding ties to the United States
- In granted cases
- 12
- In denied cases
- 1
¶ 8(c) · Contact so casual and infrequent that there is little risk
- In granted cases
- 7
- In denied cases
- 0
¶ 8(f) · Foreign interests too small to be used for influence
- In granted cases
- 3
- In denied cases
- 2
Circumstances credited in granted cases
- deep U.S. ties · credited in 5 granted cases
- severed foreign contact · credited in 1 granted case
- U.S. military service · credited in 1 granted case
Recent decided examples
Applicant, a U.S.-based professor and naturalized citizen, answered SOR allegations involving foreign contacts, foreign preference, and outside activities. He admitted several foreign board and busine…
The applicant in this case was seeking a security clearance for a position with a defense contractor. The Department of Defense issued a Statement of Reasons (SOR) citing 20 security concerns primaril…
The applicant in this case was a 58-year-old Senior Chief Engineer with a defense contractor, seeking a security clearance. The Department of Defense issued a Statement of Reasons (SOR) citing securit…
The applicant in this case was a 60-year-old individual who sought a security clearance and faced allegations under Guideline B, Foreign Influence. The Department of Defense issued a Statement of Reas…
Related issues under Guideline B
How these numbers are measured
Scope: decided hearing-level cases whose per-allegation profile records this issue, matched to the same issue value the search filters use, so a count here and a filtered search always agree. A case raising several issues counts under each one. The mitigating conditions and the credited circumstances below were extracted for a subset of the record, so both are counts of cases rather than rates. Pages exist only for issues with at least 25 decided cases, and † marks any split built on fewer than 20.
Reading the statistics
- Granted = access granted or continued; Denied = denied or revoked.
- Grant rate = granted ÷ (granted + denied).
- † marks figures based on fewer than 20 cases, too few to be reliable.
- Hovering any rate shows its statistical range (a 95% confidence interval).
- Figures are descriptive counts over decided, public DOHA ISCR decisions, never predictions or assessments of any pending case.
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