Who gets to hold a security clearance? And more importantly, what happens to that eligibility when someone steps out of federal service?
Security clearances are the gatekeepers of the nation’s secrets – powerful tools of trust wielded exclusively by the federal government, as delegated by the Executive Branch. That authority has never been more visible than during the Trump administration, when high-profile actions were taken to revoke clearances based on perceived threats or disloyalty. It is a clear reminder: your clearance is not your own.
For decades, the clearance process has been driven by agencies, for agencies. Individuals are granted eligibility, “read into” classified programs, and “read out” again if they switch employers, change contracts, or exit service. That’s an optimistic view of the off-boarding process. All too often quick turnaround layoffs, agency shifts, or shifting priorities mean that off-boarding might come in the form of an email – that you may be lucky to access. That leaves laid off cleared workers in limbo, and often concerned about what will happen to their clearance.
Just because you’re out of a contract doesn’t mean your clearance eligibility goes away. The push toward a more efficient security clearance process has been a push to better reciprocity. But policy is one thing and reality is another. Even with efforts toward reciprocity and “transfer of trust,” the process often defaults to redundant reinvestigations and bureaucratic bottlenecks. When the focus is on the agency, and not the individual, the investment the government has made in a clearance ($5,410 for a Top Secret clearance investigation conducted by the Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency) isn’t treated as the resource it is.
But what if the government approached this challenge with workforce resilience in mind? What if, instead of starting over every time someone separates from federal service, we maintained a pool of trusted, vetted individuals ready to re-enter classified work when the mission demands?
The idea isn’t new. The Defense Innovation Board recommended the concept in a 2024 report about driving innovation in the defense industrial base. The report noted the numerous benefits of the type of “enduring reciprocity” Continuous Vetting enables. The vision: treat cleared personnel like an elite national resource, not a disposable line item.
Continuous Vetting has revolutionized how we think about risk in the cleared workforce. It’s faster, more efficient, and proactive – alerting agencies to financial distress, criminal behavior, and foreign influence in near real time. If we can monitor trust more dynamically, why are we still treating clearances as static and expendable?
The answer may lie in culture and inertia. But that inertia has a cost.
Insider threats continue to plague federal agencies and contractors alike. Security breaches often don’t come from outside adversaries. They come from the inside, from people who once held the government’s trust. The National Counterintelligence and Security Center has cautioned that foreign espionage efforts are directly targeting recently laid off federal workers. Creating a vetted, engaged, and cleared “reserve force” wouldn’t just make onboarding more agile, it would reduce risk. Individuals in limbo – separated from service, unclear on their future, and left with little support — are precisely the type of talent our adversaries target.
Recent workforce disruptions have only made the issue more urgent. Thousands of cleared professionals are facing layoffs or contract uncertainty. In many cases, they walk away not just from a job, but risk the clearance eligibility that took months or even years to obtain. We’re hemorrhaging talent, not because it’s unqualified, but because our system is still built with arbitrary timelines. There are policy plans to extend the current eligibility timeline but they’ve taken years to go from idea to reality – years that federal workers don’t have.
We say our people are our greatest asset. But if we believe that, it’s time to put policy behind the platitude.
A Clearance Ready Reserve would allow cleared professionals to maintain their eligibility and stay engaged, even if not tied to an immediate classified billet. It could be managed jointly by the government and trusted industry partners (I’m raising my hand here!). It wouldn’t just support surge hiring needs — it would serve as a strategic hedge against attrition, espionage and workforce volatility.
The intelligence community has always prized secrecy. But secrecy alone won’t build a stronger, smarter national security workforce. Trust, transparency, and long-term planning will. It’s time to treat clearance eligibility like the national security asset it is and enable the infrastructure to support it.
The future of classified work depends not just on systems and technology, but on the people we trust to do the work.
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