KEYWORD: Guideline G
DIGEST: The Judge issued one finding which is erroneous.  That error is harmless.  Applicant
has not met his heavy burden o appeal in challenging the Judge’s credibility determination
Adverse decision affirmed.
CASENO: 03-16936.a1
DATE: 08/02/2007
DATE: August 2, 2007
In Re:
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Applicant for Security Clearance
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ISCR Case No. 03-16936
APPEAL BOARD DECISION
APPEARANCES
FOR GOVERNMENT
James B. Norman, Esq., Chief Department Counsel
FOR APPLICANT
Kathleen E. Voelker, Esq.
The Defense Office of Hearings and Appeals (DOHA) declined to grant Applicant a security
clearance.  On August 12, 2006, DOHA issued a statement of reasons advising Applicant of the basis
for that decision–security concerns raised under Guideline G (Alcohol Consumption) of Department
of Defense Directive 5220.6 (Jan. 2, 1992, as amended) (Directive).  Applicant requested a hearing.
Applicant testified that he was 17 years old when he began consuming alcohol.  Tr. at 43.1
The Judge refers to this once incorrectly as “intensive inpatient” and once correctly as “intensive outpatient.”2
2
On January 31, 2007, after the hearing, Administrative Judge John Grattan Metz, Jr. denied
Applicant’s request for a security clearance.  Applicant filed a timely appeal pursuant to Directive
¶¶  E3.1.28 and E3.1.30.
Applicant raised the following issues on appeal: whether some of the Judge’s findings, to
include his negative credibility determination, were not supported by record evidence; and whether
the Judge’s unfavorable clearance decision is arbitrary, capricious, or contrary to law.  Finding no
error, we affirm.  
The Judge made the following pertinent findings: Applicant has a history of alcohol abuse
from 1966 until July 2003, which includes five alcohol-related arrests.  He began drinking in high
school  and drank to excess and to the point of intoxication while in the Marines.1
In January 1987, Applicant was arrested for DUI, after having consumed 8 draft beers.  He
was convicted of negligent driving and fined.
Between July 1987 and July 1988, Applicant was assigned as a Marine to a remote location.
He began to abuse alcohol regularly, given the limited choices for social activity available to him.
Although he lightened up on his drinking after his return, he began abusing alcohol again and, in
March 1991, was arrested a second time for DUI.  This arrest was dismissed and expunged from his
record.
Applicant retired from the Marines in 1993, after which he increased his level of drinking.
In December 1994 he was again arrested for DUI, pleading guilty, paying a fine, spending a day in
jail, and being required to complete an alcohol safety action program (ASAP).  He completed the
program in March 1995.  
Applicant resumed drinking after completing ASAP and was arrested again for DUI, in
December 1996.  Again he pled guilty, was fined, received a suspended sentence to 60 days
confinement, and was ordered to attend another ASAP, and to attend two Alcoholics Anonymous
(AA) meetings per week for a year.  He completed ASAP successfully.  
In September 1999, Applicant was arrested for another DUI.  Upon the advice of counsel he
attended an alcohol treatment program, which lasted from November 1999 to January 2000.   He was2
diagnosed as alcohol dependent.  He was indicted on felony DUI, due to the fact that it was his third
DUI in a five year period.  Applicant pled guilty.  He was sentenced to five years imprisonment and
to a fine, although all but two months of the imprisonment was suspended, conditioned on good
behavior for five years, indefinite supervised probation, and completion of the alcohol treatment
aftercare program.  
Applicant completed his prison sentence in September 2000 and was released from
supervised probation in July 2001.  He attended AA meetings until “at least July 2001,” after which
the Judge found that evidence of Applicant’s AA attendance is contradictory.  The Judge also noted
Tr. at 53-4.3
Tr. at 54.  4
Applicant admitted that, during his alcohol treatment program, he was diagnosed as “alcohol dependent” and5
that at the time of the treatment he thought he was an alcoholic.  However, he went on to state that he does not “right
now” consider himself to be an alcoholic and that, in fact, no one had ever explicitly said to him that he was.  Tr. at 68-9.
While he never used the word “recant” or other similar term, a reasonable person could infer that Applicant’s testimony
was an attempt to discount his diagnosis.     
3
certain apparent inconsistencies in Applicant’s evidence.  For example,  although Applicant admitted
in his response to the SOR that he had been diagnosed as alcohol dependent, he testified that he had
never explicitly received such a diagnosis.   Additionally, Applicant testified that he did not drink3
alcohol from his 1999 arrest until December 2002,  which is not consistent with Government Exhibit4
3, in which he states that he had been using alcohol occasionally during the year and a half preceding
his making of that document, June 23, 2003. 
Although Applicant testified that he does not consider himself to be an alcoholic, he
acknowledged that counselors at his treatment program advised him to abstain from drinking
alcohol.  Nevertheless, Applicant continues to consume alcohol, although he states that he has
changed his lifestyle and can control his drinking.  
The Appeal Board’s review of the Judge’s findings of facts is limited to determining if they
are supported by substantial evidence–“such relevant evidence as a reasonable mind might accept
as adequate to support such a conclusion in light of all the contrary evidence in the record.”
Directive  ¶  E3.1.32.1.  “This is something less than the weight of the evidence, and the possibility
of drawing two inconsistent conclusions from the evidence does not prevent an administrative
agency’s findings from being supported by substantial evidence.”  Consolo v. Federal Maritime
Comm’n, 383 U.S. 607, 620-21 (1966).  In evaluating the Judge’s findings, we are required to give
deference to the Judge’s credibility determinations.  Directive  ¶  E3.1.32.1. 
Applicant contends that the following findings are in error: that Applicant has a history of
alcohol abuse from 1966 to 2003; that Applicant had not benefitted from AA; and that Applicant has
recanted previous statements that he is alcohol dependent.  We have examined the challenged
findings in light of the record as a whole.   As regards the first, we note that Applicant’s answer to
the SOR admitted that he had “consumed alcohol, at times to excess and to the point of intoxication,
from approximately 1966 to at least June 23, 2003.”  Furthermore, we note Government Exhibit 2,
a signed an sworn statement by Applicant, in which he says, “I started drinking when I was 17 years
old.  I went to parties on weekends and would drink about a six-pack.”  These admissions, read in
light of Applicant’s DUI arrests and other evidence of alcohol abuse, constitute substantial evidence
for the challenged finding.  As regards the remaining two, they are located in the Conclusions section
of the decision and are evaluative comments based upon a plausible interpretation of the record
evidence.  To the extent that there is error in them, it is harmless, given the record as a whole.   See,5
e. g., ISCR Case No. 04-00949 at 2 (App. Bd. Mar. 27, 2007).  During the course of challenging the
sufficiency of the Judge’s decision, Applicant also took issue with the following statement:  “In
1982, Applicant experienced a period of increased alcohol consumption when his wife died of cancer
. . .”  Decision at 2.  After examining the record, we conclude that Applicant’s position on this
Decision at 8.  6
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statement has merit.  This particular finding is erroneous.  However, given the record as a whole, we
conclude that the error is harmless.  We will address the Judge’s credibility determination below. 
A Judge is required to “examine the relevant data and articulate a satisfactory explanation
for” the decision, “including a ‘rational connection between the facts found and the choices made.’”
Motor Vehicle Mfrs. Ass’n of the United States v. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co., 463 U.S. 29, 43
(1983)(quoting Burlington Truck Lines, Inc. v. United States, 371 U.S. 156, 168 (1962)).  “The
general standard is that a clearance may be granted only when ‘clearly consistent with the interests
of national security.’”  Department of the Navy v. Egan, 484 U.S. 518, 528 (1988). The Appeal
Board may reverse the Judge’s decision to grant, deny, or revoke a security clearance if it is arbitrary,
capricious, or contrary to law.  Directive  ¶¶  E3.1.32.3 and E3.1.33.3.  
“[T]here is a strong presumption against granting a security clearance.”   Dorfmont v. Brown,
913 F. 2d 1399, 1401 (9  Cir. 1990), cert. denied, 499 U.S. 905 (1991).  Once the governmentth
presents evidence raising security concerns, the burden shifts to the applicant to establish any
appropriate mitigating conditions.  See Directive  ¶  E3.1.15.  “The application of disqualifying and
mitigating conditions and whole person factors does not turn simply on a finding that one or more
of them apply to the particular facts of a case.  Rather, their application requires the exercise of
sound discretion in light of the record evidence as a whole.”  See ISCR Case No. 05-03635 at 3
(App. Bd. Dec. 20, 2006). 
We have considered Applicant’s brief, the Judge’s findings, and the record as a whole.  Given
Applicant’s lengthy history of alcohol abuse, his five DUI arrests, his having continued to drink
despite his counselors having advised him to abstain, and the apparent discrepancies the Judge noted
in Applicant’s evidence, the Judge’s conclusion that Applicant had not met his burden of persuasion
is sustainable.   Furthermore, the record does not support a conclusion that Applicant has met his
“heavy burden” in challenging the Judge’s credibility determination.  See ISCR Case No. 97-0356
(App. Bd. Apr. 21, 1998).  In addition to the above-referenced discrepancies, the Judge also noted
the self serving character of Applicant’s statements to investigators concerning his DUI arrests, to
the effect that, on the dates in question, his driving was erratic due not to intoxication but to his
efforts to avoid potholes in the road, etc.  In light of these matters, and the record as a whole, the
Judge’s view that Applicant suffers from “general credibility issues”  is sustainable.  Accordingly,6
the Judge’s adverse security clearance decision is not arbitrary, capricious, or contrary to law.
5
Order 
The Judge’s decision denying Applicant a security clearance is AFFIRMED.  
Signed: Michael Y. Ra’anan         
Michael Y. Ra’anan
Administrative Judge
Chairman, Appeal Board
Signed: William S. Fields              
William S. Fields
Administrative Judge
Member, Appeal Board
Signed: James E. Moody                 
James E. Moody
Administrative Judge
Member, Appeal Board