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                           DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE
         DEFENSE OFFICE OF HEARINGS AND APPEALS
          
            
In the matter of: )
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)       ISCR Case No. 15-04493
)
)
Applicant for Security Clearance )
Appearances
For Government: Tovah Minster, Esq., Department Counsel
For Applicant: Thomas McCarthy, Personal Representative
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Decision
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CURRY, Marc E., Administrative Judge:
Applicant mitigated the foreign preference security concerns, but failed to
mitigate the foreign influence security concerns generated by her family members and
friends who are citizens and relatives of the People’s Republic of China (PRC).
Clearance is denied.
Statement of the Case
On January 15, 2016, the Department of Defense (DOD)  issued a Statement of
Reasons (SOR) detailing the security concerns under Guidelines B, foreign influence,
and C, foreign preference. The action was taken under Executive Order 10865,
Safeguarding Classified Information within Industry (February 20, 1960), as amended;
Department of Defense Directive 5220.6, Defense Industrial Personnel Security
Clearance Review Program (January 2, 1992), as amended (Directive), and the
adjudicative guidelines (AG).
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Applicant answered the SOR on February 2, 2016, admitting all of the allegations,
and requesting a hearing. On June 6, 2016, the case was assigned to me. On June 27,
2016, the Defense Office of Hearings and Appeals (DOHA) issued a notice of hearing
scheduling the case for August 16, 2016. I held the hearing as scheduled and
considered two Government exhibits (GE) marked as GE 1 and 2, and eight Applicant
exhibits (AE), marked as AE A through H. I took administrative notice of facts regarding
the PRC, encapsulated in seven hearing exhibits (HE I-VII), as requested by Department
Counsel. At the close of the hearing, I left the record open at Applicant’s request to allow
her an opportunity to submit additional exhibits. Within the time allotted, she submitted
five additional exhibits that I have incorporated into the record as AE I through AE M.
The transcript (Tr.) was received on August 24, 2016.
Findings of Fact
Applicant is a 32-year-old woman. She grew up in Hong Kong, moving there from
mainland China when she was four years old, and immigrated here with her family in
2001 when she was 17. (Tr. 43) After moving to the United States, she finished high
school and attended college, graduating in 2007 with a major in interior design and a
minor in business. In 2012, she became certified as a licensed interior designer. (Tr. 19;
AE F) She has been working in this field since then. (Tr. 20) She became a naturalized
U.S. citizen in 2011. (AE A) Applicant recently married her husband, whom she had been
dating since college. (Tr. 26)
Applicant’s parents are PRC citizens who reside in the United States. Applicant’s
parents are permanent U.S. residents. (Tr. 29) Her mother and father both worked at a
community service center that serves primarily Asian-American senior citizens. Their
duties included helping prepare meals and organizing trips to grocery stores and malls.
(Answer at 1; Tr. 28)  Currently, they are both retired. Applicant has a brother. He lives in
the United States and became a naturalized citizen in 2012. (Tr. 20, 32)
Applicant has a cousin who lives in Hong Kong. She is a social worker who works
for the government. (Tr. 36-37; AE 1 at 27) Applicant communicates with her a few times
per year through social media. She last saw her when her cousin visited the United
States in October 2015.
Applicant’s aunt and uncle, the parents of the cousin in the previous paragraph,
are citizens and residents of Hong Kong. Applicant speaks to them through social media
a few times per year. Applicant usually stays at their house when she visits Hong Kong.
(Tr. 38) Applicant’s aunt and uncle are both retired. Before retiring, Applicant’s aunt
worked for a textile company, and Applicant’s uncle worked at an airport. (Tr. 38-39)
Applicant has a friend, whom she has known since kindergarten, who is a citizen
and resident of PRC. She is a high school teacher. They keep in touch “a couple times a
year” primarily through social media. (Tr. 35) Applicant typically sees her when she visits
Hong Kong. (Tr. 34) She knows that Applicant is applying for a security clearance. (Tr.
35)
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Applicant has a friend who is a citizen and resident of Hong Kong and works as
an event planner at a hotel. They keep in touch through social media. Applicant last saw
her a few years ago when she visited the United States.
Applicant has a friend who is a citizen and resident of Hong Kong who works as a
flight attendant. She has approximately the same amount of contact with this friend as
she does with her other friends who are PRC citizens and residents.
Applicant has a friend who is a PRC citizen who recently completed a corporate
internship in the United States. Applicant visited this friend while she was working in the
United States. (Tr. 40)  
Applicant has a friend, a PRC citizen and resident, who works as a receptionist.
(Tr. 41)  She has approximately the same amount of contact with this friend as she does
with her other friends who are PRC citizens and residents. She knows that Applicant is
applying for a security clearance. (Tr. 41)
Applicant has not travelled to mainland China since she was a small child. (Tr. 42)
She has returned to Hong Kong four times, in 2003, 2005, 2011, and 2015. On her most
recent trip, she travelled with her mother to purchase a wedding dress and to visit
friends. Her last trip occurred after she had became a naturalized U.S. citizen. (Tr. 42)
She travelled there using a U.S. passport.
As of the hearing date, Applicant possessed a passport issued by the PRC.
(Answer) She has not used the passport to travel internationally since becoming a U.S.
citizen in 2012. (Tr. 27) She reported each trip to her supervisor before departing. On
August 22, 2016, Applicant destroyed both her PRC passport and her Hong Kong
permanent identity card in the presence of her company’s facility security officer. (AE J)
Administrative Notice
The PRC is a totalitarian state that routinely violates human rights. (See generally
HE VI). It is one of the most aggressive conductors of espionage against the United
States in the world. (HE I at 2) Chinese state-sponsored actors continuously attempt to
exploit U.S. government, military, industrial, and nongovernmental computer systems.
(HE III at 6; HE V at 7)
Policies
When evaluating an applicant’s suitability for a security clearance, the
administrative judge must consider the revised adjudicative guidelines (AG). In addition
to brief introductory explanations for each guideline, the adjudicative guidelines list
potentially disqualifying conditions and mitigating conditions.
These guidelines are not inflexible rules of law. Instead, recognizing the
complexities of human behavior, these guidelines are applied together with the factors
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listed in the adjudicative process. According to AG ¶ 2(c), the entire process is a
conscientious scrutiny of a number of variables known as the “whole-person concept.”
The administrative judge must consider all available, reliable information about the
person, past and present, favorable and unfavorable, in making a decision.
The protection of the national security is the paramount consideration. AG ¶ 2(b)
requires that “[a]ny doubt concerning personnel being considered for access to classified
information will be resolved in favor of national security.” 
Under Directive ¶ E3.1.14, the Government must present evidence to establish
controverted facts alleged in the SOR. Under Directive ¶ E3.1.15, the applicant is
responsible for presenting “witnesses and other evidence to rebut, explain, extenuate, or
mitigate facts admitted by applicant or proven by Department Counsel. . . .” The
applicant has the ultimate burden of persuasion for obtaining a favorable security
decision.
Analysis
Guideline B, Foreign Influence
Under this guideline, “foreign contacts and interests may be a security concern if
the individual has divided loyalties or foreign financial interests, may be manipulated or
induced to help a foreign person, group, organization, or government in a way that is not
in the United States’ interests, or is vulnerable to pressure or coercion by any foreign
interest.” Moreover, “adjudication under this Guideline can and should consider the
identity of the foreign country in which the foreign contact or financial interest is located,
including, but not limited to, such considerations as whether the foreign country is known
to target United States citizens to obtain protected information and/or is associated with
a risk of terrorism.” (AG ¶ 6)
Given the PRC’s status as one of the most active conductors of espionage
against the United States in the world, I conclude that Applicant’s friends and relatives
who are PRC residents living in Hong Kong trigger the application of AG ¶ 7(a) “contact
with a foreign family member, business or professional associate, friend, or other person
who is a citizen of or a resident in a foreign country if that contact creates a heightened
risk of foreign exploitation, inducement, manipulation, pressure, or coercion.” Although
the PRC, as a totalitarian country and strategic competitor of the United States, would
certainly not refrain from intimidating its citizens living abroad for competitive advantage,
such coercion of Applicant’s parents would be unlikely given the length of time that they
have lived in the United States. Therefore, AG ¶ 7(a) does not apply to Applicant’s
relationship with her parents.
Applicant’s relationship with each friend in the PRC is limited to social media
contacts a few times per year and an occasional trip to Hong Kong. Each of these
relationships, when considered alone, appear to be casual and infrequent. However,
when considered in their totality - the relatives with whom she stays when she visits
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Hong Kong, the length of time that she has known her friends from the PRC, and the fact
that two of her friends know she is applying for a security clearance - AG ¶ 8(c), “contact
or communication with foreign citizens is so casual and infrequent that there is little
likelihood that it could create a risk for foreign influence or exploitation,” does not apply.
Applicant has spent her entire adult life in the United States, earning her college
degree and her professional certification. However, in light of the heavy burden of proof
required to overcome the security concern generated by a country like the PRC, these
facts are insufficient to trigger the application of AG ¶ 8(b), “there is no conflict of
interest, either because the individual’s sense of loyalty or obligation to the foreign
person, group, government, or country is so minimal, or the individual has such deep and
longstanding relationships and loyalties in the U.S. that the individual can be expected to
resolve any conflict of interest in favor of the U.S. interest.”
Guideline C, Foreign Preference
Under this guideline, “when an individual acts in such a way as to indicate a
preference for a foreign country over the United States, then he or she may be prone to
provide information or make decisions that are harmful to the interests of the United
States,” (AG ¶ 9) Applicant’s continued possession of a PRC passport after becoming a
U.S. citizen in 2012 triggers the application of AG ¶ 10(a)(1), “exercise of any right
privilege, or obligation of foreign citizenship after becoming a U.S. citizen . . . includ[ing] .
. . possession of a foreign passport.”
When Applicant became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 2012, she was unaware of
the negative security ramifications of possessing a foreign passport. She did not use it to
travel after becoming a U.S. citizen. Since the hearing, she has destroyed both the
passport and her foreign country national identification card in the presence of her
company’s FSO. I conclude AG ¶ 10(e), “the passport has been destroyed, surrendered
to the cognizant security authority, or otherwise invalidated,” applies. 
Whole-Person Concept
Under the whole-person concept, the administrative judge should consider the
nine adjudicative process factors listed at AG ¶ 2(a): 
(1) the nature, extent, and seriousness of the conduct; (2) the
circumstances surrounding the conduct, to include knowledgeable
participation; (3) the frequency and recency of the conduct; (4) the
individual’s age and maturity at the time of the conduct; (5) the extent to
which participation is voluntary; (6) the presence or absence of
rehabilitation and other permanent behavioral changes; (7) the motivation
for the conduct; (8) the potential for pressure, coercion, exploitation, or
duress; and (9) the likelihood of continuation or recurrence.
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Applicant’s destruction of her PRC passport mitigates the foreign preference
security concern. Conversely, given the heavy burden of proof generated by the
citizenship and residence of Applicant’s friends in the PRC, a totalitarian country that is
one of the most active conductors of espionage against the United States, I conclude
that Applicant failed to mitigate the foreign influence security concern.
Formal Findings
Formal findings for or against Applicant on the allegations set forth in the SOR, as
required by section E3.1.25 of Enclosure 3 of the Directive, are:
Paragraph 1, Guideline B: AGAINST APPLICANT
Subparagraph 1.a - 1.b: For Applicant
Subparagraph 1.c - 1.d: Against Applicant
Paragraph 2, Guideline C: FOR APPLICANT
Subparagraph 2.a: For Applicant
Conclusion
In light of all of the circumstances presented by the record in this case, it is not
clearly consistent with national security to grant Applicant eligibility for a security
clearance. Eligibility for access to classified information is denied.
                                             
MARC E. CURRY
Administrative Judge