2003 IMTA Proceedings - International Military Testing Association

Finally, third level questions would be asked to obtain details of the incident, such as the
following for “hit and run”:
How many times have you been cited, arrested or charged for hit and run?
Why were you cited, arrested or charged?
Where and when did this occur?
Was the offense a felony?
What was the final outcome of the case?
Were you given a jail or prison sentence?...length of sentence
Were you given any other punishment?...nature of punishment
When did your jail term or other punishment end?
Upon completion of all questions the classifier selects the Navy rating being considered
for the applicant and flags are shown indicating possible issues that might arise during a
background investigation. The MASS 4.0 program, in addition to containing the MASS
3.0 linkage of applicant responses to the Navy Recruiting Manual guidelines, relates the
responses to the Adjudicative Guidelines For Determining Eligibility For Access To
Classified Information (Director of Central Intelligence, 1998).
These Guidelines are used by defense and intelligence community adjudicative agencies
in making determinations whether to grant a security clearance. The classifier is advised,
depending on the nature of the flags, to contact the appropriate authorities for permission
to proceed with processing the applicant. A final step is to print a form that documents
the results of the interview which is then signed by both the classifier and the applicant.
MASS Evaluation and Implementation
MASS 4.0 was tested and evaluated at 4 MEPS during the months of May/June 2003 as a
replacement for MASS 3.0. There was agreement by all classifiers who used the program
with applicants that MASS 4.0 should be made operational at all MEPS. Following some
additional minor programming changes the system was delivered to Navy Recruiting
Command and implemented nationwide in September 2003.
Within the next year we plan to improve some of the MASS 4.0 screens without changing
the basic nature of the program. Perhaps the most important future modification will be
the capability to electronically capture applicant responses for analysis. This will permit
us to establish a database of responses that could be related to future personnel actions
such as whether the applicant was found not acceptable during a security interview at
recruit training, or did not receive a security clearance after being processed for a
background investigation.
References
Director of Central Intelligence. (1998). Adjudicative Guidelines for Determining
Eligibility to Access to Classified Information (DCID 6/4, Annex C, Jul. 2, 1998).
Washington, D.C.: Author.
Reed, S. C. (2000). Unpublished analyses. Monterey, CA: Defense Personnel Security
Research Center.
Wiskoff, M. F., Zimmerman, R. A. and Moore, C. V. (1996). Developing and
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45 th Annual Conference of the International Military Testing Association
Pensacola, Florida, 3-6 November 2003