Is that accurate? Being charged with a crime but then having charges subsequently dropped shouldn't show up in a background check. Plus, given their line of work, I think in their profession it would basically be a badge of honor.
This can happen just being under investigation. Or worse, no arrest, conviction or investigation. Just word of mouth kind of stuff can do it.
Employers also have a convenient privilege to maintain these narratives about a former employee. This is employer to employer confidentiality where they can say almost anything about you to another potential employer and you never have the chance to hear it or correct it.
Everyone should support the ability of even a person with a conviction to continue working and contributing to society. It's kind of a civil death that leads to bad outcomes for those targeted.
>Everyone should support the ability of even a person with a conviction to continue working and contributing to society. It's kind of a civil death that leads to bad outcomes for those targeted.
And not just those targeted either. The communities where those people live are deprived of the higher economic activity of someone with a middle/upper-middle-class income/lifestyle than someone who can only get a job mopping floors or washing cars.
That has a definite downward drag on the economic health of the communities where folks aren't given the opportunity to contribute because of past transgressions or, as we're discussing here, unwarranted criminal charges and investigations.
It's not just sad, it's a disgusting waste of human potential. More's the pity.
Also, I've seen many job applications that ask a question like: "Have you ever been arrested for a crime, regardless of the outcome?" Presumably mere involvement with law enforcement (even if acquitted or charges dropped) is some kind of signal in these guys' risk formulas.
Can confirm. I needed a security clearance for government contracting work when I was in my mid-30s. The background check flagged a dismissed charge from when I was a teenager.
It's hard to say if they would be able to gain security clearances in the future. Not to mention automated application systems will drop them from the system immediately with a prior arrest.
THIS should be illegal. If you are arrested and have all charges dropped, you should not show up on any database whatsoever, nor be required to answer “yes” to “gave you been arrested.”
The SF86 has a 7-year lookback on arrests. Clearance is fundamentally discretionary, though; it's a risk assessment. I don't think you have even a due process right to it.
I say all this but --- knowing that the principals in this story might read this thread and drop in and correct me, which would be awesome --- I think it's actually more likely that their careers benefited from this news story, and that they probably didn't lose any cleared business from it. I can't say enough that these two became industry celebrities over this case.
> Clearance is fundamentally discretionary, though; it's a risk assessment. I don't think you have even a due process right to it.
Security clearance is subject to due process protections (at least, insofar as it is a component of government hiring and continuation of employment), because government employment is subject to due process protections and the courts have not allowed security clearance requirements to be an end-run around that.
Navy v. Egan (1988) acknowledges a due process protection but limits it to procedural due process, not review of the merits of the clearance determination (i.e., the due process protection does not extend to substantive due process.)
Subsequent cases (mostly at the Federal Circuit, I can’t find the Supreme Court getting involved much since) like Cheney v. DOJ (2007) and Cruz-Martinez v. DHS (2020) have developed what that requires.
For cases outside of government employment, though the decisions so far are only at the trial level, Perkins Coie LLC vs. DOJ (2025) and Zaid v. Executive Office of the President (2025) are worth checking out in this regard.
pretty sure the companies making money providing this service would bring a freedom of speech defense if you tried to get a law passed keeping the information from showing up in a search, and would win, despite the obvious idiocy of the result.
One of them went on to start their own physical pentest firm. I think they're doing fine. I also think if they'd lost clearances, or ran into later clearance problems, that would have made it into their complaint. I don't know, maybe you're right. It's not like I disagree with them about suing.
I mean it was fine for these guys because they got huge press and happen to be in an industry that can handle this. They've got experience, current employment, industry contacts, and there's really barely a functional college curriculum, or certification track for this. You #1 need to be trusted to break in since you know, they teach each other how to break into high-security facilities.
I really just wanna point out that getting contracts for government administrative building is already like, way in and near the top of the game, this could have set them back 9 months or none at all, still, someone has to be held accountable when there is an obvious miscarriage like this.
I mean they called their boss! They had a special letter! Why didn't shitty sheriff just like demand that the security chief come out and make some calls? 600k sounds fair I suppose but 6 years sure doesn't when its an elected official!
prior arrests mean nothing and most ATS won't flag you; you could be innocent and they let you go.
prior convictions are a different story.
in most cases our ATS won't even ask, instead it'll come up in a background check after you clear the first HR hurdles. even then arrests may not show up.
This isn't a felony case. In fact, I'm not sure it ever was? It's not clear from their amended complaint, but they were ultimately charged with simple trespassing, a misdemeanor. Those trespassing charges were themselves dismissed a few months later.
What we're talking about today is the resolution of what looks to me (not a lawyer) mostly like a defamation case. Were they defamed? Absolutely. The problem is, to get anything useful out of a defamation case, you need to demonstrate damages. They were accused of a crime --- per se defamation --- but the point of the suit is to recover damages.
I don't want to be glib, and I'm very prepared to be wrong, but the Dallas County Courthouse Incident is likely one of the top 3 world events to have happened to both these pentesters. They've been cause celebres in the field for years and years. It might be pretty tricky to actually demonstrate damages.
They were arrested, arraigned and bonded for felony charges. Those were later reduced to misdemeanor charges and the case was eventually dropped/dismissed (can't remember which) - so they were facing felony charges for a while.
I didn’t see how long it took for the charges to change from felony to misdemeanor before being dropped. It would be standard for clearances to be suspended for investigation when you get charged with a felony. (You have to report even an arrest or misdemeanor, but it’s less likely they’ll suspend it while investigating you for those).
Silane, with the chemical formula \(SiH_{4}\), is a highly flammable and toxic inorganic gas used in industries like semiconductors, construction, and dentistry. It serves as a crucial precursor for creating high-purity silicon and is a versatile coupling agent that enhances adhesion between materials like glass and polymers. Its reactivity also allows it to be used in coatings, sealants, and various chemical syntheses.
Chemical Formula: \(SiH_{4}\)
Appearance: A colorless gas with a repulsive odor
Flammability: Highly flammable and pyrophoric, meaning it can ignite spontaneously in air
Toxicity: Very toxic by inhalation and a strong irritant to the skin, eyes, and mucous membranes
That was my first thought too. Apparently they’re “phasing it out” by “the end of this year” [0]
I did not know, per that article, that Amazon had for some time now offered motivated third-party sellers a means to avoid commingling by applying a “fulfillment network SKU” barcode to their goods. And that they estimate merchants spend $600mm a year on that type of “restickering.” Expensive, but possible.
One mode of radioactive decay is electron capture, which is absolutely impacted by temperature (just mentioning this as trivia, I meant hot-as-in-radioactive).
Moving around radioactive material doesn't affect its activity, unless you're specifically talking about collecting it into a near-critical mass or something like that. Presumably that's what GP was thinking about wrt neutron reflectors. And I'm pretty sure that only works even in principle if the isotope in question can be stimulated into activity by absorbing neutrons (or other radiation I suppose), which is not the case for all of them. Bio-accumulating a critical mass of radioactive material ion by ion... well, it sure is sci-fi.
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