Chapter 1

Every Marine Guard, every State Department employee, USG agency employee, and even employees of private contractors who are detailed or contracted to a U.S Embassy, knows there are some strict rules related to contacts with foreign nationals. And of course, when you are at a U.S. Embassy, almost everyone outside the Embassy is a foreign national, because you are in their country. From their perspective they are natives, and you are the foreigner. Essentially, everyone except the people you work with all day long are foreign nationals. Every clerk at a convenience store, anybody you strike up a conversation at a public event or even any girl you meet at a bar, they are all, by definition, foreign nationals. You get the picture.

So in order to avoid getting into trouble, and possibly losing your job (or worse), when you are assigned to an embassy, and they remind you that you have reporting requirements for certain contacts with foreign nationals, you want to make sure that you don’t cross a line, and you spend some time reading those rules, to make sure you don’t accidentally ruin your career by either a) having a prohibited contact, or b) having a contact that’s allowed, but failing to report it. Either one will get you in serious hot water.

The first rule is the general, applies to all situations, with a few exceptions. Basically, it is that all contacts with a foreign national of a personal nature should be reported, with some required information to the base PSO, or Post Security Officer. Then there is a section that describes some basic exceptions to that general rule. And these are important, because you really don’t want to have to file a report, every time you have a conversation in a bar, with some cute local girl, who you haven’t even gotten her name yet, when she leaves for some reason. I mean, you could go to a bar, and depending on whether it was hopping or not, you might have to report a dozen “Contacts” with foreign nationals.

The good news is that there are a couple of generous exceptions, that cover a lot of territory. I’m just going to quote the two key relevant sentences here:

“The reporting of limited or casual public contact with foreign nationals is not required absent any other reporting requirement in this policy. Reporting of foreign unofficial contacts is not required when there is only an exchange of personal information (e.g., information that can reasonably identify an individual, recorded in a material form or not).”

So there you are: As long as the contact is limited or casual and is in public, you are good to go. And then the second part, if all you are doing is exchanging names and phone numbers, no problem.

Now, if you are like me, you are thinking about this scenario: what if I meet a very cute, and very sexy FN (foreign national), say when I am assigned to Prague, CZ? Do I have to report the “contact” or not?