Posted on 06/16/2018 6:46:16 AM PDT by davikkm
The change for a new world order creating a mirror image effect on the people, and one organization to decide who gets in and who doesn’t. How can the Pentagon take on another task investigating people, when they can’t find over $9 trillion lost/misplaced/don’t know where it went funds. Who will be losing jobs in the changeover?
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Defense Department is poised to take over background investigations for the federal government, using increased automation and high-tech analysis to tighten controls and tackle an enormous backlog of workers waiting for security clearances, according to U.S. officials. The change aims to fix a system whose weaknesses were exposed by the case of a Navy contractor who gunned down a dozen people at Washington’s Navy Yard in 2013. He was able to maintain a security clearance despite concerns about his mental health and an arrest that investigators never reviewed.
(Excerpt) Read more at investmentwatchblog.com ...
I’d rather have the Defense Dept. responsible for our safety than the Politically Motivated FBI! Most Military personnel are loyal to the country they serve. It’s not all about money. After all, the FBI has shown that giant transgressions against the rules involving millions if not billions in the case of Clinton are only little mistakes and misdemeanors. No mention of TREASON! They need to lose their power to destroy our safety as well as our liberty. Their NAZI tactics need to be STOPPED!
Up until the mid 1990s...you could have your five-year clearance done in roughly a hundred days. Never any problems. Then around 1999, I had a clearance review come up and it was around eight months later when they finally reapproved it. The security guys blamed various things, but never seemed willing to correct anything.
So around 2008, that episode set the record (15 months before they reapproved it). They seemed to want to blame things out of their control and I kept asking...why don’t you control them? No answer.
Note that this change does not apply to Congress, which maintains its own bogus honor system although there have been some reforms.
The word is right now it takes about 12 to 13 months to get a secret level (final, not interim) clearance for someone who has never had one before. TS is about 20 months. This is making people with existing clearances extremely valuable. I’ve heard of some companies offering $20k signing bonuses for cleared job candidates. In another case a company threw “a pile of cash” at an engineer who gave notice in order to change his mind. Apparently it worked... So this effort may also be an attempt to help get labor costs under control because they are trending up significantly right now.
The rapid growth of the Washington DC metropolitan area since 9/11 was funded by national security money going to an ever growing number of Beltway bandits whose job it is to take $100s of Billions and turn it into power point, position papers and power lunches.
In 2015, Congress passed and Obama signed the law creating the National Background Investigation Bureau (NBIB). It was to be a dedicated and focused organization to ensure security clearances were done right and done quickly.
It failed.
NBIB suffered from the usual Obama immaturity and infighting. No one ran the place. All the hiring and contracting need to perform background investigations never took place.
In October 2017, the NBIB was, by their own admission, 725,000 clearances behind. It was gaining a 25,000 per month backlog. Military service members were being discharged because they couldn’t get their clearances renewed. Defense contractors are billions of dollars behind in projects.
In March, 2018, the DoD successfully changed the law to get going on clearances.
A Secret clearance is merely a 7-year NACL check; national agency and law enforcement check. Many commercial entities do exactly the same thing every day. It usually takes less than a week to complete. I’ve had 7 and 10 year NACLs done every year for many years. They have never taken more than 2 weeks from paperwork submittal to be completed.
The government is now past 2-years in many cases to complete a NACL. Even in a good year it still took 10 months to get a NACL completed.
The government’s goal has been 10 days for Secret and 75 or less days for Top Secret. 2004 was about the only year since I’ve been getting clearances that they have met that goal.
It takes longer to get a decision on revoking a clearance. I just did a formal security clearance hearing for a client who has been waiting for the hearing for nearly 2 years.
As Pepsionice said, until the mid-1990s the DoD did their own investigations for ALL security clearances. In a ‘budget move’ during the Clinton years all investigation for security clearances were transferred to the Office of Personnel Management (OPM). The concept was to have one organization doing security clearances for the entire federal government. in the 2000’s OPM contracted with private firm(s) to do the clearance investigations, and that became a major problem, when about 2 years ago, it was discovered that the company OPM hired was NOT doing the investigations or were haphazard about them. People were issued clearances whose investigations were incomplete or faulty, e.g. the shooter at the Navy Yard.
And then the company’s computer system malfunctioned, wiping out thousands of clearances. One of my new hires was hurt by that failure. He had previously held a secret clearance because he had served 10 years enlisted and commissioned service. Because he had been over 10 years since he was discharged, his previous clearance had expired. the new company gave him a issued him a new secret security clearance; we then decided to have his level increased because of additional duties that required it. It was during that new background investigation that the company’s computers and servers died and we lost all record of both his new investigation and proof of his secret investigation that had been issued by them/OPM 2 years previously.
Please sign the petition to release the unredacted version of the OIG report :
CodeToad, Thank you for the additional information. And it was the NBIB that had the massive computer failure and screwups I mentioned.
If there is anything that the entire Clinton email scandal and just concluded OIG investigation has shown is what a farce the entire classification and security process has become, it a joke that apparently no one in the federal government takes seriously anyway.
“... The “privatizing” of government function started under Bill Clinton, ….”
Actually it started under Reagan!
One of the few policies of his that I disagreed with. The theory was to cut costs, let government contract out those things that obviously could be contracted out (Things where the requirements are easy to define and fixed, etc.). For example did executive agencies really need their own on staff barbers & hairdresser? As long as it was stuff like that it worked. Then the smell of easy money drifted over the Beltway and soon what was contracted out was many things! Some things that probably should not have been contracted out. It picked up speed with Bush I & the Clintons and then you saw things contracted out that were inherent government functions. Then it got completely out of control after 9/11. Cheney had little to do with it, it would have happened no matter who was VP. USG was not just throwing money at the terrorism problem but turning on a fire hose of money. Such unrestrained financial behavior attracts all kinds! That’s how government operates, there’s a crisis or a problem don’t think about it to solve it, smother it with money and someone under those piles of dollar bills will solve it either directly or accidently!
Interesting. Thanks for posting.
If Secret takes 12-13 months and Top Secret takes 20 months (a 7-8 month lapse), a TS-CW must take 27-28 months, while Special Access must take 3 years, perhaps just in time to sign a new contract ... for work you still cannot perform because you have not been trained yet due to lack of the proper clearance ... Good Grief!
Bill Clinton revamped the security clearance process. One of the key provisions he made sure was in there—that the president had the authority to issue a clearance to anybody at the president’s discretion.
How many in Obama’s administration could have legitimately gotten clearances at any levels?
Why? Well like robbing a bank - that is where the money is.
I had one back while Reagan was President. I suppose its not worth much now.
“while Special Access must take 3 years”
SAP is just a program registry update. It is merely a recording of who has access and what controls they’ll be operating under, but isn’t usually a new investigation.
That said, last year it took more than 10 months to get an SAP granted when it should take a few weeks at most. An SAP is usually granted before anyone is hired and on site. Currently, employees are on site and waiting up to a year to get program access.
“And then the company’s computer system malfunctioned, wiping out thousands of clearances. “
When the OPM computer systems security failed, they did more than just wipe some things out, they also had a breach of millions of clearances. Some highly classified black budget programs were exposed in that breach. Because of that, some programs decided it best to merely wipe records clean. They went into overtime to cleanse histories. It was an absolute mess, and still is.
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