Posted on 09/07/2017 2:58:25 PM PDT by grimalkin
WASHINGTON Under a crushing backlog in the issuing or renewing of security clearances, federal authorities have given interim clearances to people they later discovered were murderers and pedophiles, a senior government official said Wednesday.
This is very, very dangerous, said Daniel E. Payne, head of the Defense Security Service, a federal office that oversees the granting of temporary clearances.
Payne said roughly 100,000 people hold interim clearances while working for companies with Defense Department contracts or at 13,000 cleared facilities and plants around the country and as they await a full comprehensive background investigation.
Ive got murderers who have access to classified information. I have rapists. I have pedophiles. I have people involved in child porn, Payne said. This is the risk we are taking.
Payne spoke on a panel about the backlog in security clearances at the Intelligence & National Security Summit in Washington. The backlog grew precipitously in 2015 and 2016, and stands at near record levels today, said Charles S. Phalen, director of the National Background Investigations Bureau, a federal service provider under the Office of Personnel Management.
The backlog encompasses roughly 700,000 cases, but only 300,000 or so people are seeking a first-time clearance to enter government service, Phalen said. The remainder may be federal employees or contractors seeking a periodic renewal of a security clearance or a change in their clearance level, he added. They stay in federal jobs.
Payne, a career counter-intelligence officer with the CIA, said the concerns about interim clearances only affect the Defense Department and its associated industrial base, not the nations intelligence agencies, where temporary clearances are never granted. I grant the interim clearances for the DOD. I also take the interim clearances away, Payne told a reporter after the panel ended. Asked how many cases his office had discovered of people with a murder in their background, he said: Its more than several. I would say less than a dozen.
One case happened just a month ago when a man with an interim clearance got in an argument at a bar. He pulls out a gun and shoots them in the face and kills them, Payne said.
Applicants obtain interim clearances after filling out a lengthy government form, known as an SF-86, and undergoing a credit check and an initial FBI background check. The full, comprehensive clearance involves far deeper research, including interviews with neighbors and work associates, deeper financial inquiries, checks of family history and probes into overseas travel.
Youre looking on average at close to a year for a top-secret clearance, Payne said, adding that a lower level secret clearance takes an average of nine months. He said the backlog is so great the Pentagon has little choice but to offer interim clearances to keep weapons development programs at full steam.
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POSTER'S RANT---I don't believe this for a nano-second.....its a CYA excuse. This is the half/caste Royal Idiot's calculated scheme to bring in more and more refugees and immigrants WITHOUT any vetting whatsoever and to foist these craven Third Worlders the American populace.
It's an outrage that some of these scumbags are working in the Congress and the Pentagon.
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