Since the D.C. Navy Yard
shooting, there’s been a lot of talk about security clearances like the shooter and Edward Snowden had. Let me see if I can shed a little light
on the issue.
Clearances, i.e. Secret and Top Secret, take about six months to obtain—under optimal circumstances. And, not all clearances are equal. Some federal agencies do not accept clearances from other federal agencies.
Imagine you are an employer and you need to hire a person with a clearance. Can you afford to wait six months or more to bring your candidate on board? Probably not—unless you’re the military--so you hire from the available pool of people who already have clearances. Meanwhile, the best match for the kind of work involved may not have a clearance, but that's irrelevant. The young person fresh out of the military with a DOD clearance may not have the education or skills you need, but it's easier to train someone than to wait indefinitely for a clearance.
As a veteran myself, I am not arguing against hiring vets. Military service is excellent training for many of the qualities every employer wants. The problem is with the clearance process.
I've been on the agency side of requesting clearances, held a Top Secret clearance and performed background investigations. An investigation involves a number of interviews and reports: making appointments, driving to various locations, walking door-to-door, interviewing people, etc.. But, there are deadlines, and the whole process typically takes less than two weeks, often only a few days.
What takes six months? The all-agency check. In addition to the background investigation, requests are sent to all federal agencies for whatever may be in their files regarding the subject. Did you ever do a Google search for information about someone? Google, Bing, etc. search thousands, if not millions, of sources and give you an answer within seconds. True, there are special sites that do public records searches and you might allow another half an hour to input the search criteria and pay their fee before getting a reply. The U.S. government is not that easy. All information is agency-specific and proprietary. Agency programs are incompatible with each other more often than not. Requests may arrive digitally, and then have to be re-input by hand. As a result, the clearance process is only as fast as the least automated, least efficient agency.
I have two commonsense recommendations. First, make clearances universal. Every agency honors the process of every other agency. Second, create a digital Rosetta Stone that allows instant agency-to-agency database communication (with safeguards to insure privacy). The way to accomplish both tasks is to create a Department of Information Technology (DIT). The new department would take over IT chores for all government.
By doing so, we could also greatly reduce the number of expensive IT consultants and contractors. DIT staff would simply move seamlessly from project to project. IT pros would come to the government for job security, and the taxpayers would no longer have to pay triple to employ a person (contractors usually charge the government 3-times what they pay their on-site employees). DIT could also have responsibility for all security clearances—with the possible exception of their own—I’d give that job to DOJ or DHS to prevent conflicts of interest.
So, why don’t we take that step (or any steps) to improve security, save tax dollars, and screen out future disasters?
Think about it--there's money involved. Have a nice day.