Defense personnel waiting longer for clearances

Top-secret security clearances for Defense Department employees are taking longer to complete than they did last year, according to the department's deputy inspector general. Robert J. Lieberman, deputy IG at Defense, said he was "troubled" that it takes the Defense Security Service more than a year to conduct the most sensitive background checks for Pentagon employees and others seeking security clearances. "The prospect of vital positions going unfilled because of delayed initial clearances or of those positions being held by individuals with grossly outdated clearances, both on a mass scale, is clearly disturbing," said Lieberman at a Friday hearing of the House Government Reform Subcommittee on National Security. The subcommittee has held three hearings in the past year on the Defense Security Service's problems with conducting timely background investigations. More than 2.4 million Defense personnel hold Pentagon security clearances. Depending on the type of clearance they hold, employees are re-investigated every five to 15 years. The Defense Security Service, the agency charged with conducting the background investigations, continues to struggle with a massive backlog of cases, due in part to staff cuts and a rapidly increasing workload. According to Charles Cunningham, director of the Defense Security Service, the agency has 1,250 field investigators and a backlog of 435,000 pending investigation cases. It is now taking roughly 403 days to complete top-secret clearance investigations--compared to 359 days in September 2000-according to January 2001 Defense Security Service data. Periodic reinvestigations for top-secret clearances take 470 days to complete, an increase of 84 days from September 2000. Subcommitee Chairman Christopher Shays, R-Conn., complained about the long wait. "Many--too many--investigations take almost a full year to complete. That means individuals granted top-secret clearances in 1994 might go nine full years before completion of any detailed scrutiny of their fitness to handle classified information," he said. Arthur L. Money, assistant secretary of defense for command, control, communications and intelligence at the Pentagon, acknowledged the long-standing concerns with the agency's case backlog, but also said he did not believe it compromised national security. "I don't believe national security has decreased one iota, but in fact, has increased as a result of these investigations," said Money. Money said that the Defense Security Service has improved its backlog of periodic investigations. As of October 2000, the backlog was 317,000, down from more than 600,000 in October 1999. The backlog has gone back up to more than 400,000 cases since then. During the past two years, the Defense Security Service has made an effort to chip away at the clearance backlog, including replacing the organization's director and bringing Cunningham aboard; outsourcing a chunk of the workload to the Office of Personnel Management and contractors; and scrapping a failed case management system for a new plan that incorporated many recommendations from the General Accounting Office. Despite its efforts, the agency is still plagued with training problems, a lackluster information technology system and cases being sent to the wrong investigators, Lieberman said. Lieberman praised Cunningham's efforts to tackle the backlog, and noted the difficulties inherent in cleaning up the system. The Defense Security Service is hopeful it can reach its goal of reducing its backlog to 150,000 investigations by the end of fiscal 2002, but Lieberman was skeptical the agency could meet that goal.