Security Clearance Program "In Trouble:" GAO A top Government Accountability Office investigator says there will be no quick fix for the huge backlog of applications for security clearances. “This is a program in trouble,” GAO’s director of defense capabilities and management, Derek Stewart, told the Oversight Subcommittee of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee June 28. The Office of Personnel Management took over responsibility for Defense Department security investigations, as well as most civilian clearances, in February. GAO this year placed the DOD security clearance program on its high-risk list of programs that are vulnerable to waste, fraud and abuse. Defense accounts for about 80% of clearances. A DOD official said the department currently has 329,000 clearance applications in the pipeline, counting military and civilian personnel and contractors. GAO reported that in 2003 it took more than a year, on average, for a contractor to receive a Top Secret clearance. Stewart said the Defense Department has not been able to come up with a reliable forecast of how many clearances it will need each year: “Until that’s done, you are not going to have an efficient or effective program.” Stewart said DOD overestimated the number of clearance investigations it would need by 150,000 in 2001, then underestimated the workload by 100,000 or more in each of the next two years. “If you’re missing your target by 100,000 investigations, that would wreak havoc on the numbers of staff you need to carry out the work, the budgets. There is no way you can plan for that,” he declared. Heather Anderson, acting director of the Defense Security Service, said the department’s estimates have improved since GAO investigated in 2003. She said her agency is working with the rest of the department to better manage the clearance program. Agencies generated a surge of applications for clearances in the security-conscious atmosphere following the 9/11/01 terrorist attacks. At one point unofficial estimates of the backlog ran as high as 750,000 and contractors reported they were paying as much as 25% above normal salaries to hire people with clearances. OPM said it expects to receive 550,000 requests for clearance investigations during this fiscal year plus another 900,000 requests for less-comprehensive background investigations to determine the trustworthiness of individuals. The level of clearances has also risen. Stewart said only about one out of six contractor personnel had a Top Secret clearance in 1995; by 2003 that had grown to more than one out of four. “It requires a lot more resources to investigate somebody for a Top Secret than for a Confidential [clearance],” he said. Anderson said she believes the growth in the number of clearances is leveling off. In addition, she testified, “We are working very hard with the [armed] services and agencies, asking that they scrub their requirements to make sure we are consistent across the department.” She said the department can provide an interim Secret clearance within a week in 80% of the cases, while the investigation for a permanent clearance is being completed, but that is not possible at the Top Secret level. She also said much of the growth in clearance investigations has been in demand for lower-level checks: “An increasing proportion of our investigations is for vetting for access to systems. A lot of our IT positions actually have a vetting requirement. We actually think we should know who the people who are operating our networks are.” In February about 1,500 Defense Security Service personnel were transferred to the Office of Personnel Management. OPM contractors employ about 6,000 investigators, twice as many as a year ago. (SAA, 2/4) Kathy Dillaman, deputy associate director of OPM’s Center for Federal Investigative Services in Boyers, PA, testified that the agency is implementing a Web-based system that allows an applicant’s background information to be entered online. But she said only 27 of more than 100 federal agencies are connected to the system. The Defense Department won’t be fully online for two or three months. Anderson said defense contractors can now use the online system, known as eQIP. By Oct. 1, Dillaman said, OPM’s goal is to complete any investigation identified as “Priority” in 35 days or less and to process 80% of all others within 120 days. The 2004 Intelligence Reform Act directs agencies to process most clearance applications within 90 days by next year. GAO’s Stewart said that deadline is “unrealistic.” The law also calls for agencies to accept clearances granted by other agencies and for creation of a governmentwide database of cleared employees and contractors to eliminate redundant investigations. The subcommittee chairman, Sen. George Voinovich (R-OH), plans additional hearings on the issue. “This system is hurting us,” he said. “I’m going to be on this like a junkyard dog.” The day before Voinovich’s hearing, President Bush signed an executive order directing the Office of Management and Budget to coordinate governmentwide policy on security clearances and implementing other provisions of the Intelligence Reform Act. The sponsor of those provisions, House Government Reform Committee Chairman Tom Davis (R-VA), said the order “is a major step forward on the road to meaningful security clearance process reform.”