Security Clearance Jobs Blog

The Electronic Freedom Foundation (EFF) recently obtained information under the Freedom of Information Act regarding a June 2009 report of a study sponsored by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) on the use of Cyber Vetting for security clearance purposes. The study involved 349 test cases of intelligence agency applicants who consented to participating in the study and found “adverse information” on 28% of the cases. Adverse information was defined as:

Deliberate and overly descriptive posting of personal and/or work related information on public forums. This includes information about the subject’s specific work assignment, including listing descriptive information about colleagues and/or work site. Adverse classifications were also applied when references were found indicating illegal drug use or pictures appearing to show the subject engaged in illegal drug use.”

ODNI indicated that this was not a detailed study and that it would not be used to suggest modifications to existing investigative standards. “It is simply an initial approach to increase our knowledge and awareness of what types of information are posted in these sites so that educated decisions can be made regarding any future research. . . . If the results of the survey are suggestive and justify further work, the [ODNI] Special Security Center will commence design of a formal research project which will include thorough legal vetting.”

The study recommended the use of internet research, including media, blog, social networking, and professional networking sites as an adjunct to standard security clearance investigations.

Shortly after the statement of work for this study was issue in June 2008, ODNI decided more comprehensive studies were needed. In late summer 2008 ODNI issued RFPs for 2 additional studies with a total price of about $800,000.  EFF is pursuing other documents related to the governments use of the internet for investigative purposes and may possibly obtain a copy of the two later studies.

ODNI has stated that:

From the perspective of personnel security, cyber-behavior represents an emerging area of behavior that should be considered as an important part of the adjudication process for granting security clearances for personnel working in national security positions. To address these challenges, adjudication policies must be modernized to incorporate a better understanding of the type and frequency of personnel IT activities. This necessitates identifying which specific cyber-behaviors are normative, acceptable, or favorable as well as identifying those that may be associated with risky or problematic cyber behavior within the workplace.

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An article in USA Today says more state and local law enforcement officers are getting top secret clearances from the FBI to access sensitive federal information in terrorism cases than at anytime since 9/11.

Clearances granted to members of the FBI’s network of regional terrorism task forces jumped to 878 in 2009, up from 125 in 2007…Since 2001, the number of terrorism units, which draw on federal, state and local investigators, have grown from 35 to 104 nationwide. The units are staffed with 4,433 officers and agents, up from 912 in 2001, FBI spokesman Bill Carter told USA Today.

The FBI is launching an effort to declassify information that can be shared with more local investigators.  “Trying to get everybody into the clearance arena is not the solution,” FBI Assistant Director Ronald Ruecker reported to USA Today.

After 9/11, the FBI established the State and Local Law Enforcement Executives and Elected Officials Security Clearance Initiative. This program was initiated to brief officials with an established “need-to-know” on classified information that would or could affect their area of jurisdiction.

For more information see FBI Process for State and Local Law Enforcement | Brochure [pdf]

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A story on 10News in San Diego highlighted a 32 year-old man who held a security clearance and was working at a Defense Contractor.  He was let go from his job after a random drug test, which was preceded by his disclosure to a co-worker that he had a medical marijuana prescription for his depression.

Under federal law (Section 3002 of 50 U.S.C. 435b) a current user of illegal drugs can not be granted a security clearance. Using illegal drugs a few months prior to submitting a clearance application form can be considered current use.

A 2003 national survey of drug use showed that about 60% of Americans between 19 and 30 years of age had used an illegal drug and about 20% had used a prescription drug for non-medical reasons some time in their lives.

Read more about Drug Use and Security Clearances | Watch ClearanceJobsTV – Drug Use

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While lying on a job application has its repercussions, a young Michigan man found that lying on a CIA job application landed him in jail.

The Washington Post reported that Glenn Duffie Shriver, 28, was arrested on June 22 for lying on his CIA job application about his work with Chinese intelligence that netted him $70,000. He now faces five counts of making false statements that could land him a maximum of five years in prison, if convicted.

Federal prosecutors allege Shriver met repeatedly with foreign intelligence officers and traveled to China in 2007.

Shriver’s mother, Karen Chavez, told a Detroit television station that Shriver moved to China for work during a SARS outbreak. He later moved to South Korea for a job teaching English.

Shriver was arrested at Detroit Metro Airport while attempting to fly back to South Korea.

Shriver is one of more than 40 suspected Chinese agents in the U.S. who have been arrested and prosecuted for espionage-related charges over the past two years. The number of prosecuted Chinese spies is much higher than the 10 Russian spies discovered recently.

“In recent years, the Justice Department has handled an increasing number of prosecutions involving sensitive American weapons technology, trade secrets and other restricted information bound for China,” said Dean Boyd, a spokesman for the Justice Department’s National Security Division to the Washington Post.

The Justice Department had convicted 44 individuals in 26 cases since March 2008, almost all of whom are now serving time in federal prisons Boyd revealed to the Washington Post.

Last February, a Chinese-born engineer was sentenced to more than 15 years in prison for hoarding sensitive information about the U.S. space shuttle that prosecutors say he intended to share with China.

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A June 15, 2010 article, “Buzz on lie detectors is a lie, NSA video says,” at WashingtonPost.com reported on a new 10-minute video about polygraph tests posted at the Defense Security Service’s (DSS) training website. “The Truth About the Polygraph” is reported to be a video produced by the National Security Agency (NSA) designed to reduce the anxiety applicants feel about the examination.

The DSS Academy website provides the following comments regarding the video. An accompanying 2-page brochure is also available:

Many positions of trust with the U.S. Government require candidates to undergo a polygraph examination. This video, aimed at either current or prospective employees, provides an overview of the process that may be encountered when a polygraph examination is required for employment or access to sensitive information.

Neither the DSS Academy website nor the video itself provided any information about the production of the video.

It’s difficult to make any general statements about the manner in which polygraph tests for security clearance applicant screening are conducted. Although, all federal polygraph examiners are trained at the Defense Academy for Credibility Assessment—DACA (formerly known as the DOD Polygraph Institute); examiners develop their own individual style that’s usually influenced by their organization’s culture.

Truth About the Polygraph Brochure [pdf] | The Truth About the Polygraph [flash video]

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In September 2009 representatives of OMB, OPM, ODNI, and DOD testified before the Senate subcommittee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs regarding security clearance reform. (See 16 Sep 2009 blog topic “Congressional Hearing On Security Clearance Reform.”) Post-Hearing Questions (and answers) for the record were recently published as an appendix to the hearing report.

One of the most interesting questions concerned the number of cases returned to OPM by DOD due to incompleteness. Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence James Clapper’s response on page 93 was illuminating:

In FY 2008, the Department returned approximately 188,483 cases and in FY 2009, the Department returned approximately 129,558 cases. Some cases are returned to OPM due to incompleteness or because they were missing critical expansion of developed issues. Other cases are returned or requested to be reopened because the subject of the case was deployed and could not be reached to complete the subject interview. However, in many instances where investigations received from OPM lack investigative scope items or other necessary information, adjudicators contact the subject or agencies themselves to obtain missing information in order to avoid timeliness delays or to avoid incurring additional costs. The Department does not currently have a means to track those cases.

In FY 2008, the Department was charged approximately $86,303,826 and in FY 2009, $63,104,471 for cases returned to OPM due to incompleteness or with requests for additional information.

Here is OPM Director John Berry’s response on page 90 to a slightly different question:

During FY 2009 of the 2,157,531 investigations closed, 1721 (.08 percent) were reopened due to quality concerns. Of the 1721 investigations reopened, 1362 (79 percent) were conducted by contractors, and 359 (21 percent) by Federal employees. The quality reopen percentages rates trend very closely to the actual workload distribution between contractor and Federal staff.

Clapper’s response addressed only DOD security clearance investigations, which totaled about 650,000 in FY 2009. Berry’s response included all agencies and all types of investigations, including single agency checks. Even if the majority of the cases returned by DOD to OPM were because the subject of the case was deployed, it’s still very difficult to reconcile DOD’s 20% return rate with OPM’s .08% “quality” reopen rate. And in how many cases did DOD adjudicators obtain information by themselves that should have been in the report of investigation?

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On March 10, 2010 the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) approved a new version of the Standard Form 86—SF86 (Questionnaire for National Security Positions). The only description of the new form currently available is a PDF file, consisting of 453 pages of explanations and screen shots of the eQIP version, posted at the reginfo.gov website. The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) has not yet posted the new form at their website. The last revision of the SF86 was approved in July 2008. OPM did not post that version of the form on their website until October 2008 and the eQIP version was not available for use by contractors until January 2009.

The new March 2010 version of the SF86 is considerably different and longer than the version submitted for public comment in September 2009. That version was described on this blog at “OPM Submits New SF86 for Review” in October 2009. Major changes now include:

• Purpose of this form—“This form may also be used by agencies in determining whether a subject performing work for, or on behalf of, the Government under a contract should be deemed eligible for logical or physical access when the nature of the work to be performed is sensitive and could bring about an adverse effect on the national security.”
• History of residences, schools, and employment require 10 years of information for all levels of clearances.
• Many new and expanded questions were added regarding foreign connections, foreign involvement, and foreign travel.
• Reportable foreign associates now include those with whom you are bound by a “common interest” (a significant change that may affect social media contacts).
• New and expanded questions were added regarding financial records, police records, drugs, alcohol, and mental health.

These changes are in line with the Joint Security and Suitability Reform Team’s (JSSRT) planned expansion of upfront comprehensive follow-up questions necessary to enhance the collection of subject-reported information as early as possible in the investigative process. Answers to the new and expanded questions represent information that would otherwise have to be obtained during a Subject Interview by an investigator and will result in shorter Subject Interview times for applicants with complicated personal histories.

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The U.S. State Department is investigating an employee with top-secret security clearance who government investigators say mishandled classified information related to national security, according to an article on FoxNews.com.

“Eugene Reginald Hopson, a 30-year veteran of the State Department, described as an information management officer, oversaw the handling and security of classified information in U.S. embassies.

He was stripped of his security clearance and ordered back to Washington in October after 12 years overseas when State Department special agents found he had unauthorized possession of classified materials, according to an affidavit filed in the case.

A January search of his household belongings yielded five U.S. diplomatic passports, one Bolivian passport and evidence of bank accounts in Honduras, Italy and the Cayman Islands, search warrants show.”

The article goes on to state that The State Department confirmed that an investigation is underway, however, no charges have been filed. There are two laws that he possibly violated, one prohibiting “unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents” and the other on “gross negligence”, allowing classified information to be removed from its “proper place of custody“.

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The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) recently released an undated presentation entitled, The Security Clearance and Investigation Process. Included in the presentation are the following data:

The fastest 90% of the initial security clearance investigations were completed in an average of 41 days (70 days for Top Secret and 36 days for Secret/Confidential).

For Fiscal Year 2005 OPM reported conducted 31,300 Public Trust Investigations (Background Investigations—BI, Limited Background Investigations—LBI, and Minimum Background Investigations—MBI) and 142,354 Suitability Investigations (National Agency Check with Inquires—NACI). These numbers increased in FY07 to about 47,000 and 284,500 (respectively). The FY09 figures show a dramatic increase in Public Trust investigations. The rise and fall of NACIs from FY05 to FY09 may have been caused by a large surge of investigations for HSPD-12 PIV cards. The category of “Other” primarily covers NACs (National Agency Check) and SACs (Special Agreement Check). SACs are usually a single records check, such as an FBI fingerprint check, military personnel records check, credit check, etc., used for pre-screening candidates, resolving individual security/suitability issues, or fulfilling other federal agency mission related objectives that don’t require a standard security or suitability investigation.

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In February 2010 the U.S. House of Representatives passed their version (HR 2701) of the Intelligence Authorization Act for fiscal year 2010.  The Senate passed their version (S.1494) in September 2009.  Hopefully the two versions will be reconciled, passed by Congress, and sent to the President.

The House version creates an Ombudsman for Intelligence Community (IC) security clearances in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and requires each IC agency to provide contact information for the ombudsman to all clearance applicants.

The House version also requires the President to submit to Congress within 180 days of enactment a report that includes the feasibility, counterintelligence risk, and cost effectiveness of –

• by not later than January 1, 2012, requiring the investigation and adjudication of security clearances to be conducted by not more than two Federal agencies; and

• by not later than January 1, 2015, requiring the investigation and adjudication of security clearance to be conducted by not more than one Federal agency.

Both the creation of an ombudsman for IC clearances and a formal study on reducing the number of investigative and adjudicative agencies seem like excellent ideas.  Both could result in improving clearance reciprocity.  The last time an Intelligence Authorization Act became law was in December 2004.  The ones since then have either died in Congress or been successfully vetoed.  So, this may not be the best vehicle to further these two ideas.

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A February 17, 2010 article at Government Computer News reported that:

“The Homeland Security Department is nearly three years behind in getting Personal Identity Verification (PIV) cards for its employees and contractors, according to a new report from DHS Inspector General Richard Skinner.”

Homeland Security Presidential Directive 12 (August 2004), Policy for a Common Identification Standard for Federal Employees and Contractors, mandated that federal agencies issue secure federal ID cards by October 2008. As of September 2009, only 15,567, of the approximately 250,000 Department of Homeland Security (DHS) employees and contractors, had been issued PIV cards. The January 2010 DHS Inspector General’s report outlined 15 recommendations to improve the department’s implementation of HSPD-12.

Other federal agencies have also had problems implementing the PIV card requirement.  According to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) as of December 2009 only a handful of federal agencies had met the October 2008 PIV card implementation requirements of OMB Memorandum M-05-24. A February 2008 article at nextgov.com provides a good overview of the program and its problems.

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An article in the Ventura County Star reports that Port Hueneme Navy officials didn’t trust a security manager to keep classified information safe.  The security manager for the Naval Facilities Engineering Service Center at Port Hueneme in 2008 was gone after 10 months on the job and put on administrative leave without pay.

The security manager, Gary Bigger,  maintains security violations occurred at the base for years and is being made a scapegoat.  Biggers said he was trained for the security manager position for two weeks.

An official 2008 Navy report related to his case revealed a list of security lapses and recommended that Biggers and other employees be stripped of their security clearances.

A twist in the story…

In May 2008, Biggers and his lawyer, Jack Futoran of Ventura, received a letter explaining why officials at the center were going to ask higher-ups to never allow Biggers to have access to military secrets.

The letter arrived in a package that also contained the investigative report. Futoran said he was surprised to also see, with the report, some photocopied documents marked “Top Secret” and “Secret.”

“These people deal with some extremely sensitive stuff,” Futoran said. “I immediately closed that (document),” and he told Biggers, “You can’t have this. I can’t have this.”

Port Hueneme is primarily an engineering, maintenance and construction base for various Navy functions. The Naval Construction Battalion Center at Port Hueneme is home to the Pacific coast “SeaBees”, the wartime engineering and building force.

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The AP reports:

The government accused Dongfan “Greg” Chung, a stress analyst with high-level clearance, of using his 30-year career at Boeing and Rockwell International to steal the documents. They said investigators found papers stacked throughout Chung’s house that included sensitive information about a booster rocket fueling system — documents that employees were ordered to lock away at the end of each day. They said Boeing invested $50 million in the technology over a five-year period.

In his ruling, Carney [the judge] wrote that the notion that Chung was merely a pack rat was “ludicrous” and said the evidence showed that he had been passing information to Chinese officials as a spy.

Chung worked for Rockwell until it was bought by Boeing in 1996. He stayed with the company until he was laid off in 2002, then was brought back a year later as a consultant. He was fired when the FBI began its investigation in 2006.

To no ones surprise, China has denied any involvement.   It’s worth noting that this case came about while investigators were looking into another suspected Chinese spy.

Of course, this is just one way to spy – another, bigger,  growing problem exists.

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Once again the news media got it wrong. Referring to the Report of the DoD Independent Review Related to Fort Hood (Protecting the Force: Lessons from Fort Hood), an Associated Press article, claimed:

“Their investigation also found his top-level security clearance hadn’t been properly investigated.”

A WashingtonPost.com article stated:

“The report also said that Hasan was granted a top-level security clearance in February 2008 but that his background check did not include interviews with co-workers, supervisors or Hasan himself.”

The DoD report actually stated:

“[Hasan] held an active and current SECRET security clearance based on a February 2008 National Agency Check with Local Agency and Credit Check of [sic] background investigation. Although accomplished in accordance with current guidelines, this background investigation did not include a subject interview or interviews with coworkers, supervisors, or expanded character references.”

A Secret clearance can hardly be characterized as a “top-level security clearance,” and if it was “accomplished in accordance with current guidelines” it was incorrect to claim that it “hadn’t been properly investigated.” A standard NACLC has the narrowest scope of any security clearance investigation and does not include a Subject Interview or any reference interviews. It simply isn’t capable of surfacing the type of information that might have made a difference in Hasan’s case.

The DoD report went on to criticize the adequacy of the NACLC for Secret clearances, the vagueness of the Adjudicative Guidelines, and insufficient training on how and to whom significant information is reported. However, the DoD report did not cite any specific examples of vagueness in the guidelines or insufficiency in training. Army Regulation 380-67, “Personnel Security Program” states, “the supervisor must ensure that all relevant information is reported to the local command security official responsible for processing the investigative paperwork.” It also states, “Coworkers have an equal obligation to advise their supervisor or appropriate security official when they become aware of information with potentially serious security significance regarding someone with access to classified information or employed in a sensitive position.” Guideline A of the Adjudicative Guidelines appears equally clear and unambiguous about the issue of loyalty and allegiance.

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The FBI released a statement and politico reported that a former FBI contract linguist pleaded guilty to unlawfully providing classified documents to the host of an Internet blog who then published information derived from those documents on the blog.

Shamai Kedem Leibowitz, a.k.a., Samuel Shamai Leibowitz, 39, of Silver Spring, Maryland, pleaded guilty in federal court to a one-count information charging him with knowingly and willfully disclosing to an unauthorized person five FBI documents classified at the “Secret” level that contained classified information concerning the communication intelligence activities of the United States.  Under the plea agreement, the government and Leibowitz have agreed that a term of 20 months imprisonment is the appropriate sentence in this case.

From January 2009 through August 2009, Leibowitz was employed by the FBI as a contract linguist in an office in Calverton, Maryland.  Leibowitz held a Top Secret security clearance and is an Israeli American dual citizen. More from Politico…

“After news of the charges against him broke, it took reporters only minutes to track down news articles reporting that Leibowitz was fired from a legal clerkship in Israel and was publicly chastised by an Israeli Supreme Court justice for leaking a judge’s private comments…

Experts were also puzzled that someone with a long history of public activism on polarizing issues would wind up working for U.S. law enforcement in a classified environment and be granted access to sensitive information…

Some lawyers said the top-secret clearance awarded to Leibowitz, who describes himself as an Israeli-American, was particularly puzzling because Americans who are also Israeli citizens frequently face clearance denials and delays because of concerns they might harbor an allegiance to Israel.”

The FBI said it would look at whether the clearance process was handled properly.

Does this signal a breakdown in the security clearance process?

Related Article: Dual Citizenship And Security Clearances, Foreign Influence and Security Clearances

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