The Defense Department is reviewing the standard that allows 10 years between security clearance background investigations for employees with secret-level cle
arances.
Under current law, a person holding a top secret clearance, the highest level of access to classified government information, must be reinvestigated every five years to continue holding the clearance. Those holding a secret clearance, which Washington Navy Yard shooter Aaron Alexis held, must be reinvestigated every 10 years as it is one step below top secret. Those holding a confidential clearance must be reinvestigated every 15 years. Alexis killed 12 people at the Washington naval facility last year.
Stephen Lewis, DoD deputy director for personnel, industrial and physical security policy counterintelligence and security directorate, testified Tuesday to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee that those reviews were in motion. The panel held a hearing investigating reforming the security clearance process following the September shooting.
Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) questioned how the government could allow 10 years between background investigations when she said even the most stable person has incidents in his or her life within a decade. Lewis said upon receipt of derogatory information, DoD’s consolidated adjudications facility would have made a decision if Alexis’ clearance should have been suspended or revoked or if additional investigation was required. Additional action would have been taken, Lewis said.
According to a report released Tuesday by House Oversight Republicans, Alexis was able to receive, and maintain, his secret clearance despite a string of “questionable conduct” over several years, including a 2004 arrest for malicious mischief for shooting out a neighbor’s tires. Three years later when applying for a security clearance, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), which handles the federal government’s background investigation clearinghouse for non-intelligence community (IC) personnel, did not include this information in the background investigative file that went to the Navy. The report says cleared individuals and supervisors must report any derogatory information, but there are no effective checks ensuring compliance.
The report notes that federal law requires local law enforcement agencies to provide criminal history information to federal security clearance investigators, but the law is vague on exactly what must be shared and that many local law enforcement agencies frequently shun federal investigators by providing only limited, if any, information. Seattle, where Alexis had a gun-related arrest, is included on OPM’s list of non-cooperating police departments.
There are also regulations prohibiting background checkers from looking at Web or social media information when performing checks, according to the report. The law also prevents adjudicators who grant the clearances to access this information.
Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-Mass.) introduced legislation Monday that would require the president to submit a plan that would develop and establish a continuous evaluation or monitoring system. It would access federal, state and local government and commercially-available information, including financial credit history, currency transactions, court records, traffic violations, arrest records, terrorist and criminal watch lists, foreign travel and online social media. The plan must also reduce or eliminate the scope or schedule of any periodic reinvestigation of a cleared individual.
The bill also proposes withholding a percentage of federal dollars given to local jurisdictions that fail to “substantially comply” with criminal history record information requests. The rate would be 10 percent of federal funds provided multiplied by the number of consecutive fiscal years that the jurisdiction fails to “substantially comply” with information requests.