- https://twitter.com/GeorgWebb/status/905945052396097537
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"Under a crushing backlog in the issuing or renewing of security clearances, federal authorities have given interim clearances to people they later discovered were murderers and pedophiles, a senior government official said Wednesday." "The backlog in security clearances soared in 2014 after one of three major contractors involved in conducting background checks, US Investigations Services LLC, lost its government business amid allegations that it had bungled and falsified results." Read more here:
- McClatchyDC: Buried in backlog, Feds give top-secret clearances to murderers, rapists
WASHINGTON Under a crushing backlog in the issuing or renewing of security clearances, federal authorities have given interim clearances to people they later discovered were murderers and pedophiles, a senior government official said Wednesday.
“This is very, very dangerous,” said Daniel E. Payne, head of the Defense Security Service, a federal office that oversees the granting of temporary clearances.
Payne said roughly 100,000 people hold interim clearances while working for companies with Defense Department contracts or at 13,000 cleared facilities and plants around the country and as they await a full comprehensive background investigation.
“I’ve got murderers who have access to classified information. I have rapists. I have pedophiles. I have people involved in child porn,” Payne said. “This is the risk we are taking.”
Payne spoke on a panel about the backlog in security clearances at the Intelligence & National Security Summit in Washington.
The backlog “grew precipitously” in 2015 and 2016, and stands at near record levels today, said Charles S. Phalen, director of the National Background Investigations Bureau, a federal service provider under the Office of Personnel Management.
The backlog encompasses roughly 700,000 cases, but only 300,000 or so people are seeking a first-time clearance to enter government service, Phalen said. The remainder may be federal employees or contractors seeking a periodic renewal of a security clearance or a change in their clearance level, he added. They stay in federal jobs.
Payne, a career counterintelligence officer with the CIA, said the concerns about interim clearances only affect the Defense Department and its associated industrial base, not the nation’s intelligence agencies, where temporary clearances are never granted.
“I grant the interim clearances for the DOD. I also take the interim clearances away,” Payne told a reporter after the panel ended. Asked how many cases his office had discovered of people with a murder in their background, he said: “It’s more than several. I would say less than a dozen.”
One case happened just a month ago when a man with an interim clearance got in an argument at a bar. “He pulls out a gun and shoots them in the face and kills them,” Payne said.
Applicants obtain interim clearances after filling out a lengthy government form, known as an SF-86, and undergoing a credit check and an initial FBI background check.
The full, comprehensive clearance involves far deeper research, including interviews with neighbors and work associates, deeper financial inquiries, checks of family history and probes into overseas travel.
“You’re looking on average at close to a year for a top-secret clearance,” Payne said, adding that a lower level secret clearance takes an average of nine months.
He said the backlog is so great the Pentagon has little choice but to offer interim clearances to keep weapons development programs at full steam.
“If we did not give these individuals interim clearances, the production of these programs would shut down,” Payne said. “It would have a horrific impact.”
The backlog in security clearances soared in 2014 after one of three major contractors involved in conducting background checks, US Investigations Services LLC, lost its government business amid allegations that it had bungled and falsified results.
Other officials bemoaned bureaucracy in their attempts to make the clearance process more agile and up-to-date, including in the types of questions asked on the SF-86 form.
“It took eight years to change one question on the SF-86,” said William R. Evanina, director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, the nation’s top agency for catching foreign spies.
Investigations entail sending agents to the homes of neighbors of an applicant.
“I had FBI agents all over my neighborhood and my neighbors got very worried that I was in trouble,” said Beth McGrath, a former Pentagon management officer who now is managing director of federal strategy of Deloitte Consulting.
Yet checking social media accounts of applicants has not been fully embraced, she said.
“Some people think, ‘Oh, you’re infringing on my privacy,’” said McGrath. “This is where the process of government sometimes feels like it takes more steps than it should because you have to actually change the policy to say we’re going to allow social media information to be part of the background investigation.”
Several officials said they expected the backlog to diminish as federal agencies and departments embrace a process of continuous evaluation of employees rather than periodic reappraisals every five to 10 years. The Defense Department now has 500,000 employees enrolled in the constant vetting program, a number that should grow to one million by year’s end, Payne said."
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Related:
- TheHill: The case for protecting America's intelligence agency whistleblowers By Michael F. McMahon - 05/25/17
” If in 2009 the FBI had halted, corrected, disclosed to the public and held those responsible to account for this national security name check debacle, the inaccurate background checks and vetting of Edward Snowden, Aaron Alexis, as well as the 665,000 flawed background checks conducted by security firm USIS might never have occurred.”
- Jason Goodman interviews Michael F. McMahon, FBI Whistle Blower to discuss gross systemic corruption within the FBI’s National Name Check Program
The following is a partial transcript of this 45 minute interview between Jason Goodman and Michael F. McMahon dated August 23, 2017. The above link is preset to begin 34 minutes into the video to coincide with this transcript segment:
Jason Goodman: ”...when I hear statements like corner-cutting and quantity over quality, it sounds very generous in your description, almost as if it’s an accident or if it’s a sort of a bureaucratic shortcoming. But, it certainly feel s like some of these things are done in a very deliberate sense to be able to purposely put nefarious people through that system...like ‘Imran Awan’ and others who are in place and in a position to really do harm on a major level.”
Michael F. McMahon: ”The ‘name checks’ at the ‘records management divisions’ / ‘national name check program’, OPM desk (Office of Personnel Management), um, the upper management in charge knowingly and willingly processed ‘name checks’ for the sake of expediency – PERIOD. Incidentally, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) was reimbursing the FBI for ‘name checks reports’ that were sent by the FBI to OPM. So, in effect, it was a money making enterprise. ”
Jason Goodman: ”Wow, that’s pretty shocking!”
Michael F. McMahon: ”It’s a, uh, that is it was mandated. That was the program and that is known by everyone. That is something that is not a secret.”
Jason Goodman: ”Well, you know, it may not be a secret but it’s certainly – I don’t think known to the American public at large. One of the things that’s so advantageous about this format that we have here, this ‘Crowd-Source-Community’ and crowd supported community is that we don’t have to adhere to the traditional models of corporate control, the advertiser driven news media, that has to come out a specific time and fit into a specific time slot . For people who care to listen, which I think is a growing number , we can really get into these details with individuals, like yourself, who from personal experience really know what’s happening. So, I’ve got to thank you very much for taking this time, Michael. I hope that this will be the first in a series of interviews that you and I can do to just really delve into this and help you get your message out and help get this problem solved.”
Michael F. McMahon: ”I really appreciate that, Jason. My first goal, these are my whistleblower objectives and as I previously mentioned,
- I’d like to speak with President Trump and to also speak in front of Congress regarding this FBI ‘name check’ debacle and cover up. As I previously stated, this is neither a GOP issue nor a Dem issue. It’s an American issue. We can all get involved and get behind it, even the elite media if you will, mainstream media, those online podcasts. We can all come together and get this done. There is no debate in this – it is all factual and it affects us all – period . So, let’s all get together and do it.
- The second objective, if you will, is to protect our National Security in/& (?) the American public through exposing this quantity over quality FBI vetting policy and practice .
- Thirdly, it’s to notify the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) of the incomplete background check products and results they have received and passed and for which they paid money. As I previously stated,
tens of thousands of ‘name checks’ need to be re-‘name checked’.
- Going along with the FBI are following along it , the FBI Counter-espionage unit received classified and sensitive information – pardon me – to notify the FBI Counter-espionage unit that classified, sensitive information was sent to OPM without FBI counter-SBI counter-espionage approval or knowledge. This information could jeopardize field of course, FBI investigations, informants, and bureau field personnel.
- Next, is to uphold departments to hold those publicly responsible and to account, as I previously stated, for knowingly and willingly processing ‘name checks’ for the sake of expediency not accuracy.
- To ensure Congress passes concrete non-tiered whistle-blower protections for all Federal Government employees.
- And for the President to sign into law ASAP and to have all accepted services such as the FBI, CIA, NSA to be reinstated into their respective organizations with back-pay and benefits.
One thing which I would like to bring up – which I was not going to bring up on this conversation is that the retaliation whistle-blowers experience is, at least in my case, is unrelenting and they try to get you in line – put your eyes or head to the grindstone and get along with the program. In the past, over the decades or centuries, those who perpetrated bad things, crimes etc. etc. etc. – they would always say ‘I was only following orders. I was only following policy. This person told me to do that’. That can never happen. You have to hold everyone to account whether they’re in the lead or they’re actually the employees . Just because one is a lemming or a pollywog or has fear, they have to be held to account also.
Now, to get into the retaliation, for my part. I just want to bring this to light because it’s very important. On my, at my post as unit chief national ‘name check program’ OPM desk and other desks, by the way, not only did FBI Bureau personnel work the desks but they also had contractor research analysts who were farmed out also to augment the force of ‘name checks’ because of the cascading amount of name checks coming through by OPM . In particular, my division comprised of approximately 60% (six, zero) contracted research analysts and 40% (four, zero) bureau analysts. This is the point I’d like to bring up. Part of retaliation is this is how vicious the FBI – and I don’t mean as a total organization – the FBI management where I worked were. This has to be exposed.
There was collusion between the FBI Records Management Division and Contractor Research Analyst Firms Management who colluded to get me terminated because I would not play the numbers game. You know, processing ‘name checks’ for the sake of expediency. Many, many contract research analysts came up to me stating that their respective management were going around prior to me getting terminated asking if they had anything adverse to say about unit chief McMahon. Of course, I have the names etc. etc. This is how a perverse, I guess you can say ‘allegiance to FBI’ as an entity as opposed to America as where you’re supposed to have your allegiance to. It was absolutely disgraceful. There are many other adjectives and adverbs I could use but it was shameful and this has to be exposed. “