WASHINGTON, Nov. 23 (UPI) -- The backlog of more than a half-million security-clearance investigations on potential federal employees or contractors "threatens national security," say officials, and new measures announced this week are only a step towards solving the problem.
Congressional investigators say that about 258,000 would-be contractors or employees with the Department of Defense, and another 224,000 with civilian agencies, were waiting for background investigations to be completed over the summer, and thousands more were waiting for final adjudication of completed investigations.
"My frustration is, we're a nation at war," William Leonard, who runs the U.S. government's National Industrial Security Program, told United Press International. "How quickly people can get through that (clearance) process affects our ability to wage that war.
"This backlog is just unacceptable."
Monday evening the Department of Defense announced a long-awaited step designed to help clear the backlog. As part of a long-term plan to centralize and streamline the clearance process, responsibility for running investigations -- and the more than 1,800 staff who carry them out -- was transferred to the Office of Personnel Management.
David Marin, deputy staff director of the House Government Reform Committee, which held hearings on the issue over the summer, told UPI that the move was "better late than never."
"This backlog threatens national security by limiting the availability of otherwise qualified personnel," he said.
Over the summer, committee investigators found, the average clearance took 375 days -- more than a year -- to complete, largely because of the size of the backlog.
And a major reason for the backlog, Marin said, is that different federal agencies generally do not recognize each other's clearances.
"Each agency has its own standards for investigations and its own guidelines for how to adjudicate what those investigations find," explained Leonard. He adds that while the standards for an investigation are pretty cut and dried, the guidelines for adjudication are "more subjective. How (the same applicant's) situation is viewed can vary from agency to agency."
This means that a contractor or employee who wants to move from one agency to another, or even from one part of one agency to another, may have to undergo a whole new investigation -- even if the new post requires the same level of clearance that they already have.
"If the new clearance is at a higher level, then a new investigation is reasonable," said Marin.
"But if it's like for like, those agencies need to get over themselves."
Critics of the current system say that Monday's transfer of Defense investigations to the Office of Personnel Management is a step in the right direction but warn that without legislation, centralizing and streamlining the duplicative and inefficient arrangements that prevail at present will be tough sledding.
Marin said that Government Reform Committee Chairman Tom Davis, R-Va., had drafted legislation to centralize the investigation process. That language found its way into the now stalled intelligence-reform bill.
"If the intel bill doesn't make it," said Marin, "We'll reintroduce the language as a stand-alone bill. This has got to be done."
In the absence of legislation, Leonard brought together the four main agencies that use private contractors -- the departments of Defense and Energy, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the CIA -- and worked with them to draw up a declaration of principles on clearance reciprocity for the private sector.
"In essence," he said, "the declaration provides industry with a greater degree of specificity. ... It tells them under what circumstances an agency must accept an existing clearance ... so that they can hold government accountable."
The declaration also ensures that each agency has a single point of contact to whom contractors can complain if they believe they are being mistreated on the clearance issue.
Monday's transfer, which will take effect in February 2005, will put OPM in charge of the great majority of security-clearance applications across the federal government and give them an 1,800-strong federal workforce to carry out the investigations. Currently, almost all of the investigations that they manage are carried out by a single contractor.
The company, U.S. Investigation Services, was spun off from OPM itself in 1996. In July OPM announced that it would augment their services with another five contractors next year.
Jeff Schlanger, who runs one of those firms, Kroll Government Services, says that his company will start investigations early next year with 100 staff, ramping up to 450 by the end of the year.
He says that Kroll is able to complete 90 percent of the background investigations it currently conducts for the Department of Homeland Security within 45 days and hopes to be able to match that in the investigations for OPM. "We believe that with good management and good use of technology, we can reach that goal," he said.
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