[House Hearing, 107 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
DEFENSE SECURITY SERVICE: MISSION DEGRADATION?
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY,
VETERANS AFFAIRS AND INTERNATIONAL
RELATIONS
of the
COMMITTEE ON
GOVERNMENT REFORM
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
MARCH 2, 2001
__________
Serial No. 107-40
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpo.gov/congress/house
http://www.house.gov/reform
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
77-352 WASHINGTON : 2002
____________________________________________________________________________
For Sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office
Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512-1800; (202) 512-1800
Fax: (202) 512-2250 Mail: Stop SSOP, Washington, DC 20402-0001
COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM
DAN BURTON, Indiana, Chairman
BENJAMIN A. GILMAN, New York HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
CONSTANCE A. MORELLA, Maryland TOM LANTOS, California
CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut MAJOR R. OWENS, New York
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York
JOHN M. McHUGH, New York PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania
STEPHEN HORN, California PATSY T. MINK, Hawaii
JOHN L. MICA, Florida CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York
THOMAS M. DAVIS, Virginia ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, Washington,
MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana DC
JOE SCARBOROUGH, Florida ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland
STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio
BOB BARR, Georgia ROD R. BLAGOJEVICH, Illinois
DAN MILLER, Florida DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois
DOUG OSE, California JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts
RON LEWIS, Kentucky JIM TURNER, Texas
JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia THOMAS H. ALLEN, Maine
TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois
DAVE WELDON, Florida WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri
CHRIS CANNON, Utah ------ ------
ADAM H. PUTNAM, Florida ------ ------
C.L. ``BUTCH'' OTTER, Idaho ------
EDWARD L. SCHROCK, Virginia BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont
------ ------ (Independent)
Kevin Binger, Staff Director
Daniel R. Moll, Deputy Staff Director
James C. Wilson, Chief Counsel
Robert A. Briggs, Chief Clerk
Phil Schiliro, Minority Staff Director
Subcommittee on National Security, Veterans Affairs and International
Relations
CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut, Chairman
ADAM H. PUTNAM, Florida DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio
BENJAMIN A. GILMAN, New York BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida THOMAS H. ALLEN, Maine
JOHN M. McHUGH, New York TOM LANTOS, California
STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts
RON LEWIS, Kentucky JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois
TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri
DAVE WELDON, Florida ------ ------
C.L. ``BUTCH'' OTTER, Idaho ------ ------
EDWARD L. SCHROCK, Virginia
Ex Officio
DAN BURTON, Indiana HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
Lawrence J. Halloran, Staff Director and Counsel
Vincent Chase, Chief Investigator
Jason Chung, Clerk
David Rapallo, Minority Counsel
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Hearing held on March 2, 2001.................................... 1
Statement of:
Lieberman, Robert J., Deputy Inspector General, Office of
Inspector General, Department of Defense; Arthur L. Money,
Assistant Secretary of Defense for Command, Control,
Communications and Intelligence, Department of Defense,
accompanied by J. William Leonard, Deputy Assistant
Secretary of Defense for Security and Information
Operations, Command, Control, Communications and
Intelligence; and General Charles Cunningham, Director,
Defense Security Service................................... 5
Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:
Lieberman, Robert J., Deputy Inspector General, Office of
Inspector General, Department of Defense, prepared
statement of............................................... 8
Money, Arthur L., Assistant Secretary of Defense for Command,
Control, Communications and Intelligence, Department of
Defense, prepared statement of............................. 25
Shays, Hon. Christopher, a Representative in Congress from
the State of Connecticut, prepared statement of............ 3
DEFENSE SECURITY SERVICE: MISSION DEGRADATION?
----------
FRIDAY, MARCH 2, 2001
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on National Security, Veterans Affairs
and International Relations,
Committee on Government Reform,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m., in
room 2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Christopher
Shays (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Present: Representatives Shays, Putnam, and Kucinich.
Staff present: Lawrence J. Halloran, counsel; J. Vincent
Chase, chief investigator; Alex Moore, fellow; Robert Newman
and Thomas Costa, professional staff member; Jason Chung,
clerk; David Rapallo, minority counsel; and Earley Green,
minority assistant clerk.
Mr. Shays. The hearing will come to order.
Accused spy Robert Hanssen knew he had at least 5 years
between the background checks required for his clearance to
access top secret information at the FBI. He could rely on that
blind spot in our national security defenses to help him avoid
detection.
At the Department of Defense, the risks posed by delays in
personal security investigations [PSIs], have been apparent for
some time. The Defense Security Service [DSS], the agency
responsible for screening DOD personnel who have access to
national secrets, has made only marginal progress over the past
3 years reducing a backlog of almost half a million overdue
reinvestigations.
In February 2000, DSS told us the backlog would be under
active review, if not resolved, by the end of 2001. Last
September, the target had slipped a full year. DSS did not
anticipate having all overdue investigations logged into its
system until the end of 2002. Today, even that goal is in
doubt.
Once entered into the troubled DSS computer system, an
actual investigation may not begin for months. Many--too many--
investigations take almost a full year to complete. That means
individuals granted top secret clearances in 1994 might go 9
full years before completion of any detailed scrutiny of their
fitness to handle classified information.
A recent internal review of DSS status and options
ominously entitled Mission Degradation called for ``bold
action'' to meet this long-festering threat to national
security. According to the report, current DSS processes and
plans are ``not meeting the Department's needs to provide
timely investigations and clearances to our soldiers, sailors,
airmen and marines; DOD civilians and our industry
contractors.''
DOD's response to the draft report seems more blase than
bold. Pentagon leadership responsible for DSS oversight, the
office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Command,
Control, Communications and Intelligence [C3I], persists in the
hope current spending plans will produce a so-called ``steady
state'' DSS capable of digesting the entire backlog and all new
clearance requests.
That hope of a steady state seems based on a very rosy view
of a very uncertain future. Neither DSS nor their DOD
customers, including the military service branches, can
systematically or accurately project future demand for
clearances. DSS continues to spend millions stabilizing a
computerized case control system that may never be able to meet
the need for timely, accurate investigations. The number of
pending cases is up, not down. The average time required to
complete both investigations and reinvestigations for top
secret clearances is up, not down.
Most troubling are proposals to compromise investigative
standards, such as the expanded use of interim top secret
clearances. Other proposals might solve some aspect of the
problem at DSS only by shifting the burden to another agency,
with no net improvement, and potential degradation, in
executing the security clearance mission.
As we have in the past, and will undoubtedly be required to
do in the future, we asked DOD and DSS leadership to describe
their progress and their prognosis for this critical national
security activity. We appreciate their being here this morning,
and look forward to their testimony--an interesting dialog.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Christopher Shays follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7352.001
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7352.002
Mr. Shays. At this time I would like to recognize Mr.
Dennis Kucinich, who is the ranking member, in this committee
an equal partner in what we do and how we do it.
Mr. Kucinich. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. For me, it is an
honor to have a chance to work with you again, and I look
forward to a cooperative relationship, and I am going to have
some comments a little bit later on. I would be pleased to join
you in getting right into the hearing.
Mr. Shays. I thank, my colleague.
I would like to recognize Mr. Putnam, who is also an equal
partner in this process, the vice chairman.
Mr. Putnam.
Mr. Putnam. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate your
interest in this topic and, I appreciate the gentlemen coming
here to help us shed some light to help us prevent matters like
this from occurring in the future. I look forward to their
testimony.
Mr. Shays. Thank you very much. Mr. Lieberman, we are going
to have you speak, and then Mr. Money. All four are going to
participate in the dialog.
We will ask you to stand and will swear you in as we do for
all of the witnesses.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. Shays. Thank you very much.
Gentlemen, it is nice to have you here, this, the first
hearing of probably 40 to 50 hearings we will have in this
committee in the next 2 years. I welcome you here. I believe
this is a very important hearing and I am happy that you are
the first to start us off.
Mr. Lieberman, we will begin with you and then Mr. Money.
STATEMENT OF ROBERT J. LIEBERMAN, DEPUTY INSPECTOR GENERAL,
OFFICE OF INSPECTOR GENERAL, DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE; ARTHUR L.
MONEY, ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF DEFENSE FOR COMMAND, CONTROL,
COMMUNICATIONS AND INTELLIGENCE, DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE,
ACCOMPANIED BY J. WILLIAM LEONARD, DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY
OF DEFENSE FOR SECURITY AND INFORMATION OPERATIONS, COMMAND,
CONTROL, COMMUNICATIONS AND INTELLIGENCE; AND GENERAL CHARLES
CUNNINGHAM, DIRECTOR, DEFENSE SECURITY SERVICE
Mr. Lieberman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Chairman, as you know from your hearings last February
and September, the ability of the Department of Defense to
comply with Federal guidelines on security clearances and to
efficiently carry out the many investigations needed annually
for initial clearances or updates virtually collapsed between
the late 1990's. Specific actions over the last 2 years to turn
things around have included, first, replacing the Director of
the DSS. Second, outsourcing a large percentage of the
investigative workload to the Office of Personnel Management
and contractors. Third, turning project management
responsibility for the case control management system over to
the Air Force. Fourth, establishing goals for gradually
eliminating the backlog of several hundred thousand
reinvestigations; and, fifth, requiring frequent DSS reports to
Secretary Money's office to show progress against the many
hundred thousand incomplete investigations.
Three weeks ago Secretary Money's office circulated an
internal report calling attention to shortfalls in execution of
the DOD spend plan which calls for drastically improved
turnaround times for investigations and eliminating both
backlog requests and investigations by September 2002.
The report concluded that bold action was needed because
performance reports for the first 4 months of the 24-month plan
showed insufficient progress. If DOD fails to achieve its
goals, continued degradation of a wide variety of Defense
missions would result.
The investigation phase of the clearance process is
currently the most troubled. It is important to keep in mind,
however, that there are risks and issues across the spectrum of
activities involved in the security clearance process. We have
reported various front-end problems among the hundreds of
offices that make requests for clearances. For example, there
has been a lack of reliable estimates on how many clearances
are actually needed and what the resulting inflow of requests
for initial investigations and periodic reinvestigations will
be.
Investigation and adjudication organizations obviously
cannot determine their resource requirements and process
options without receiving reliable workload estimates.
Likewise, I understand that over 300,000 overdue periodic
reinvestigation requests have not been submitted. This has
dropped from an estimated 500,000 a year ago, but it is still a
huge figure.
Once requests for investigations or reinvestigations are
made, timely yet thorough investigations are needed. A second
backlog, cases pending in the DSS, amounts to well over 400,000
cases currently. I will return to that in a moment.
Following investigations, there is a crucial adjudication
phase for each case when derogatory information has been
reported. The GAO, my auditors and the media have raised issues
concerning the quality and consistency of adjudication
decisions, the training of adjudicators and their capacity to
handle increased workload. There is considerable potential for
a third backlog here, if the adjudicators cannot keep up with
the input to them from the investigators.
To the individual, the contractor, or the DOD office
awaiting confirmation of update, it makes no difference how
many places in the pipeline are clogged or where the problems
lie. The bottom line is that their needs are not being met.
In my written statement, I emphasize our particular concern
about top secret initial investigations and period
reinvestigations. Top secret clearances are intended to protect
the most sensitive national security data. The prospect of
vital positions going unfilled because of delayed initial
clearances or of those positions being held by individuals with
grossly outdated clearances is clearly most disturbing.
The trends in DSS productivity since this time last year
have gone the wrong way as far as this most sensitive part of
the investigative workload is concerned. Director Cunningham
has worked to turn around the dire situation that he inherited,
and Secretary Money's staff has been working to improve
coordination between the many players and to solicit ideas for
overcoming these tough problems.
DSS performance is much better, but not yet good enough.
Unless there are as yet unexplained prospects for dramatic and
sustainable productivity improvement, I do think that
additional management actions are needed, starting with the
transfer of as many additional cases to OPM as they can handle.
It would certainly make sense, as well, to rapidly evaluate
the other suggestions listed in the February 8 DOD report and
implement those with the most merit. In addition, there is a
continuing need for heavy emphasis on completing the many
actions under way because of previous recommendations to OSD
and DSS.
One reason why recent performance is not yet meeting
expectations is that many of those actions are not yet fully
implemented. If additional resources are needed, they must be
approved in the very near future to have any effect on the
current plan.
With sustained management emphasis, I am confident that
ultimately this problem is fixable, but the current goal of
eliminating investigation backlogs by September 30, 2002, is
clearly at risk. In addition, it is uncertain that all backlog
cases will be adjudicated until well after that date.
My staff and I stand ready to work with the Department's
managers and the Congress to determine what adjustments to the
current approach are feasible and necessary.
That concludes my statement.
Mr. Shays. Thank you, Mr. Lieberman.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Lieberman follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7352.003
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7352.004
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7352.005
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7352.006
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7352.007
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7352.008
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7352.009
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7352.010
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7352.011
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7352.012
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7352.013
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7352.014
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7352.015
Mr. Shays. I was a little derelict in not welcoming our
witnesses and giving the titles and so on just for the record,
and I would like to do that now. We have heard from Mr. Robert
Lieberman, acting Inspector General, Office of Inspector
General, Department of Defense. We will hear from Mr. Arthur
Money, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Security and
Information Operations Command, Control, Communications and
Intelligence, Department of Defense, accompanied by Mr. J.
William Leonard, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for
Security and Information Operations Command, Control,
Communications and Intelligence, Department of Defense. Also
joining us is General Charles Cunningham, Director, Defense
Security Service.
I just want to get some housekeeping done. I ask unanimous
consent that all members of the subcommittee be permitted to
place an opening statement in the record and that the record
remain open for 3 days for that purpose. Without objection, so
ordered.
I ask unanimous consent that all witnesses be permitted to
include their written statement in the record and without
objection, so ordered.
Also I welcome Mr. Clay from Missouri.
Mr. Clay. Good morning.
Mr. Shays. If you have a statement for the record that you
would like to put in----
Mr. Clay. I certainly do.
Mr. Shays. If you wanted to read it--we will have the
testimony, and if you want to read it before you ask questions,
we will do that.
Mr. Clay. Thank you.
Mr. Shays. Mr. Money.
Mr. Money. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just to clarify my
title, it is Assistant Secretary of Defense for Command,
Control, Communications and Intelligence. Buried in that is the
Security and Information Operations which Mr. Leonard is the
Deputy Assistant Secretary for.
Mr. Shays. You have responsibility for a whole host of
different units and this is one unit?
Mr. Money. Absolutely.
Mr. Shays. In the end, the buck stops with you?
Mr. Money. That's correct. When you read my title, you
added Security and Information Operations. That is subsumed,
but it is not the exact title.
Mr. Chairman, members of the subcommittee, I, along with
Mr. Bill Leonard and Lieutenant General Chuck Cunningham, truly
appreciate this opportunity to appear here before you today, to
in fact report on the status of the Department of Defense's
efforts to eliminate this security investigation backlog.
In doing so, I will address the process and management
changes that the Department has initiated to resolve the
immediate problems and will review with the committee ideas
that we have under consideration for improving the quality,
speed, and reliability of background investigations.
At the last hearing, last September, all DOD could show for
all the efforts that had been accomplished was that there was a
continuing increase in the backlog, but that increase was
slowing down.
Since that time, we have turned the corner and can
demonstrate a measurable decrease in backlog that peaked
roughly in October 2000 when the decrease in backlog-growing
turned into actual backlog-decreasing--October 2000.
Nonetheless, we recognize that we are not yet on the glide path
that will result in no backlog in accordance with the GAO
metric of eliminating the backlog by September 30, 2000. So I
agree with the Inspector General; however, I am confident and
hope in the next few moments to display that confidence on how
we can meet that goal.
Progress in the backlog reduction, again since the last
hearing, I can report to you that the Department has made
significant infrastructure and process improvements. As a
result of these changes or improvements, the number of pending
investigations at DSS has been reduced to roughly 434,000. This
is a net decrease of roughly 70,000 from where we were in the
October 2000 timeframe.
Furthermore, the number of overdue periodic
reinvestigations that have yet to be submitted has been
reassessed to be roughly 317,000.
Finally, we are fielding a Department-wide capability known
as the joint personnel adjudication system [JPAS]. This is a
real-time status and will give you real-time status of overdue
clearances, and consequently, we will have a much more accurate
projection of the backlog.
In summary of where we are today with respect to the plan
that was implemented in October 2000, which leads to a
September 2002 elimination of the backlog, the Department plans
to eliminate that backlog and in doing so, we have issued the
following. We have established submission targets for all
components. We have leveraged additional capabilities by
partnering with OPM. We have finalized the plans, and as I
stated, have started JPAS which will be installed and up and
running by September of this year. We have created a process
initiative guidance to the components' services and agencies to
ensure that the most critical and mission-essential
investigations are prioritized by them.
So since that last hearing here, the Deputy Secretary of
Defense has chartered yet another independent group, an
overarching, integrated product team to validate the plan and
to reassess the backlog. They have come up with six conditions
of success, metrics if you will, which I will report on during
the Q & A.
With that, though, there is progress being made. I still
have concerns, and I am not satisfied with the progress to
date; and in this regard, agree with the IG's report. Some of
the reasons for this go as follows.
First, we are still continuing and experiencing case load
imbalance between DSS and OPM, and we will talk more about
remedies on that.
Second, we are--in order to ensure the proper mix of high
priority cases in DSS, a number of software changes need to be
implemented into the current case management system. These
include modifying CCMS, that is, the case management system,
and field procedures in order to identify high-priority
incoming cases and manually identify and modify cases that are
already in the system. This will come out to be a very
important problem that we are addressing and that will come
out, I am sure, in the Q & A. But I would like to report that
CCMS is stable versus where we were in the previous sessions,
but we do need to add a few new improvements.
Fourth, I would like to say that OPM is beginning to
experience some increases in completion time on the cases they
have. This is no slam at OPM; this is just due to the backlog
they are starting to experience and the efforts to work off the
investigations.
Finally, I would like to report that adjudication--after we
go through investigations, then we have adjudications to take
place--they are keeping up with the output. However, in some
areas we need to rebuild the adjudicators, in the services in
particular. Those things are all quantitative measures, but I
want to emphasize quality here is still the first and most
important thing.
National security is the first and most important thing,
not numbers. I can attest now, or I am sure you will ask me,
that I don't believe national security has been diminished one
iota. In fact, I believe it has been increased because of the
quality of these investigations. Readiness has taken the brunt
of the quantitative problems. The quality of DSS's
investigations has improved because of strict adherence that
General Cunningham installed on security standards and
evaluations and, in fact, in the training of the right people.
In addition, the reason this hearing is timely is, we have
just now concluded the first quarter's review of the progress
on the plan that was implemented in October 2000. What that
shows after the first quarter review is that we need to move
component-identified, high-priority requirements to OPM
consistent with the plan. There is an imbalance, as I
mentioned, there.
We need to expedite the initiation of cases prior to the
service members' being transferred or deployed overseas. Once
they go overseas, that complicates the investigation process
and further lengthens it.
We need to review and modify the procedures to make sure
that a timely and appropriate process of interim clearances is
also conducted.
Finally, we are developing--and I think this answers maybe
your opening remarks, Mr. Chairman, about the Hanssen case. I
have long been on record that we need to go to aperiodic
reinvestigation. We cannot get there until we get this backlog
of periodic investigations over with, but I support the idea of
going to aperiodic security investigation to alleviate the
problem that you alluded to in your opening statement.
I believe we can do this with aperiodic reinvestigations,
using the new processes of data mining and relevant information
sources such as criminal histories, foreign travel, credit
records and so on; in fact, using what is available today in an
information technology standpoint.
In closing, I would like to ask for your help. This
committee can in fact help us. You have helped us in the past,
and we will ask for more; and this is the beginning of that.
DSS needs automated access to State and local government
criminal history records akin to what law enforcement agencies
have today.
Second, we request that Congress eliminate the artificial
cap on counterintelligence polygraph examinations, and
overall--I will submit other ideas later on on the aperiodic
reinvestigation area, but overall with your guidances and the
actions that I have outlined here briefly and will expand on, I
remain confident that the Department can meet the stated goal
of reducing the backlog to roughly 150,000 cases and/or 60
working days by September 2002.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Shays. Thank you very much, Mr. Money.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Money follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7352.016
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7352.017
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7352.018
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7352.019
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7352.020
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7352.021
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7352.022
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7352.023
Mr. Shays. I am sorry about not getting the titles right.
It is important that you make sure that we are accurate.
Mr. Money. It doesn't bother me personally. It is just for
the record.
Mr. Shays. I understand that. We are a little rusty up
here.
Mr. Kucinich, you have the floor. What we do in this
committee, if we have three members, give or take, we allow
them 10 minutes to start so they can ask questions.
We put a 5-minute clock and then we roll it over to another
5 minutes.
Mr. Kucinich. Mr. Money, how many people work on an
investigation?
Mr. Money. How many people work on an individual
investigation?
Mr. Kucinich. Yes.
Mr. Money. It depends on the complexity of the case. An
example is, if you are an 18-year-old and you have lived in one
place all of your life, probably one; if you have lived in 50
places, it has a lot greater number of investigators.
It depends on the case.
Mr. Kucinich. Have you figured out a rule of thumb--maybe
General Cunningham can answer that. How long does an individual
investigation take?
General Cunningham. Sir, again it varies with the type of
investigation. The most challenging ones where there are
subject interviews, as in top secret and where you might run
into adverse information, these can take over a year.
Our record on this is not good for many reasons that I
think are fairly well understood in the committee here. We have
a history of having cases as old as 2 years. Now we are working
hard to get that pulled down, and we are targeting older cases
to move them through, but it does take time to get that bubble
through.
Mr. Kucinich. If I may, I was wondering, General, how many
people do you have working for you?
General Cunningham. The Defense Security Service 2,600
people. We have 1,250 field investigators.
Mr. Kucinich. How many cases are outstanding now? How big
is the backlog?
General Cunningham. Our pending backlog right now is
about--as we track it in the agency, it is about 435,000.
Mr. Kucinich. OK. And that would----
General Cunningham. That is coming down; 7 or 8 weeks ago
we were up around 470,000. As our information technology is
improving, for example, having brought on two new servers
within the last 2 weeks, and increasing our computing
capability and our ability to install better software and make
changes, those times will come down.
Chairman Shays in our last hearing made the point of what
is the nominal time on a case; and for the investigative part,
we know that we should be done in 60 to 120 days.
Mr. Kucinich. It is an interesting thing, Mr. Chairman; I
am doing the math here. If you used 435,000 cases of backlog,
that is just your backlog, and you have 1,250 field
investigators, that would come down to each person having to
handle, I am not a math major, 340 cases a year on the average
and that is about a case a day, a little more than a case a
day, that is, if you don't get new ones. I am just wondering
how do you ever work off a backlog with 1,250 field
investigators.
Mr. Money. Some of those cases are on automatic. This whole
backlog--if I can expand on this for a moment, I would like to
use a chart if that is acceptable to you.
Mr. Kucinich. Sure. I am sure that everybody on the
committee would like to see it.
Mr. Money. Would you put this chart up?
The backlog, there are at least two different backlogs that
we need to clarify here. I will answer your question, or both
of us will answer your question.
The plan is over 2 years to reduce the periodic--these are
periodic reinvestigation backlogs of 317,000; that is the best
estimate we have today of what is out in the services and
agencies that needs to be submitted, because after 5 or 10
years they need to be reinvestigated based on the standards.
Congressman, you can see over here there is a steady state
of new investigations.
Mr. Kucinich. Yes, that is what I was referring to.
Mr. Money. Every person coming into the Navy and the Air
Force today and if they are in the Army and in certain MOSs,
certain job codes, will go through a suitability check which is
roughly equivalent to a secret clearance. That is part of a
million-something in new initiatives as new recruits come into
the system.
If you are already in the government and then need a
clearance, you get additional investigations which take place,
and over time there are new periodic reinvestigations.
So when we talk about a backlog, this is the backlog over
the next 2 years that we are going to look at, somewhere
between a million and a half cases.
Mr. Kucinich. I know my time is over.
Mr. Money. I hope that I am not penalizing your time.
Mr. Kucinich. We are all working for the same people. It is
no problem. Excuse me.
Mr. Money. Sure.
Mr. Kucinich. This is very useful. I wish that staff had
the chance to review this before the meeting. It would have
been helpful, and I know that we will have plenty of time to go
over this. I want to respect the flow of work in this
committee.
I would like to ask you, Mr. Chairman, I noticed in Mr.
Money's remarks he referred to the backlog elimination has been
accomplished in a number of different ways, including the
hiring of people from the private sector. I would like to, if
it is appropriate, Mr. Chairman, if this committee could be
provided with a list of who they are hiring from the private
sector to do these security background checks. Would that be
appropriate?
Mr. Shays. Are you hiring different firms? You are not
hiring individuals, you are hiring firms?
Mr. Money. Firms.
Mr. Shays. How many firms have you hired?
General Cunningham. Sir, augmenting investigations, we have
two contractors who we brought on immediately in May/June 1999.
Since that time we have brought on four new contractors.
Mr. Money. These contractors have certified that they have
the background and training to do these types of
investigations. Frankly, a lot of them are retired people that
have done this for the government.
Mr. Shays. Would you explain what you mean by
``certified?'' Certified by whom?
General Cunningham. The specifications in the first two
contracts was that they have 5 years investigative experience.
The following five contractors that we brought on, we put
funding in the statement of work for them to train the
contractors, to train their people, their investigators, and to
bring on experienced contractors, but we eliminated the 5-year
requirement.
We, DSS, work with each contractor on their training
program, and their agents are subject to our evaluations.
Mr. Kucinich. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Shays. Let me ask some questions. I am going to ask
some basic stuff here to start.
First, Mr. Money, we had a hearing on February 16, and we
had a hearing on September 20 of last year, and this is the
third hearing that we are having now, 2001.
I am probably being a little facetious here, but you said
in your statement when we were here last September, ``all we
could show for our efforts was that the continuing increase in
backlog was slowing down. Since that time we have turned the
corner and demonstrate a measurable decrease in the backlog.''
We were turning the corner February 16, we were turning the
corner September 20, and now we are turning the corner March 3.
You take three corners and you end up back where you started.
I am playing a little trick with you.
Mr. Money. No, that is OK.
Mr. Shays. You are a tolerant guy.
Mr. Money. No, I think it is a good question. One might ask
what the heck is going on here.
If I may ask for your indulgence here, much like I did with
Mr. Kucinich, I would like to spend a little time on a little
background.
Let me start roughly in April 1998, what is before that is
water over the dam, if you will. Starting here in April 1998, a
GAO investigation came into play. Frankly, I came into this
position in February 1998. What happened before that in the
roughly previous 10 years let me cover briefly, to put things
into scope. The DSS and DOD were descoped to 40 percent.
Mr. Shays. That means?
Mr. Money. Downsized.
Mr. Shays. Descoped.
Mr. Money. It is a reduction in personnel and a
commensurate reduction in budget. I will assert to you that the
workload didn't diminish.
In August 1995, there was a new Executive order that called
for uniformity investigations and so forth. The ramifications
coming out of that were huge, and I will talk to that in a
minute.
From 1996 to 1999 quotas were put on periodic
reinvestigations. What that means, there were only so many per
month that could be submitted. That further amplified the
backlog of reinvestigations.
In March 1997 an Executive order said that we will go from
5 years on top secret investigations; secret which were 15 will
now go to 10; and confidential, which were none, will go to 15.
That created another backlog.
GAO then got involved in April 1998, and for the next 16
months, they worked on investigating issues, and the November
1999 report-out was very dramatic and seminal, and I will talk
to that when we get to November 1999.
In October 1998, a program that had started in 1995, called
case control management system [CCMS], was installed. Now, here
was a major failure. It was installed without testing, and it
was installed and the legacy system was turned off never to be
turned back on, or never could be turned back on.
Mr. Shays. How much did that cost us?
Mr. Money. I don't know. I will get you a number.
Mr. Lieberman. We have spent about $100 million so far on
CCMS.
Mr. Money. What happened in October 1998 was, essentially
everything came to a grinding halt in that no cases were coming
out due to software failure, system failures, and I will assert
due to poor design on what CCMS ought to be.
In January 1999, that Executive order that was issued in
March 1997, but deferred, was then acted upon, and 400,000 new
cases entered the backlog. In March 1999, actually this is one
data point--between January 1999 and June there was continued
degradation of performance, and frankly my staff and I didn't
get as much insight as we should have. And you can blame me and
my staff for not going deeper into the situation, but it was
clearly much worse than was being reported.
At that time in June I replaced the previous Director and
installed General Cunningham here as the new Director of DSS.
Also, that next day we started a recovery plan. That
recovery plan actually was started way back here, but it was
published and then-Deputy Secretary Hamre signed off and
approved it.
Resources started to apply or come into this situation
here, plus personnel. We went to private industry and OPM, and
we activated a lot of reservists to start working on the
backlog.
By October, we'd sent all civilian cases to OPM. By
November, pursuant with some more work that was going on, and
this is--it means something in the Pentagon, the Defense
Management Council, which is the assistants and under
secretary, along with the DEPSECDEF, got together and put more
money into the equation, and also asked another OIPT to get
together, this is an across-the-board integrated product team
to investigate the backlog again.
November 1999, GAO issued their report and we saw that as a
watershed event because it pointed out independently that the
problem wasn't being addressed. More resources and more
personnel then were applied.
In March 2000, DEPSECDEF asked for another OIPT to be
formed, and at the same time we sent roughly, in a conceptual
sense, 800,000 cases to OPM over the subsequent 2 years.
This then came out to be called a new plan, or in our
vernacular, a spend plan because the Comptroller had his
fingerprints on this one.
So, Congressman, when you asked what plan and why do we
keep rebaselining, here is part of the answer. We had a plan
back here called the Recovery Plan. It was redone and amplified
and is now called the Spend Plan. When you heard back in
February a year ago that we could do something by the end of
2000, that was based on that plan, which was frankly
unrealistic; that is why we've done one here called the Spend
Plan.
That aligns with the GAO request and has since been
validated by yet another independent commission which says the
September 2002 date is, in fact, achievable. That gave me more
confidence that the plans that we had in place were in fact
doable. This now, for references, is what Bob Lieberman says he
is suspect of, is what Art Money thinks we can pull off if we
have a few more things added to the equation here.
Mr. Shays. With your accent, when you say ``spend,'' it
sounds like spin.
Mr. Money. And I hate the word spend, S-P-E-N-D.
Mr. Shays. It still sounds like spin.
Mr. Money. I don't like that word either, especially in
this chamber. This is a comptroller's term.
Mr. Shays. We are going to teach you how to say ``spend.''
Mr. Money. Yes, sir, but I don't like it either. I don't
want you to get the idea that this plan is to burn money. It is
to execute down to a backlog of----
Mr. Shays. I hear you. I don't want to delay Mr. Clay. We
are going to have a few rounds here, but I feel that this was
your time, not my time.
Mr. Lieberman, I need a candid response to this chart you
see here.
Mr. Lieberman. Well, I have seen or we have done half a
dozen audits that corroborate this train of events. I would
agree this is a good chronology of the rather sad history of
this situation.
As far as the prospects for execution of the current plan
are concerned, I would not be terribly surprised if it has to
be recast one more time, because I don't think that we can be
fully confident that we understand how many new investigations
are going to be required until the system that Mr. Money
referred to, the new system that is just being fielded now, is
actually in place and starts generating experience data that we
can all rely on.
I think in another year or so we will be looking at the
numbers again and perhaps--the plan does not necessarily have
to be stretched out. It may be evident that we will achieve
this steady-state sometime earlier, but my guess is that we
will be seeing--we will not be seeing this steady-state for a
few months after the end of the projected plan.
Mr. Shays. I am going to recognize Mr. Clay, but I just
want to--I am sorry, did you want to say something, Mr.
Leonard?
Mr. Leonard. Just 30 seconds or so, sir. I would like to
elaborate on that and go back.
The reason why this is referred to by the Comptroller as
the Spend Plan is historically one of the reasons, and there
are many reasons why we are in the situation, there was a
longstanding disconnect between the workload for DSS and their
budget. What this plan did last summer is, forced the
components, especially the services, to identify what do you
need for the next 2 years in all types of investigations, and
pony up the dollars to pay for it. We at least got that
connection between requirements and budget.
And with respect to the ever-shifting numbers, we recognize
until we get the real-time insight through the data base, this
is a challenge. That is why we send monthly report cards to all
of the services and all of agencies in terms of how they are
executing in accordance with this plan, and why we hold
quarterly reviews to review the progress, to access the
accuracy of those numbers, and determine what additional
modifications we need to make.
If you recall, when I was here several months ago, sir, the
one thing I did tell you, the only thing I can tell you with
any degree of certainty, is that 2 years from now when
hopefully we have successfully accomplished the plan--the only
thing I could tell you was that it would not be in accordance
with what we thought in the summer of 2000 because no plan is
that prescient. The key is the continuous monthly monitoring,
the quarterly reviews and the constant interaction with the
customers.
Mr. Shays. The challenge is that if you have a plan that is
accurate, you can make logical decisions. If you came and said
2 years ago we would be in this state, we probably would have
appropriated more money, made different assignments. We
probably would have said, this is too serious a thing to allow
to come to this result.
The bottom line is that the customer, the government, is
not being well served yet by this process. They are not getting
the clearances that they need.
Mr. Leonard. You are absolutely correct, sir. That is the
one thing that has been accomplished. The Department chose----
Mr. Shays. What has been accomplished is that this is the
last plan, and this plan will be a more accurate plan?
Mr. Leonard. What has been accomplished is the funding.
One of the things that came out of these Defense Management
Council and Defense Resource Board reviews was the commitment
to fund over the beginning 5-FYDP, the 5-year defense plan, an
additional $318 million over 5 years to pay for the work that
is required.
In addition, when the determination was to go to OPM for
additional work, there was likewise the commitment by the
customers to pay for that additional work from OPM. So that has
been one of the contributing factors, that total disconnect
between requirements and budget. From that point of view, I
believe that part has been addressed.
Mr. Shays. I need to go to Mr. Clay. When I come back the
second time, I am fascinated, Mr. Money, that you did not
mention the internal report that you requested, Mission
Degradation.
Mr. Clay, you have as much time as you want.
Mr. Clay. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I would like to submit my opening statement for the record
and get into the questioning of this panel.
Mr. Shays. You have got it.
Mr. Clay. Mr. Money, will you provide the committee with
the list of contractors which you mentioned?
Mr. Money. Certainly. I can generate it right now if you
would like.
Mr. Clay. Yes, that would be good. Thank you.
Mr. Money. OK.
Mr. Clay. Mr. Money or General Cunningham, does DSS now
have its own computerized data base with a list of everyone who
has a security clearance?
General Cunningham. Yes, sir. In DSS we manage a data base
for everybody that has a clearance.
Mr. Clay. Do you know the date on which all clearances come
due for reinvestigation?
General Cunningham. Yes, sir. A day when reinvestigations
come due can be discerned from the listing by name and Social
Security number that is in the data base.
Mr. Clay. So that pops up on the screen?
General Cunningham. No, sir, it is not mechanized just to
pop up. I think that the joint adjudication system that Mr.
Money mentioned in his opening remarks is designed to do that.
Perhaps Mr. Leonard would say more about that.
Mr. Clay. Mr. Leonard.
Mr. Leonard. Again, that is one of the many contributing
factors that we have--that contributes to this issue. The
current data base that we have only reflects individuals who
have been investigated and adjudicated as being eligible for a
security clearance.
The problem is that people's assignments change. In the
military, you routinely rotate every 2 to 3 years. You may no
longer require that clearance. It is that sort of granularity
that we don't have insight into that is tying a clearance
requirement to a specific billet or a specific position.
The new data base that Mr. Money referred to earlier that
we intend to field within a year's time, at least initially
will provide us that capability to assign clearance requirement
to a specific billet; and of course that is the key, essential
ingredient to be able to do real-time projections of
requirements.
Mr. Clay. What happens if there is a failure as to the
resubmit or reinvestigations or clearances revoked or
suspended?
Mr. Leonard. That is the situation where there are the
317,000 clearances that are out of scope, so to speak, the
investigations that they are based upon exceeds the 5 or 10-
year standard.
The September 2002 date that Mr. Money referred to, what
that means is on September 30, 2002, for every clearance that
is in existence in the Department of Defense, we will strictly
enforce the national standard that either the clearance
investigation must be current within the scope of the 5 or 10
years or must be in process.
GAO pointed out that because of the backlog, there was no
consequence to the services to not putting in requests for
periodic reinvestigations. There is now a consequence
established. Everyone understands if you have a clearance and
come September 30th if the investigation is not current or at
the very least in process, you will be required to
administratively terminate that clearance or downgrade it. If
it is a top secret clearance, you could downgrade it to a
secret clearance within the scope if that is all that is
required.
Mr. Clay. Mr. Lieberman, Mr. Money mentioned several
problems with the Office of Personnel Management, which I was
surprised to hear. For example, his first chart says OPM does
not meet estimates and on the next chart on plan success
factors, the direction of the arrow suggests OPM is losing
ground.
Is that your view of OPM's performance?
Mr. Lieberman. Sir, I do not have any information on OPM's
performance, so I would have to defer to Mr. Money or Mr.
Leonard.
Mr. Leonard. I can address that, sir. OPM's performance has
been outstanding. They have--an earlier question from Mr.
Kucinich in terms of how long it takes to do an investigation,
they have established time lines, anywhere from 35 days for a
background investigation all the way up to 180 days, depending
upon what the requirements are. By and large, they are meeting
those standards in every case.
The reason why the arrow is pointing to the left is because
in one particular category, the most complex cases, in the past
several weeks and only in the past several weeks, their case
completion times have gone up beyond the standard. However, the
reason for that is because of the amount of work that we are
giving out, we are, dependent upon what I call ``third-party
providers of information.'' We have to do FBI checks, INS
checks, State Department checks, what have you. Those are other
activities that we are dependent upon. The more we push out,
the more they have to respond to. That is the challenge we have
today as a community. I have directed my people to get together
on a community-wide effort. We need to collectively address
this, because it is not an OPM problem, it is a community
problem that impacts DSS and impacts every other agency that
does background investigations. So it really is not an OPM
problem.
Mr. Money. By no means was I throwing any dispersions on
OPM. The trend is, just as Leonard referred, starting to show
some telltale signs there. The other problem is not an OPM
problem; it is manifested in OPM, and that is the components
are not sending as directed the required cases to OPM versus to
DSS.
What our chart here tries to show you, the plan was to have
roughly 1,500 a day going to DSS; and there is about 1,900,
almost 2,000 a day going to DSS. The plan was 1,300 and
something, 1,400 going to OPM; and it is about 1,000. So that
is the imbalance that I was referring to. That is not an OPM
problem; it is the feeders up here getting it to the right
spot.
Mr. Clay. Of you getting the correct information to the
different agencies.
Mr. Money. Yes, sir.
Mr. Lieberman. Could I make a comment on that, sir? Despite
the fact that OPM's times are a little bit greater than what we
would like, they are still very good; and the bottom line is
there is still unused capacity at OPM on the one hand, whereas
on the other hand, DSS is overwhelmed. So I think it only makes
sense to shift some of that work load sideways.
Mr. Clay. What does that do for the target date of
September 2002? Do you think we can meet that date?
Mr. Leonard. That--I am bound and determined, sir, not to
give up on the--oh, I am sorry. I apologize.
Mr. Lieberman. Well, I think unless we do take some
additional actions, the date is not achievable; but I think we
understand what those actions have to be, and I think what
Secretary Money and Mr. Leonard are telling you is that they
are willing to try some new things and to correct some of the
things that we see need adjustment right now.
We are only 4 months into this 24-month plan, so it is not
surprising that it needs some tweaking at this point. But I
still think there are--it is going to be a risky proposition,
and I am not sure whether it makes a big difference a few
months one way or the other.
As Mr. Money says, if we get caught too much in the numbers
game here, that might be a mistake; and whatever we do, we
definitely do not want to put so much pressure on the
investigative agencies to hurry up that they do sloppy work.
Mr. Clay. Mr. Money, will this take additional money?
Mr. Money. Let me answer that in a roundabout way. Let me
just foot-stomp with what the IG just said. Quality is still
the most important thing. But if I could just amplify on your
question and also back to what the chairman asked earlier, you
can see here that this has roughly 1.5 million cases over 2
years. We are building, if you run the numbers down here, 2
million cases over 2 years. So there is a built-in contingency
plan, if you will, of handling more than what we anticipate in
workload; we will have a capacity to handle. So that gives me
more confidence. So we have a built-in contingency plan. It
gives me more confidence of making that date.
Do we need more money? We need this 300 and whatever over
the FYDP to fund the DSS in this regard and the services need
to fund OPM as a case system for them as well. That money is in
the plan and so, in the POM, what we refer as the POM. As the
President's budgets come forth, we need to make sure that is
still in the President's budget every year.
I anticipate as pressures build that 300 million is likely
to be attacked and be drug off other places, so we will need to
be very forthright on keeping in there; and we may need some
help.
Mr. Clay. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for your patience.
Mr. Shays. Thank you. No patience required. Very
interesting questions.
Mr. Kucinich.
Mr. Kucinich. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Again, I
want to thank the witnesses.
General Cunningham, how many people might it take to work
on any particular investigation? You know, we have an
assumption like one person per case, but do you have sometimes
2 people work on a case, 3 people, 10 people, 20 people? What
do you do?
Mr. Cunningham. It could be any of those, depending upon
how many leads are developed in the case. Normally, with
references in several physical locations, then you will have
what we call leads, parts of the case that need to be done and
distributed that way.
Mr. Kucinich. Right. I was just interested in the context
of a case that I learned about. There was an encounter between
the defense security service and an MIT scientist by the name
of Ted Postal, who was evaluating the NMD and other weapons;
and as you know, he was evaluating claims made by the DOD about
the development and testing of the NMD, and he wrote a letter
to the White House about it, and the letter was in the New York
Times. The letter went to the BMDO, and they believe that some
of the information in the letter was classified and was
mistakenly given to an individual, provided it to Dr. Postal
without him being made aware that it was for distribution.
My concern is that, you know, once the BMDO went to the
DSS, since it has jurisdiction over the industrial security
program, the program through which individuals such as Dr.
Postal received these security clearances that are the subject
of our hearing today, BMDO asked DSS to contact Dr. Postal to
inform him of the classified nature of the information he
utilized in the letter.
Here is the question I asked about how many people you have
on the case. You had agents drop by unannounced at MIT to talk
to Dr. Postal; but it wasn't one agent, it wasn't two agents,
it was three agents looking at a single case, just stopping by
to see this person who had written a letter to the White House
and then in the New York Times; and one of the agents, we had
information brought to my attention, supposedly had some
difference with Dr. Postal relating to a past evaluation.
I just wonder if this particular case reflects a general
approach that DSS uses. Was it given particular attention
because this is somebody who was critical of the Department of
Defense weapons testing? You know, is this normal practice? Do
you send more or less agents, depending on the mission? Or, I
guess, how many people from DSS does it take to screw in a
light bulb?
Mr. Cunningham. Yes, sir. The Postal case was very high
visibility. It was not a security clearance investigation; it
was to get information related to the case. The three people
involved were industrial-security people. Because of the
visibility of the case, the three people, a field office chief,
a senior industrial security representative and the industrial
security representative responsible for the facility that Dr.
Postal was operating in, went to see the facility security
officer to discuss the case.
While they were there, the facility security officer said,
let us go down and get you scheduled with Dr. Postal. The
facility security officer took--as I understand this, the
facility security officer took the three DSS personnel down to
the admin person to schedule a meeting with Dr. Postal. When
that happened, Dr. Postal came out of a meeting and he said,
what do you want? And they said, well, we came here to schedule
an appointment; and he said well, come on in, I will talk to
you right now, and they entered a conference room and began a
conversation that had not been scheduled; that those three
people were going to work out the details with the facility
security officer. That is my understanding.
Mr. Kucinich. OK. I do not--I know we have a broader scope
in this hearing, and so what I would like to do is just submit
a list of questions.
Mr. Cunningham. Yes, sir.
Mr. Kucinich. So that we do not belabor the point.
Obviously, what I am interested in is why--you know, I am just
looking at one case here. Why would three agents be there? I
have trouble understanding that when we are talking about a
backlog, Mr. Chairman. You know, if you have a backlog--excuse
me. If you have a backlog and if you have a number of people
who are going out on what is a case, it seems to me that the
assignment of personnel, that decisionmaking as to how many
people go out on a case also relates to the production of a
backlog, that is all.
Mr. Cunningham. Yes, sir.
Mr. Kucinich. I just wanted to share that thought with you.
Mr. Cunningham. And I can understand fully how it might
appear that way; but these people were not security clearance
investigators, not related to the backlog.
Mr. Kucinich. Do you have a backlog with the industrial-
strength investigators?
Mr. Cunningham. No, sir.
Mr. Kucinich. And is that pretty much a general operational
mode that they have, going out in teams? They work together as
a team?
Mr. Cunningham. No, sir, it is not. This was an exceptional
case.
Mr. Kucinich. Mr. Money remembered--you know, he remembered
me as the mayor of Cleveland. The reason why I asked that
question, I used to get calls from constituents that say how
come you need three or four guys to work on filling a chuck
hole, and actually you could come up with a conceivable answer;
but I was just wondering what your conceivable answer would be,
and I appreciate your time.
Mr. Shays. Would the gentleman yield?
Mr. Kucinich. Of course.
Mr. Shays. I wanted the public record to be accurate. Mr.
Postal was accused of violating his clearance. Right? Is that
the issue? So it is a little different.
Mr. Money. Let me help here. Mr. Postal was being
investigated----
Mr. Shays. Dr. Postal?
Mr. Money. Dr. Postal, for the possible release of
classified information; and it has nothing to do with periodic
reinvestigation. It was the possible use of classified
information, and that is what--so that was a wholly different
issue.
Mr. Shays. But your office gets involved in that.
Mr. Money. Yes, sir.
Mr. Shays. So it is clearly an appropriate question to ask.
I just wanted to clarify in my own mind that issue.
Mr. Money. Yes, sir.
Mr. Kucinich. Again, Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the chance
to just bring that up in the context of these larger problems.
From another point of view, I was just concerned, there was a
letter to the White House, and then in the New York Times, and
the next thing you know he gets a visit from DSS. But you
pointed out it is a subgroup within DSS; is that right?
Mr. Money. Yes, sir.
Mr. Kucinich. But they are still under your command?
Mr. Money. Yes, sir.
Mr. Kucinich. Thank you. I will send you the questions.
I just have a broader question before I conclude with my
questioning. We saw in the Hanssen case questions raised about
what can the American public expect with respect to national
security if there is backlogs that do not permit people really
to be--have their performance reviewed or their conduct on the
job reviewed in a timely manner, and what are the implications
of that.
I guess there is--and I know this is very painful for you,
I am sure, but understanding that you were reduced immediately
by 40 percent in your budget and that you have had to play
catch-up ever since, it just seems to me that there are serious
questions about the quality of our national security. I mean,
this committee exists, obviously, for the purpose of oversight
on those matters; but notwithstanding the real efforts that are
being made by all of you gentlemen who are sitting here--and we
appreciate your service to our country--it seems to me that we
have a system that is designed to fail, and evidence of that is
that it has--it has continued to fail.
I just wonder, frankly, Mr. Chairman, how we can assure the
people of the United States of America of the security of the
information which we need to protect our Nation if these
backlogs make it impossible to successfully review the conduct
of individuals such as Mr. Hanssen.
Mr. Money. May I respond?
Mr. Kucinich. Of course.
Mr. Money. I do not want you--I agree with your premise,
but the reinvestigation is not the only indicator if somebody
is doing something illegal or espionage or whatever. So there
are other indicators therein. It is every supervisor's
responsibility throughout the government, and for that matter
throughout industry, to be responsible for their people. In
various cases, there are other indicators, not just a periodic
reinvestigation. However, periodic reinvestigations need to be
conducted on time and so forth, and that is the backlog.
I might point out that when Executive Order 12968 was
issued, that created an initial problem. There have been some
other problems relative to the CCMS and so forth, so there is
no doubt about that; but there is not just one single point
failure here on reinvestigations pointing out espionage or
whatever. There are other indicators. Frankly, Congressman,
that is why I advocate wholeheartedly this aperiodic approach
to checking out folks.
Mr. Kucinich. Did you not say though, however, Mr. Money,
if I heard you correctly, and if I did not, please correct me,
that you cannot get to the aperiodic investigations until you
get the backlog out? Did you say that?
Mr. Money. Yes, sir, I did say that. That is the priority
we have today. I will be honest with you, Congressman. The
biggest--in my view, the most urgent thing we need to get to
aperiodic is to have some privacy issues worked out with
Congress so we can go in and aperiodically look at an
individual.
Mr. Kucinich. I understand that.
Mr. Money. Let me give you an example. Every week I go buy
gas, I use a credit card. Examining that credit history can be
an ongoing thing. So if my account went up or down dramatically
at any given time, that could be a red flag. We are not taking
advantage of that information technology today that is readily
available. The way it works today is they only look at me every
5 years. That can be done a lot more frequently. That is the
kind of thing that I would like to work toward.
Mr. Kucinich. I understand that, and again, I respect that
you are trying to do your job. You know, if we put that in the
context of the Hanssen case, his credit history did not show
any red flags, according to the information that has been
offered publicly and in news periodicals such as Time Magazine;
and there was, however, some contact that was made in 1985 that
would have raised some questions, but did not, and so he was
able to somehow escape scrutiny.
I would expect that DSS is going to be working to try to
get back to an aperiodic review, because if you do not do that,
there are people who are in the system right now, we cannot be
confident if there are any security challenges here.
I think most of the people who work for the United States
of America are very loyal, dedicated people; and I think the
gentlemen who are up here are very dedicated to our country. We
still have a system here that notwithstanding your efforts may
not be successful because of the design of, and you know, back
to Mr. Lieberman, because of the system design; and part of the
system design is the resources needed in order to successfully
complete these clearances on time.
So I just--look, you know, we are not sitting here in
judgment on any of you, because we understand how difficult
your job is, but we--I am just concluding as the ranking member
here that, gentlemen, there is a mess here; and I know that you
are trying your best to clean it up, but you may--we may have
to, Mr. Chairman, make some suggestions as to how the system
might be reengineered to make it more efficient.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Shays. Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Mr. Money, I am going to ask a few questions. I do not want
long answers if that is possible, and then I want to talk about
the internal report. I want to know, what is the total personal
security investigation [PSI], and the periodic reinvestigation
[PR], backlog as of today?
Mr. Money. Roughly 434,000 at DSS.
Mr. Shays. 430,000?
Mr. Money. Put the chart back up. Yes, sir, 434,000.
Mr. Shays. OK. And PR?
Mr. Money. That is included. PR yet to be submitted?
Mr. Shays. Yes.
Mr. Money. 317,000. That is that number.
Mr. Shays. That is yet to be submitted.
Mr. Money. Yes, sir.
Mr. Shays. OK. When will the total backlog be in DSS?
Mr. Money. I did not hear the question.
Mr. Shays. When will the total backlog all be within DSS?
Mr. Money. Never, in the context that there is always--if
you refer to the backlog of the 317 and the 468, 436, 434, is
that the backlog you are referring to, how long will that be in
DSS?
Mr. Shays. I want to know when it gets transferred over.
Mr. Money. There are 2,500 cases a day are coming out of
DSS going into the adjudication process.
Mr. Shays. That is not what I am asking. I am asking--Mr.
Cunningham, do you want to respond? I think----
Mr. Cunningham. Sir, my understanding of your question is,
when will that that is not in DSS arrive in DSS?
Mr. Shays. Yes. I did not say it as well as you did. What
is the answer to that?
Mr. Cunningham. I do not know the answer to that.
Mr. Money. This is, again, based on where the complements
and services will submit them. That should be driven by the
date of which a reinvestigation should occur.
Mr. Leonard. But again, if I could add what the bottom line
is, the bottom line is that if, come September 30, 2002, of
that 317,000, if there is any more that are out there that have
not been submitted to DSS, the services have already been told
2 years in advance, you will have to either administratively
terminate that clearance or downgrade it as appropriate. So
that is the standard that was established last summer. It is
still the standard. It is still what the services are working
toward and what they have funded their requirements to.
Mr. Shays. I am going to really point out an ignorance
here, but--and I am somewhat reluctant because it must really
be a big ignorance. Terminating their clearance is their fault
or your fault?
Mr. Leonard. The--part of the--as I mentioned before, part
of the many, many reasons why we are in this situation is the
disconnect, the historical disconnect between DSS's workload
and the budget they were given every year. As a matter of fact,
there was no connection. There was no controls over the work
that came in and what have you.
Mr. Shays. But give me an answer to my question. I
understand that.
Mr. Leonard. OK. So the challenge then to the service is
that all you have to do is sit somebody down and have them fill
out the form and make sure there is money to pay for that
investigation.
Mr. Shays. It is their job to have the money to pay for the
investigation?
Mr. Leonard. It is their job to have the money to pay for
the investigation, it is their job to sit the person down to
fill out the form, and it is their job to send it in.
Mr. Shays. But I made the assumption that they are not
being brought over to you because you did not have the
capability to handle it, and the problem is, they do not have
the money appropriated to give it to you. Is that correct?
Mr. Leonard. Right. And now we gave them a schedule in
which to move that work over, and they have established a
funding line to fund that work to move over. So that is why the
standard is not to have the investigation--I agree, if the
standard was the investigation has to be completed, that is not
the service's responsibility. They have no control over it. But
they do have control over having the person fill out the form,
send it in, and they do have control over paying for it.
Mr. Shays. Mr. Lieberman, do you want to jump in here?
Mr. Lieberman. Well, I think----
Mr. Shays. Or would you jump in? Thank you.
Mr. Lieberman. Certainly. This data has been moved twice,
that I am aware of, and what it means is, there was--some of
these requests will not be made until late in fiscal year 2002,
and nobody can be sure exactly how many. I guess what the
investigative community really fears is that late in 2002 when
they think the goal line is in sight, there will be a massive
influx of new requests, exceeding any estimate.
Mr. Shays. New requests by whom?
Mr. Lieberman. By the hundreds of different offices that
make the actual clearance requests.
Mr. Shays. OK. Which they have to fund?
Mr. Lieberman. Yes. There are a lot of--there is such
intense competition for funds within the Department of Defense
right now that there is a budget problem and people are tending
to put off anything that can be put off. So one of the down
sides of giving them until September 2002 to make all of these
clearance requests is that from a budgetary standpoint there is
always a tendency to say, well, I do not really have to do this
with my 2001 money, which is very scarce; so I will put it off
until 2002, and then maybe I will be in better shape funding-
wise then.
Mr. Shays. I feel like I am in an Alan Greenspan hearing
where people are talking in tongues and I have to figure out
what they are saying. I almost feel like what you are telling
me is that DSS is having to take the hit for other decisions
made in other units of DOD.
Mr. Lieberman. Yes.
Mr. Shays. And that in a way, we may be having the wrong
people come before us. Stop nodding your head, Mr. Money.
Mr. Lieberman. You could indeed have a very large cast of
characters sitting here because essentially every organization
within the Department of Defense, every military department
within the defense agency has a piece of the action here. They
are the ones on the front end who decide what clearances are
necessary and when they are going to send requests in to DSS.
Mr. Shays. I see.
Mr. Lieberman. And they control the paperwork, which is now
electronic.
Mr. Shays. Right.
Mr. Lieberman. But they are supposed to make sure that is
done right so the investigators have the right information to
launch the case with, and they have to come up with the money
to pay DSS up front for each one of these requests.
Mr. Shays. I hear what you are saying, but I would like Mr.
Money not to have to--I feel like I am in a game where I am
having to try to figure this out.
Why would your testimony not start out--and if it did,
excuse me, but why would it not start out by saying, you know,
we are in a gosh darn mess, and this is the problem, and the
branches have not been setting aside enough money, and this is
the result; and we should be getting these over sooner, and we
should be hiring more contractors and whatever to do these
investigations. I mean, I feel like--I was thinking that you do
not have the capability to manage, and maybe it is a
combination of that, manage this process.
Mr. Money. Can I help here, I hope?
Mr. Shays. Sure.
Mr. Money. If you look at this box here, this is nothing to
do with DSS, this is the requirement coming in to DSS.
Mr. Shays. Well, it has everything to do with DSS. It is
what you have not accomplished. What do you mean it has nothing
to do with DSS?
Mr. Money. Well, it is how many recruits do they recruit in
the Army, Navy, Air Force as part of that, do their jobs
require.
Mr. Shays. That is the inflow of your business?
Mr. Money. Yes, sir.
Mr. Shays. And those are your customers.
Mr. Money. Yes. In the outcome down here, DSS does the
investigations; DSS is often accused of not issuing a
clearance. The clearances come through the adjudication
process. So what Bob Lieberman said and what you are getting at
is this is bigger than DSS, the services and agencies that
require clearances and so forth.
What I was responding to in the budget sense was what is in
this box, not what is up here in the Army, Navy, Air Force and
the various agencies.
Mr. Shays. It sounds to me like--in one way, it sounds to
me like in one way you are not disappointed, because you are
not sure you can handle it even if they gave you the money.
Mr. Money. No, sir. I do not mean to imply that. I believe
we can handle all of this and, in fact, have 500,000 numbers
reserve over 2 years based upon what we have in place in DSS
and what we will get in place in OPM.
Mr. Shays. OK.
Mr. Money. Now, admittedly, the 317,000 is believed to be
phased based on the dates of reinvestigations, not one lump sum
coming in on September 20th, so that there is the assumption of
that.
Mr. Shays. We are going to just nail this down a little bit
better so I understand it. My staff does, but I better
understand it better.
All I am trying to say to you is that I--one thing I cannot
stand--I mean, I can have people come to me and say, we are
doing our best and sometimes they have not done what they
should and we do not hit them on it and we just know the next
time they are going to do their best to get it done. If we have
not provided you the resources, it is crazy for us to condemn
you for not doing your job if we have not done ours; but if we
are not told up front and direct, and without having to peel
away the skin where the problems lie, then I lose my patience a
little bit.
I mean it by this way: being a good soldier, I do not like
the concept of being a good soldier when it comes to a hearing.
If you are taking a hit for someone else, I do not want you to
do it, because then I do not know where the problem is. I just
like blunt talk, and then we solve the problem. I will get to
that a little bit, what I mean by that in a second.
I am curious to know, the 45 percent in your workload
transferred to OPM, does that not give you a tremendous ability
to accomplish more? I mean, what has been the impact? We took
45 percent. Admittedly they were not your biggest cases. Right?
These were your easier cases, General Cunningham?
Mr. Money. No, sir, there are no easier cases when they
start it out. It is during the investigation.
Mr. Shays. Well, let me clarify. If you have confidential,
secret, and top secret, you have different levels of
investigation.
Mr. Money. There is more investigation that takes place,
yes, sir.
Mr. Shays. There is some pro forma. I mean, when my
daughter worked in an Embassy, she had one level of clearance.
I am sure it did not take too long to check her out, at least I
hope not. So there are degrees. I am going to have both of you
comment. General Cunningham.
Mr. Cunningham. Sir, if I may comment on the requirements
part.
Mr. Shays. Let me just explain, General Cunningham has
gotten away, I think, more than you have, because he has had
two chances to come before me, so no offense to you, so he gets
it sooner.
Mr. Cunningham. Yes, sir. And when we were here before, we
talked about the requirements and our working with the military
departments who are drivers in this, and trying to get them to
put the requirements for security clearances, to develop them
from their plans, programs and budgeting in the planning,
programming and budgeting system, which is the administration
by which they develop their budgets.
What we would seek from the military departments is that
they treat security clearances just as they treat requirements
for certain types of training, certain types of equipment
provision, etc. If that were in place across the future years'
defense plan, each year we could all know in the department how
much was going to be required; and the resourcing from that
programmatic detail could all be put in place, whether it be in
DSS or in the adjudication activities or elsewhere.
Furthermore, the military departments could take a look at
those numbers and say, do we really want to have that many
clearances? Is that the right thing to do?
So I think the military departments are looking at that
right now.
If I may just go on for a minute longer.
Mr. Shays. Sure.
Mr. Cunningham. When we think about the industrial
security, industrial security is by and large the
responsibility of the Defense Security Service to work with the
defense industries or those who need to have access.
Mr. Shays. You do these clearances?
Mr. Cunningham. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. But what we are doing
now, and we are working in team with industry to understand
what their projections are over a future year's defense plan
timeframe, and then we are trying to gear ourselves to
understand what is going to be needed every year in industry
and also to have a central requirements office to interface
between us and industry on these requirements, and also their
priorities as they come along.
Mr. Shays. What I am trying to ultimately understand as
well is, though, we have a backlog, and in a perfect world we
follow the backlog, we anticipate a relatively constant flow of
customers in and adjudication in. Is that right, Mr. Money?
Mr. Money. Yes.
Mr. Shays. OK. And we are trying to get to that point, and
we have two ways to do it--I mean many ways, but one would be
to just spend a plethora of money, hire outside contractors,
because I make the assumption outside contractors are
convenient in some cases where you do not want to send people
in certain areas or where you have this backlog that ultimately
disappears, so why hire a lot of employees when later on there
will not be that workload. So I see the outside contractors as
a big help in getting to the backlog. Let me just make that
point.
But in my mind, I would think we would want the branches
pushing this through as quickly as possible, because that
represents a backlog within their departments. We would want to
know what that total universe of backlog was, and we would want
to get it right out of the system as quickly as possible, and
then we would be current, we would be providing--and we would
want to reevaluate who should have access. And you are being
asked to do frivolous background checks for people who--when I
read the number of people who have top secret clearance and
secret clearance, it is pretty significant.
So that is kind of where I am thinking, and I am seeing a
lot of nodding of heads, but I do not know what that means.
Mr. Money. You are absolutely right. In fact, that is what
this plan tries to demonstrate.
Let me point out one thing. The number of outside
contractors that are available is very limited. The limiting
factor here is the number of investigators, so let us not open
the flood gate and put a badge on somebody. They have to have
some training and so forth. OPM uses the same investigators as
some of these outside contractors are using, so there is a
limited set out there. What we try to do in this overall plan
with getting to September 2002 is to optimize the best we could
with what we have.
Mr. Shays. Let me ask you this: At what point will the
entire backlog have disappeared?
Mr. Money. There will never be an entire backlog
disappearing. The plan gets----
Mr. Shays. I do not understand that because----
Mr. Money. Well, let me help you. There will always be
somebody coming in, new recruits, somebody with a 5-year
update. So those will all be coming in.
Mr. Shays. I do not consider those as backlog. Those would
be current. Backlog to me is where you are not keeping current.
Maybe somebody needs to define what current is.
Mr. Money. Yes, sir. With your definition of backlog, we
will be current then in September 2002.
Mr. Shays. Am I using a bad definition, Mr. Lieberman?
Mr. Leonard. Well, let me give you what----
Mr. Shays. I want to use the terms you use.
Mr. Leonard. Right. Let me just make perfectly clear what
our definition of current is, because it can be confusing. The
definition we are using is that to be current, if you have a
security clearance, you have to have an investigation that is
within the scope of either 5 or 10 years, or at least be in
process for a clearance; and as long as you meet that standard,
the continuation of your clearance is in accordance with the
national standard.
Mr. Shays. How long does the process take? I mean, I guess
what I--I just think that you have new people coming in, you
have reviews, 5, 10 years, they automatically come in the
system, they come in and when should they be out? If Mr.
Lieberman has been in and he needs to be reviewed, how long
should it take that to happen?
Mr. Money. The plan, sir, the plan is after September 2002
there will be 150,000 in work, the average duration at that
point will be 60 working days.
Mr. Shays. That is your goal, for both new and reviews?
Mr. Money. Yes. The 150,000 will be all----
Mr. Shays. It is constantly in review and you will have the
personnel that you will constantly be able to take and handle
150,000.
Mr. Money. For 60 days, yes, sir.
Mr. Leonard. Just let me clarify--add to what Mr. Money is
saying.
Mr. Shays. Then, Mr. Lieberman, I am going to ask you to
jump. But go ahead, Mr. Leonard.
Mr. Leonard. What we want to eventually be able to
establish within DOD is a process similar to what OPM currently
has, and that is with a vast array of options for the customer
ranging from very quick investigations, 30 days, all the way up
possibly to 180 days. You say under what circumstances is 180
days enough? Well, if somebody is going to a school for 6
months and does not need that clearance until they come out of
school, then 180 days is just-in-time investigative work.
So our goal is to eventually be able to perform much the
same way OPM does today. We will not be in that position on
September 30, 2002 to be able to meet the same standards that
OPM does. That is the goal we are striving for. What we will be
able to do on September 30th is at the very least be able to
ensure that everyone within the Department of Defense who has a
clearance either has a current investigation or is in process
for one.
Mr. Shays. OK. Let me just ask you to comment, Mr.
Lieberman, and then I want to talk about the book.
Mr. Lieberman. Well, it is an ambitious plan. To meet that
State, to get to that point, we are going to have to have much
better information tools in place than we have now. Everything
is going to have to go right in terms of fielding new systems;
and I know, Mr. Chairman, I have been over here on numerous
subjects before you before, and the common theme running
through all of them is that we have bad information systems and
need something better; and historically, the track record for
systems coming in on time, on schedule and actually being fully
functional is not particularly good.
So there is risk there. If the new systems come in on
schedule and are fully operational, we do not have anything
that remotely looks like the CCMS fiasco, then we will have a
fighting chance to get from here to there.
The other thing is enough people, will there never be
enough investigators whether they are in OPM or DSS or anyplace
else to handle whatever the workload turns out to be.
Mr. Leonard. If I could just give a blunt point to your
earlier point, you referenced 45 percent of the work going to
OPM to take the off-load. That was the original plan; and quite
frankly, for the first quarter we failed to satisfy that. And
what the consequence is----
Mr. Shays. And what did you fail doing?
Mr. Leonard. DSS for the first quarter of this plan
received more work than they were intended to and OPM received
less work than they were intended to. So the services and the
defense agencies did not meet the target submissions that were
established for them.
When I mention that we send monthly report cards to the
services and do a quarterly get-together with them, those are
the very issues that we work with them on.
Now, when I met with the services just several weeks ago on
this issue, they said, well, you have to understand, you know,
a lot of this is cyclical, a lot of this deals with recruits,
we bring recruits in mostly in the summertime. My response to
that is answers which have the connotation of ``it will all get
better next quarter'' are unacceptable, because we are almost
two quarters into an 8-quarter plan. We are running out of
quarters. So that is why we are making the determination that
irrespective of what we are told will happen this summer, we
will be sending more work to OPM immediately because there is
an untapped capacity there; and it is hurting General
Cunningham and his folks because they are getting more work
than they were intended to, and that sets him back on all his
measures.
Mr. Shays. Well, there are different points where you could
have a log jam; you could have a log jam at the end with the
adjudicator just not simply passing on the information.
Just before I go into a line of questions about the
internal report, if General Cunningham, all of a sudden all of
the branches, all of the different units, everybody just
flushed everything right down to you, you could not handle it.
Correct?
Mr. Cunningham. That is correct, sir.
Mr. Shays. So you have this kind of yes and no kind of
position. You want them to come in, but you do not want too
many to come in.
Mr. Cunningham. Yes, sir. That was the thrust of what I was
explaining earlier. It is my view--and I know that Mr.
Leonard's staff is doing research on this as well--but it is my
view that if the military departments do not include security
clearances in their programming process the same way they do
everything else, we are doomed to constantly re-creating
backlogs.
Mr. Shays. Say that one more time.
Mr. Cunningham. If the military departments do not include
security clearances in their programming process as they do
everything else----
Mr. Shays. Programming process, define that for me.
Mr. Cunningham. Planning, programming, and budgeting
system.
Mr. Shays. In other words, they have to make sure they have
planned for it, they have budgeted for it----
Mr. Cunningham. Yes, sir. And it all comes from the four-
structure plan and everything derives in programmatic detail.
Mr. Shays. We are going to line them all up in a long row,
we are going to have tables going way over there, and we are
going to have them all come in. I am serious. We are going to
have them all come in and respond; and you guys, I am going to
allow you to sit right up here and you can face them, and we
are going to have an interesting dialog. Maybe it will be a
closed hearing, but we are going to do it. We are going to do
that if we have to. But I am not sure--now let me just get to
this internal----
Mr. Money. If I could, sir, today the POM, the planning is
in place for all of that to happen. The discipline is, as each
year goes along, that money needs to stay for processing
clearances, not to go fund something else.
Mr. Shays. Yes, and your job will be, Mr. Money--let me
just say this very bluntly. As soon as you hear that is not
happening, you are to contact our office, and we will have a
hearing within a week to find out why there is not that money;
and we would work with the appropriators to let them know, this
is a disaster, this just continuing to happen. But if you kind
of suck it up and you are a good soldier and a loyal servant,
then you are loyal to the wrong thing.
Mr. Money. Yes, sir.
Mr. Shays. I got to get this joke out of my system and then
I will never use it again, because it illustrates my feeling. A
guy just gets married and he gets his bride on the carriage and
they go riding off in a buggy with a horse, and the horse trips
and the wife says, that is once. And he looks at her, and then,
I changed it a bit, didn't I? And then it happens again: the
horse trips again and she turns to her husband and says, that
is twice. And then the third time the horse trips, she says,
that is three times, and she grabs the gun out of her husband's
holster, gets off the carriage and shoots the horse in the
head, and her husband screams, what did you do that for,
hysterically, and she looks at him and says, that is once.
Now, the challenge is that we have two already, and I would
like to strike fear into somebody, because I just feel like Mr.
Lieberman is right. He is basically saying you cannot do it.
In this regard, let me talk about the mission degradation
which was a report that you asked to be done. I am going to
just read one or two parts to this. It says: ``the content of
this report clearly mandates--'' This is the subject, a draft
report on status and possible options regarding the conduct of
DOD personnel security investigations at PSI, and it is dated
February 8.
``The content of this report clearly mandates that bold
action--'' underlined bold action ``--is needed to address
current PSI case backlogs. The purpose of this draft report is
fourfold: to serve as a frame of reference for surfacing
various options and reactions to organizations both within and
outside of the DOD department; B, to be used to further
redefine the specific breadth of the situation with those who
are performing PSI work for DOD; C, to serve as a think piece
for the 22nd of February 01 meeting with DOD senior executives
who will be reviewing the progress on balancing PSI funding and
workload issues; and D, to present options which DOD uniformly
supports as candidates for consideration by the agency.''
Then further down in this OPM letter by Richard Williams:
``The current inventory of PSI indicates is being worked under
the normal budget process. It should be noted to the
warfighter, moving these cases through adjudication and final
decision will be another challenge! Completed investigations
are only part of the issue. What basically affects readiness is
when did the case go in, how long is it in the process, and
when did it come back to the command or defense contractor? It
is hoped that utilization of some of the options have been
accepted uniformly by the interagencies can favorably impact
the situation.''
Then on 15 of appendix 2 it says: ``Case completion times
for DSS have risen to an average of 441 days for top secret
initials and PRs, and an average of 239 days for secret
initials and PRs. Moreover, 194,000 of the pending 450,000
investigations which have been submitted to DSS have not been
opened.''
I mean, this is just--Mr. Lieberman is right, and there
will be a third trip of this horse, and someone is going to get
shot.
Mr. Money. OK. Thank you. That report, in fact, I
commissioned.
Mr. Shays. Right.
Mr. Money. Unfortunately, it was not reviewed; and it is
not entirely accurate. You will see it has ``draft'' on it and
so forth, so it was a failing within my office of not having
that vetted and made more accurate. But nevertheless----
Mr. Shays. No, no, no, I think it is healthy.
Mr. Money. That is what I am going to say, nevertheless,
let us talk about all of that.
Mr. Shays. No, no, not nevertheless, it is healthy.
Mr. Money. OK. It would be more healthy if I had it as an
accurate document to start with.
Mr. Shays. But it would be more helpful if we have not gone
through two times where we have had to change numbers.
Mr. Money. I am trying to respond to that.
Mr. Shays. I understand.
Mr. Money. That document was a request that I made on what
is happening with the top secret or the SBI-type clearances and
as you quoted. Overall, this is the report card coming out of
the first quarter, so I want to put this in the perspective of
what I do----
Mr. Shays. See if you can move your mic down a little bit.
Maybe your blowing on it----
Mr. Money. I will back off. Can you hear me OK?
Mr. Shays. Yes.
Mr. Money. I am going to answer your question. That report
is specific on top secret SBIs relative to DSS, and what it
says it is DOD----
Mr. Shays. You can talk a little louder. No, no, leave the
mic there, just talk a little louder.
Mr. Money. That report is accurate on what it refers to for
DSS, but what it is representative of of all of DOD, that is a
misrepresentation because it is omitting what OPM has done; and
if you will combine the two, you will actually see a 10 percent
drop in the period for SCI tickets.
So here is the total report, if you will, not that report,
the total first quarter of the plan. It says, the component
submitting PR investigation and backlog--it is yellow--and we
have already talked about that today. Periodic investigations
are coming in, and they are not going into the right spots and
so forth.
CCMS, which is the heart of all of this, is getting more
stable and better; but it needs a prioritization application
program added to it so we can prioritize things, and that is
what that report pointed out. That internal report pointed out
that we do not have a prioritization within DSS, which is being
fixed and will be in place here in April.
The investigative processes, we have talked enough about.
There are not enough investigators and so forth; but the vector
on that is at least moving in the right direction, as are the
first three.
OPM not meeting----
Mr. Shays. But not according to the internal report.
Mr. Money. Sir, the internal report is only a part of this.
This is the whole program here. The internal report is only
talking about SBI. This is the entire program here. The top
secret clearances, if you will.
Often, the reason that is going the other way is what we
are talking about, they are starting to see some investigations
slow-downs as their internal work under work-in-progress is
increasing, but that is manageable. Adjudications are, in fact,
keeping pace. We do have a couple of services, more or less
the----
Mr. Shays. How long does adjudication take?
Mr. Money. Help.
Mr. Leonard. In some cases, for some of the services, two
of the services in particular, if it is a clean case, they can
do it in roughly, if I am recalling my times correctly, about
10 to 11 days. Obviously, if due process has to be provided,
that is more time consuming.
Mr. Shays. Ten days fits into your overall schedule of 60
days? In other words, of the 60 days, 10 days----
Mr. Leonard. No, those times are investigative times. So
these times--this is what Mr. Lieberman was referring to, from
a customer's perspective, from the time that request leaves me
and goes wherever and gets to the investigator and then goes to
the adjudicator and then back to the customer, there is a lot
of people who have a piece of that puzzle and a lot of it does
not pertain to General Cunningham and his organization.
Mr. Shays. Well, that is what I care about. I care about
the customer request to the customer getting it back.
Mr. Leonard. Right.
Mr. Shays. How many days is that?
Mr. Money. I am told it could be as many as 100 days if
there is a lot of issues with that case. Ten days probably if
it is a clearance case. So again, that is very----
Mr. Leonard. But in terms of----
Mr. Shays. Let me ask you, who has the overall command of
that? You are saying you had a piece? I thought you had a whole
and he had a piece.
Mr. Money. No, sir, the adjudications go back to the
defense and the services agencies.
Mr. Shays. Is there one person----
Mr. Money. Secretary of Defense is the one person.
Mr. Shays. No, that is not good. There is no one person
that is following this and is taking charge?
Mr. Leonard. From a policy perspective, that is my
organization, sir. We exercise the policy and oversight over
the entire process; and believe it or not, this may sound very
basic, but one of the things we did last summer for the first
time--and it is very basic and it should have been done long
before--we required all of the components to appoint an
assistant secretary level, a single person, who would be
accountable for the execution of this plan from that
component's perspective. So now, at the very least also, we
have a go-to person that we can go to. They may not have it
all, but they are the focal point, if you will.
Mr. Shays. You have people that give it to you and then get
it back, that one person?
Mr. Leonard. That one person will be only at the assistant
secretary level for the services or a deputy director level for
an agency. So the actual requests come from thousands of people
at every camp post and station and ship at sea worldwide. Those
are where the requests come from.
Mr. Money. From a policy standpoint, then that is us. But
from a discussion standpoint, there is no single point until
you get to the Secretary of Defense. The Army will adjudicate
theirs, the Navy theirs, the Air Force theirs, the defense
agencies, and the only place where that all comes from an
operational standpoint to one person is the SECDEF.
Mr. Shays. Mr. Lieberman, I am looking at you for your body
language here. Help me out. Have you done a report that looks
at it from the total picture, or have you just primarily
focused from their side? In other words----
Mr. Lieberman. We have looked a lot at the adjudication
phase and the investigative phase. We have not done a whole lot
of work on the front end in determining----
Mr. Shays. In determining what has not been given?
Mr. Lieberman. Right, right. So I think between us and GAO
and the department's internal reviews over the years, the whole
spectrum has been covered by somebody; but it is a very
difficult thing to pull together. You squeeze the pipe at one
place, and you create a bulge someplace else. So there does
need to be for sure a comprehensive womb-to-tomb approach here.
It is a tough thing to pull off because so many different
organizations own different pieces of the pipeline.
Mr. Shays. But your customer, I would think, would want--I
mean, I know when we wanted our staff cleared so I could go
into a meeting and have a staff person--I am assuming you all
do those clearances--and in those cases because we work on a 2-
year cycle, I am making an assumption we somehow--you have a
process where we jump ahead, and you have that for others as
well. But as a customer, we have to want it bad; and I mean, I
would think that your customers would be driving this more than
they seem to be. I would think they would not want any in
their--if I knew, for instance, my office had requests not yet
transmitted to your office, I would be a pretty unhappy camper.
Mr. Lieberman. Could I speak to that? I do run an
organization of 1,200 people; so I am a customer, and yes,
managers get very frustrated. When DOD did a survey of customer
satisfaction of defense agency performance, the last time, DSS
got the absolute lowest score of any defense agency in the
whole department. Only like 14 percent of the customers said
they were happy. Most of the others were up in the 80 and 90's.
Mr. Shays. And in some cases, that is not fair to them.
Mr. Lieberman. Exactly. Exactly. People really do not
understand where the delay is. Part of that is because we have
never had in the Department of Defense good information
processes in place so that you could easily find out whatever
happened to the request I sent in. And that has been a very
basic thing that the department has been working on over the
last couple of years. But for a smaller component like ours, we
know exactly--well, we drive General Cunningham's people nuts
all the time.
Mr. Shays. The bottom line is, you have review over them,
they are going to want to perform a little better for you, and
you are probably going to be able to put yourself ahead of the
line.
Mr. Lieberman. Well, I have an aggressive security manager;
and I encourage him to be aggressive, and the squeaky wheel
gets the grease, yes.
Mr. Shays. Could Cunningham say that you sat on some of
your requests, or are your requests out pretty quick?
Mr. Lieberman. We are caught up.
Mr. Shays. In other words, you do not have any sitting
around, lying around. I cannot imagine why any would. Except
you have to provide the money for it.
Mr. Lieberman. Yes. But these are not expensive on an
individual basis. I mean, we are only talking a couple of
thousand dollars here. The budget question only becomes serious
when you are talking about some giant component like the Army,
which needs to process many, many tens of thousands of
clearances as opposed to the few hundred that I have to deal
with.
Mr. Shays. It is coming back to me, Mr. Cunningham. I
remember in some of our other hearings we were talking about
people who had been assigned a responsibility who were waiting
6 to 9 months to a year and not able to do their job. So not
only are we not providing good security for the people who are
already in there and we want them to be reviewed for national
security purposes; we have people simply who are hired, paid,
and not able to perform. So this is--I just want to make sure,
do you agree with this analysis that was being put forward? I
frankly did not understand it, but that is not----
Mr. Lieberman. You are referring to the bar chart?
Mr. Shays. Yes.
Mr. Lieberman. Could we put it back up?
Mr. Shays. Red, yellow, and green are colors I am used to;
but they were not defined for me to start with. I have a
feeling red is not good.
Mr. Lieberman. Green is good.
Mr. Shays. Green is good.
Mr. Lieberman. I think the Air Force invented this process
a long time ago. But I think this is a very accurate portrayal
of where the process stands in each of the categories that are
listed. But I would have two comments on the chart. First of
all, this process is sick as long as everything is not green,
and we all need to understand that; and that is exactly what
this chart says. They have one red element which is an absolute
show-stopper, and even though the arrows--most of the arrows
are moving to the right, which is the right direction, the
question is, how fast can we get from red to green?
Mr. Shays. And what you are saying is if you were doing
this based on weight, some of these bars would be really thin
and the investigative process one would be a broad band. In
other words, because that is a much more significant part of
this piece?
Mr. Lieberman. Well, they are all significant pieces; but I
think all cylinders in this particular engine have to be
firing. Any one of them is a show-stopper.
Mr. Shays. If any of the adjudication--if any one of those
was not working, you have got a problem.
Mr. Lieberman. We would never get to the successful end of
the plan.
The one thing that I would add to that chart, going back to
General Cunningham's point, there is really no line in there
about the planning process and the budgeting process, the
resourcing process that needs to be in place to get us from
here to there on this particular problem. But I think the
arrows moving to the left are not--are cause for concern.
Anything moving to the left is cause for concern. Anything that
has not moved from red to green is cause for concern.
Mr. Shays. I am confessing that I was in a hearing
yesterday that was so long and distasteful, and this is so much
more fun, but we are going to conclude in a few minutes.
Mr. Money. I am glad you are having fun.
Mr. Shays. Compared to yesterday.
Mr. Money. Everything is relative, I appreciate that.
Probably the security clearances are the most pervasive
thing across the entire Department. It is not unusual that
there is only one person in charge.
This plan is in fact predicated that the budgets are in
place and held there, so we can certainly add another metric;
but I will be honest with you, Congressman, Mr. Chairman, it is
very difficult to have clarity on that part of a budget in
another service or in a Defense agency. That thing can be
buried under layer after layer, so ferreting out the money
still there is a very difficult task.
Mr. Shays. Tell the committee the key players that you
think that we need to see, and I will send my staff, and if
necessary, I will go to those people and say, this cannot go
on. We will go to the appropriators and ask them.
Mr. Money. Yes, sir. Clearly this is not the security
people in the services and so forth. This is either the head of
the agency or the comptroller of that agency.
Mr. Shays. Tell me some of the agencies. I would think one
of the best things that you have got going for you to speed up
the process is that if you are not giving us enough cases to
come in, we are going to not have you have clearance--trigger
that in a little sooner.
Mr. Money. Yes, sir. The only leverage we have is what Bill
Leonard said.
Mr. Shays. If you do it all at once, they will say that is
absurd, but if you phase it in.
Mr. Money. You have hit upon an important issue, and that
is, it is the responsibility of whoever is issuing the
clearance to pay for it for that service.
Mr. Shays. Right.
Mr. Money. That has been in my view part of the reason the
not-to-be, yet-to-be submitted backlog has gone from 500,000 to
300,000; they say maybe I don't need that clearance for that
person. I think that has helped.
Mr. Shays. How much do they have to pay?
Mr. Money. It is roughly $2,500 for a top secret clearance
and about $1,000 for a secret clearance on average.
The other thing that you have already got, the watermelon
is passing through the snake.
Mr. Shays. Just tell me where the head is.
Mr. Money. The head is going south.
The adjudication----
Mr. Shays. My staff drew a picture of that and I thought,
there is no way I am going to describe that. If you want to be
risky enough to go through that, feel free.
Mr. Money. The watermelon, some are stuck in here and it is
passing down the digestive tract. Where the adjudicators are
could be the next major milestone, which is totally out of our
control.
Mr. Shays. I understand.
Mr. Leonard. I need to make sure that I didn't leave you
with a misimpression.
Adjudications are decentralized within a department. Every
one of the services does their own. There are about eight or
nine activities that do this. Most of the services are keeping
up. In one particular case, a service has not kept up.
Mr. Shays. Is that Army?
Mr. Leonard. It is Navy, sir. Frankly, there is a history
in terms of why, but they have to rebuild their adjudication
facility. The reason that the arrow is going left for
adjudications, it is principally because of that one service.
Although they have identified a get-well plan and are putting
the resources, they need to train these folks. I meet with
those folks every few months to review their progress.
Mr. Shays. Are they keeping that quiet so their top people
do not know about that?
Mr. Leonard. Up to 6 months ago that may have been the
case. But I know in particular in the Navy's case, senior
leadership at the highest levels became engaged. They did
identify the resources. They are being plussed up now with both
reservists and civil service folks, and the only remaining
impediment before they begin to turn around is to train them.
There is that senior-level awareness. The single point of
contact in the Navy is in the comptroller shop, which is very
fortuitous. That simple act of having someone accountable has
paid dividends.
Mr. Lieberman. Might I add that we issued an audit report
that specifically took the Navy to task for not having updated
workload estimates for its adjudicators; and the Navy resisted,
but we have had a successful resolution. We are not talking
large numbers of people or a lot of dollars here for these
adjudication facilities, so it is a real shame if anybody
understaffs them, because we are only talking about a dozen or
two dozen people in terms of not allowing this to become a clog
in the pipeline.
Mr. Shays. You were giving me the feeling that we were
getting this from hundreds of agencies. Do we only have a few
with adjudication issues?
Mr. Leonard. If a service member is stationed in Korea, for
example, he or she literally will have to sit at a computer in
Korea, complete that electronic personnel security
questionnaire, give it to their local security manager--and
there are thousands of those individuals--and it is from them
that it goes to DSS or OPM, as appropriate. There is no
centralized focal point for the services on the front end. It
is when DSS or OPM is done with it that it does go to a central
point within the service, namely their adjudication activity,
and they are the one who reviews the results and makes the
decision whether or not to grant.
Mr. Shays. If somebody from FEMA puts in a request, they
don't have an adjudicator?
Mr. Leonard. Within DOD, all of the services have their own
adjudication facilities. For Defense agencies such as Mr.
Lieberman's, he does not do his own adjudications; they have
been centralized under the auspices of Washington headquarters
services. They adjudicate for my staff, for Mr. Lieberman's
staff.
Mr. Shays. So some agencies have someone else who does the
adjudication?
Mr. Leonard. Right. The intel agencies such as DIA, NSA,
NRO, they do their own as well.
Mr. Shays. OK. I am told there are nine of them?
Mr. Leonard. Yes, sir. I'm sorry, eight.
Mr. Shays. And everyone comes under someone?
Mr. Leonard. Yes, sir.
Mr. Shays. Does Congress come under one of those?
Mr. Leonard. Washington Headquarters Services does the
adjudications for the staffers that DOD are responsible for.
Mr. Shays. Let me ask--Mr. Halloran, majority counsel, may
have some questions.
Mr. Halloran. Thank you.
Mr. Money, could you tell us what you found inaccurate in
this report?
Mr. Money. Thank you for that opportunity, and I am going
to ask Mr. Lieberman to expand on this.
It is represented as DOD wide; it is specifically DSS only.
It is represented as more than the SBI-type clearances, but yet
it is focused on that part. I think there are a couple of
comments about speed or the magnitude of the issues, the
number--is quantity more important than quality. That is
clearly not my point of view.
There are several things written that were not vetted.
Well-intentioned people wrote it, but they were not vetted
through the proper channels so we could get the accuracy. That
is what I regretted about having that out before we had that
opportunity.
Mr. Halloran. I hear spin versus spend. That information is
consistent with what went before and not necessarily telling us
where we need to go.
Mr. Leonard. When we were here last September, we reported
to the committee that a good part of our plan encompassed off-
loading work from DSS to OPM. So, therefore, any assessment of
that plan would have to take into account what OPM is doing.
And so, for example, for the first quarter OPM did, I believe
close to 28,000 investigations for the Department of Defense,
and if they were factored into case completion times, for
example, what it would have shown is that Department-wide case
completion times to include SBIs actually decreased in the
first quarter, and decreased by as much as 10 percent.
Not only that on page 10, and I don't want to be picayune,
but I want to emphasize that it was a draft report, and as
such, did not have an opportunity to get a thorough scrubbing.
There is reference on page 10 to the first time in December,
input exceeded output, but yet the pending increased. That is a
non sequitur.
In reality, the output began exceeding the input back in
October, the first month of this plan. Since October 1, for 15
out of the 20 weeks--this is going through the middle of
February--for 15 out of the 20 weeks, output exceeded input or
75 percent of the time. As a matter of fact, to date, until the
middle of October, output has exceeded input by 17.5 percent,
and you don't get that by reading the report.
So that is--it is unfortunate that it is incomplete because
when people look at it, it is interpreted as the state of the
Department's plan, but yet by the fact that our plan is all-
encompassing, as that report card has indicated, it gives the
impression that Department-wide the plan is not going in the
right direction.
Don't get me wrong. I am not saying that we are where we
want to be. We recognize that we are not on a glide path, so
from that point of view, the fundamental thing you get out of
that report is accurate. And we are very mindful of that and we
are focused on that.
Mr. Shays. Let me interrupt. That statement is an
incredible statement because it backs up what Mr. Lieberman has
said. You said the basic thrust of the report is right?
Mr. Leonard. Right.
Mr. Shays. The glide path is not where you want it to be?
Mr. Leonard. Everything would need to be green to get to
where we want to be, and we are not and we are working like the
dickens to get there.
Mr. Shays. Working like the dickens. One thing that you all
have convinced me of, you are working like the dickens, but I
dread a hearing 4 months or 5 months from now where we are
going to be saying the same thing. I dread that, and I think
that is where we are headed, sadly.
Mr. Money. If I can say, I don't dread that. I think you
ought to call one.
Mr. Shays. It is already on the calendar. But I dread
coming and have nice people who are working hard tell me the
same bad story, because it is.
Mr. Money. I want results, and in what we outlined for you
in the written statement, there are some other things that we
need your help on. Getting--DSS getting the same priority,
getting local and State governments to give them data as if the
FBI wrote them would help them. They no longer have any more
advantage over Wal-Mart or McDonald's coming in when they do an
investigation for a new employee. It is that kind of help that
we need.
Mr. Shays. We are going to ask the four of you to come sit
with majority and minority staff, and you map out how we can be
helpful to the other agencies.
Mr. Halloran. If you look at pages 5 and 6 of the report,
initial top secret and top secret periodic investigations, are
those characterizations of the data at the time rendered
accurate, and what are we to make of them in terms of the
capacity of DSS to meet its plan?
Mr. Leonard. With respect to how they pertain to DSS, yes,
sir, they are accurate.
Mr. Money. When they take that and extrapolate, that is the
entire department going through mission degradation; when they
omit the other part, that is the misrepresentation.
Mr. Halloran. I understand that. I didn't read it to
characterize the Department.
Mr. Money. It says on the front the function of the whole
Department.
Mr. Halloran. Our concern here is the capacity of DSS to
handle the mission given to it, and giving OPM more cases is an
option and giving them more complex cases is an option, I
understand. But for purposes of this, and understanding when
DSS is meant to do the job without OPM help, what does this
tell us? Why are case-processing times getting longer?
Mr. Leonard. One of the fundamental problems that we have
in the first quarter, and one of the things that is getting in
the way of General Cunningham and his folks doing his job, he
is getting work since the first of October that he was not
intended to. We have to work with the services. Sometimes it is
as simple as people following instructions.
Mr. Halloran. Are those the cases that are causing longer
case-processing times, though?
Mr. Leonard. It does not help. Just like there is no one
single silver bullet that will resolve this, there is no one
factor that is causing the problem. Certainly for--DSS getting
more cases than it was intended for them to get does not help.
Mr. Halloran. It may help their throughput if they are
getting the easy ones.
Mr. Leonard. This reference to ``easy ones,'' I am not too
sure what that means. When you look at this from a readiness
point of view, people say your output exceeds your input for
the first quarter, but it is the easy ones. Those easy ones
deal principally with recruits who are waiting to go to
advanced training. If they do not have their tickets in place,
that is a readiness issue. That is as much a----
Mr. Halloran. But if you analyze those cases, the
likelihood is that they would take less time; isn't that
correct?
General Cunningham. I think it is important to understand
that the so-called ``easy cases'' in our situation would be the
600 a day that we would get from the entrants command. The one
thing that has stayed very close to schedule is that part. So
those that are over tend to be the more difficult work. We are
not whining about that, it is just a fact that it does have an
impact.
Mr. Halloran. Is it your testimony that you have some basis
to conclude that the cases that you are getting, that you
should be getting, that should be going to OPM, are in some
measure the cause of your average case processing time going
up?
General Cunningham. Statistically, yes.
Mr. Halloran. By volume or by type of case?
General Cunningham. Both.
Mr. Money. There is another point that is being missed.
There is the lack in CCMS to do a prioritization. That is
being fixed as another add-on to the software in April that
will wash through the system, so by August there will not be
this accumulation of 188,000 cases which have not worked their
way through. So the prioritization will help the services once
they prioritize. It will help General Cunningham process those
cases first or second or third, or whatever the right order is.
Mr. Halloran. We had a discussion at a prior hearing about
the prioritization algorithm. How does that stand?
General Cunningham. It is in use. It is primarily employed
in routing work to contractors so that we try to give them the
cases that are least likely to have trouble.
Mr. Halloran. One more line of questioning here, which is
on investigative standards.
Some of the suggestions contained, the discussion time
contained in appendices to the report we are discussing here,
suggest an exemption or relaxation of investigative standards
which would limit transferability of clearances, such as the
increased use of interim clearances or a new category of cases
closed pending which would not have to be adjudicated twice and
might not be transferable to another agency complying with the
interagency agreements.
Could you address that issue?
Mr. Money. I think that is a very good point. The use of
interim clearances, to date, has been very useful, and national
security has not suffered. Let me give you a statistic.
We had issued 6,800 and something, so permit me to round
that off to 7,000 interim clearances, only SCI. Of those, while
the interim was issued, 25 out of 7,000 were then revoked; 22
of those, the person was still a student so actually caused no
national security. There were 3 cases out of 7,000 by
observation and so forth that didn't create a problem. I think
that is a very low number. Therefore, it is risk management.
One of the things that we are trying to do now is do more
interim clearances so we can eliminate more of this problem.
This is in addition to the aperiodic business that we talked
about. So there are some other things.
The other one that could help the most is if you could lift
or eliminate the cap on doing counterintelligence polygraphs
where a cap today is 5,000 a year, we would like to do more
than that. That would speed up the process.
Mr. Shays. I don't understand that. Explain that.
Mr. Leonard. DOD, since the late 1980's, has been under a
congressionally imposed cap that limits us to more than 5,000
CI-scope polygraph investigations. These are screening
investigations, not if you have an issue to investigate. We are
limited to more than 5,000. We apply this judiciously to our
most sensitive programs.
Mr. Shays. How would that help?
Mr. Leonard. Basically it would allow us, for sensitive--
for your most sensitive programs, you are less willing to grant
interims based solely on the records checks and things on those
lines. A CI-scope polygraph examination, while not a silver
bullet, will give you more of a foundation upon which to make
the judgment, is it an acceptable risk to grant this person
interim access to sensitive information.
Mr. Money. In addition to that, I would like to have
polygraphs applied to the investigators that are clearing an
immense number of people. General Cunningham has requested to
have 300 of his employees randomly polygraphed continuously.
That bumps up against this 5,000 cap. If that cap got lifted,
we could speed up a lot of interims with a higher degree of
confidence.
Mr. Shays. Thank you, Mr. Halloran.
Does minority counsel have any questions?
I will just ask a question. In your statement, Mr. Money,
you say--and I would like to ask Mr. Lieberman to respond--Mr.
Money, you state you need automated access to State and local
government history records akin to that provided to law
enforcement agencies.
I want to know, why would this be necessary to do the job?
Why do you think this would be helpful? Is this needed to do
the job?
Mr. Lieberman. This is the first I have heard about it, Mr.
Chairman. I don't know enough about it to give you any
substantive input other than to say, from what I heard from
some of the remarks earlier, apparently we are having trouble
getting information from local police records that we need in
order to complete investigations. So if that coordination
problem can be fixed in some way, it would help DSS and OPM do
their investigations faster.
Mr. Shays. Mr. Leonard.
Mr. Leonard. Actually the Congress has helped us in the
past in this regard. There has been quite a bit of investment,
as I am sure you are aware, in automating local and State
criminal history records; and much has been done to facilitate
our access to those records.
The one problem that we have is that we cannot access those
records using only a name and identifier like a Social Security
number. We have to submit fingerprint cards, which is a time-
consuming and expensive process. In those instances where we
cannot access their automated records, we literally have to
send an agent out, put shoe leather on the ground, go to the
local police office, local sheriff's office, and stand in line.
Mr. Shays. How could you do it if----
Mr. Leonard. We would like to be able to do it without
human intervention; and through the automated data base that
General Cunningham has, we have to do local records checks
wherever somebody has lived, worked or gone to school. All of
that information is on the personnel history statement. The
computer could send out requests.
Mr. Shays. Is that done by other agencies?
Mr. Leonard. Other agencies have the same difficulty we do.
Law enforcement agencies can access this information using
names and identifiers. We are required to provide fingerprint
cards. And from the State and local law enforcement agencies,
if they give information on Bill Leonard, they want to make
sure that it is the Bill Leonard that I am interested in.
Our response to that is, we have a very elaborate due
process procedure, and we never take action against somebody
based on information only from a record. If there is confusion
of identification, we are sure that would come out.
Mr. Shays. If someone is asking for a clearance, they
should be willing to have their records checked. There may be
more to that story.
I would like you to think over the weekend and maybe have a
meeting next week with my staff as to specific things we could
do to help this cause because the work you are doing is
important. This is a gigantic issue, and maybe we can be
helpful.
Mr. Leonard. Thank you, sir.
Mr. Shays. I would like, Mr. Lieberman, for you to be
involved in that as well.
Mr. Lieberman. I would be pleased to.
Mr. Shays. Is there any comment that any of you would like
to make? Any question that we should have asked that you were
geared to answer?
Thank you all. I thank all four of you. This hearing is
closed.
[Whereupon, at 12:30 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
-