Intelligence bill overhauls procedures for security clearances

The intelligence reform bill passed earlier this week contains language aimed at simplifying, standardizing and quickening the process of obtaining and renewing government security clearances.

The legislation, approved by the House on Tuesday and the Senate on Wednesday, allows President Bush 90 days to pick one agency or other executive branch entity to oversee clearances. In addition to keeping watch over day-to-day clearance investigations and adjudications and mediating disputes that arise, that agency will be responsible for standardizing clearance application procedures and policies across the government.

The bill also calls on Bush and the head of the oversight entity to select within 180 days a single agency to perform the bulk of clearance investigations for federal employees and contractors.

The Central Intelligence Agency, FBI and National Security Agency now investigate their clearance applicants themselves. But a significant consolidation of the government's remaining investigations work is already under way, with about 1,850 field investigators, supervisors and support staff from the Defense Security Service scheduled to move to the Office of Personnel Management in mid-February.

After the merger, OPM will conduct 95 percent of federal background checks, according to Stephen Benowitz, OPM's associate director for human resources products and services. He was unavailable Friday to comment on the reform bill language.

As with most significant transitions, the investigations merger is likely to create some confusion and upheaval, exacerbating inefficiencies in the near term, said Doug Wagoner, chairman of the Information Technology Association of America's intelligence committee and vice president of DSA Inc., an IT consulting company with a regional office in Fairfax, Va. "It's going to get worse before it gets better," he said.

But Wagoner is confident that processing will get faster, largely because the intelligence reform legislation doesn't leave much choice. The bill requires the head of the lead oversight agency to devise a plan for shortening the clearance process.

The strategy, due 90 days after Bush selects the lead agency, would need to ensure that 90 percent of applications get adjudicated within an average of 60 days after investigators receive the forms. Within that time limit, the investigations phase could take 40 days at the most, and the process of deciding whether to accept or reject the application could take a maximum of 20 days.

The bill gives the government five years to meet the new time limits, and sets an interim goal of adjudicating 80 percent of applications within 120 days of receipt, with 90 days in investigations and 30 days in the decision-making phase. Agencies would need to meet that target in two years.

Technology upgrades and fresh ideas from the lead clearance agency should make these goals attainable, Wagoner said. A provision in the bill that forces agencies to recognize one another's clearances also will help quicken the process by lightening investigators' and adjudicators' workloads, he predicted.

Lack of reciprocity has been a major problem for contractors, who often are required to fill out a new clearance application each time they start a project at a different agency.

But Derek Stewart, director for defense and civilian personnel issues at the Government Accountability Office, said it's hard to tell how much the reciprocity language will improve efficiency. Executive Order 12968 already asks agencies to recognize one another's clearances, he said. They don't necessarily do so, but there are no solid statistics on how often that happens, he noted.

GAO has not analyzed whether the reform bill language is likely to improve the clearance process significantly, Stewart said. But based on more than a decade of research, he said he isn't convinced that the legislative mandates alone will cure backlogs.

Officials at OPM and the Defense Security Service told GAO analysts preparing a February 2004 report on such backlogs that they only had about half the investigators they needed, according to Stewart. To substantially improve efficiency, more investigators are needed, along with other resources, including better computer systems, and management improvements, he said.

"Everybody's looking for a panacea to make this better," Stewart said. "In my estimation, the most critical thing … is to devote more resources to it."