Foreign Service officers clamor for security clearance reform

A group of Foreign Service employees on Monday urged President-elect Barack Obama to reform what they claim is an arbitrary security clearance process.

"Security clearance adjudication today is a matter of the luck of the draw," Daniel Hirsch, founder of Concerned Foreign Service Officers, wrote in a Nov. 7 letter to Obama. "The Bush administration and others have devoted some attention to security clearance reform, but their efforts are aimed at improving efficiency and reciprocity rather than quality and transparency."

Concerned Foreign Service Officers is an organization of Foreign Service employees who said their security clearances were improperly suspended, and other officers who support reforming the clearance process.

CFSOs said they viewed Obama's election as especially important for Americans with foreign-born parents. Many of these citizens have language skills the State Department needs, but have trouble obtaining security clearances, the organization said. The CFSOs argued that the security clearance process is frequently arbitrary and sometimes removes high-level clearances from employees who have already been vetted, and that there is little or no chance to appeal clearance decisions.

"The belief that immigrants, the children of immigrants, those with foreign relatives, or those who adhere to certain faiths, cannot possibly be loyal enough to the United States or that within them lurks an automatic loyalty to the country and people they or their ancestors left behind, is a belief that belongs as far behind us as Jim Crow," Hirsch wrote.

The group is among others in the diplomatic community already urging the new president to improve hiring and training for Foreign Service employees. The American Foreign Service Association, which represents active and retired officers and employees, has called for a significant increase in the State Department's workforce to attract more experienced employees and provide enough staff to allow officers to rotate out of their positions for training.

"The next administration will…need to focus on Iraq, Afghanistan, the Middle East peace process, Russia, and many other bilateral and multilateral foreign policy issues," said John Naland, president of the American Foreign Service Association. "But unless urgent steps are taken to strengthen the diplomatic element of national security, no amount of jetting around the globe by the president or secretary of State will restore our nation's role as the world's leader in global affairs."

The American Academy of Diplomacy recommended in September a 16 percent increase in the size of State's workforce, a suggestion endorsed by Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio. The Academy and the nonprofit Henry L. Stimson Center have held a series of events to highlight the conclusions of their new report, which calls for expanding the workforce at State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development.