Haft of the Spear

The background investigation is no tool for measuring trustworthiness. Ana Montes passed a background investigation (several in fact) and a fat lot of good that did us. Most of the labor involved is the gathering of low-hanging fruit, with the more intrepid investigators (keep in mind that much of this work is contracted out to people of varying levels of qualification) digging into branches that you would just as soon forget about (those five references you put down? They ask them for five other names and so on, so the probability of someone ratting you out for that game of ding-dong-ditch that went horribly wrong goes up considerably). More common is the technique used by “Duke” at a duty station I had the pleasure of working at twice in my career.

Duke worked for the Defense Investigative Service and the station we were at was pretty small. Everyone knew or knew of everyone else and you didn’t keep many secrets (except for the official ones of course). When Duke got a big backlog of background check-up files he’d stake out the exit looking for me because he knew I’d seen two generations go through the place. We’d sit down in his office and he’d ask, “Remember Terry H.? How about Greg V.?” and I’d answer yes or no depending. If anything derogatory came up (a relative thing, we were MI, we weren’t angels) I’d mention it and if not I’d say, “Yeah, he was a good guy,” and that would be that: backlog solved.

Real sophisticated, eh?

Did we undermine national security? I guess if you figure that most people who work with spies end up saying - after the arrest - that they had no idea about what was going on, then we probably let at least one traitor slip past the net, but let’s face it: We all did everything together; work, sleep, “sleep,” play, etc. If someone was going to go rogue in this bunch we’d have figured it out.

The safety net for the background check is the poly. You won’t find this written down anywhere, but it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out why the IC loves the poly so much. BI’s are hard, time-consuming and expensive. Because BIs are slack the poly is supposed to make up the difference. Of course the subject of the linked post will probably* never get to experience the voodoo box.

The other major problem are the various discriminating factors that are used to reject people. Assuming the subject’s version of the tale is accurate, again, what was wrong with him? He was born outside the US? He has an almost notional loyalty to a foreign power (one his is readily willing to deny)? Newsflash to the leadership of DIS/OPM/USIS: We need these people. Don’t believe me, listen to the man at the top. Every candidate like this you reject out of hand because you are too lazy to do a proper job is probably a battalion of GIs and countless innocents you are putting at risk because you’re hampering our ability to communicate/investigate/close “gaps.”

Cultural background isn’t the only issue. If you were lucky enough to travel much beyond Canada and Mexico you can expect increased scrutiny though not outright rejection in most cases. Family members living overseas? Forget it. We’ve already covered the “glaucoma medication” issue. You see where I am going with this? The volume of people who have done things that the previous generation did not (as much) is always rising. Old standards do next to nothing to protect us. What they do is severely limit the pool of talent from which we can draw.

Again, assuming the narrative is accurate, this guy could have been on his way to saving lives and helping kill bad guys, instead he’s probably going to default on his loans, become a meth addict and climb a billboard with a rifle and go UT-Austin on us (OK, I’m joking about defaulting).

Dude, call the CIA back or start calling the PMCs. If you feel bad about the money set up an allotment to donate the excess to charity. However you want to play it, just get on the job as fast as you can. The world has enough Ph.D.s.

(* Its not necessarily true that he can’t get a clearance in the future. Clearances are not universal and just because the Army balked doesn’t mean a civilian agency will too. They’ll ask the Army to find out why they said no and probably dig a little deeper than normal, but all is not lost if the desire is still there.)