Haft of the Spear

Slow security clearance processes and a lack of reciprocity between agencies are major inefficiencies that have huge unseen costs for agencies and contractors, Customs and Border Protection’s acting information technology chief told a group of industry executives today.

Hardly a new problem, though you can gauge the relative priority of solving it based on how long it has been so. Solving it requires a three-pronged approach from the executive, legislative and private sectors:

• If you’re more than just talk about national security, sharing, interoperability, best-people-where-you-need-them, etc., then you should be pushing downward to get your subordinates to focus on requirements and set aside institutional biases. People who are not team players, should be encouraged to take up tennis.
• If you’re about smaller gov’t, then you ought to relish the idea of needing less overhead to deal with a common and largely uniform issue.
• If you’re about smart gov’t, think about efficiencies gained and speed acquired.
• If you’re about saving taxpayer dollars (or corporate overhead), see bullet two above.

With uniform standards and implementation comes clearance portability for those on “active duty.” Not a small accomplishment in and of itself, but two other steps need to be kept in mind to truly reform this process:

• Leveraging existing databases and data mining and analysis techniques to automate the background investigation process. This is already in the works to a certain extent, but the faster and more comprehensive the better. Ideally, your five-year update should be able to be handled via an encrypted web-based form and your status updated inside of a few weeks. New clearances for uncomplicated cases should be adjudicated in a very slightly longer time-frame.
• Eliminating the need to have a gov’t or corporate entity “hold” your clearance. Your clearance is about you, not your job or location. As long as you meet the necessary criteria, you should not be “punished” (that’s the practical impact) if you leave the business for whatever reason and try to come back. If you don’t have a need to know, you get read off; when you want to come back, update your address, travels and contacts and get back on the horse. This is an area that could also reap huge savings for contractors and the gov’t, as they both could stop canibalizing the existing pool of “active duty” to fill billets.