Writing at The Fiscal Times, David Francis reveals the maze of procedures, federal departments, independent contractors, waste, fraud, and abuse that resulted in Edward Snowden receiving his security clearance. There’s every likelihood that nobody really understood the requirements for the clearance and that background checks were never performed. I wonder how expensive getting a security clearance would be if the people who were responsible for overseeing the process actually did anything.
The Senate committee may not have learned much about Edward Snowden but I suspect they learned more about the OPM than they ever wanted to know.
I think that many of the penalties that have been proposed for Mr. Snowden are excessive and hyperbolic but whatever he’s finally indicted for and/or convicted of his superiors at Booz Allen Hamilton and the officials at the Office of Personnel Management responsible for overseeing the process should be subject to the same degree of severe treatment. Not that that will ever happen, of course. One of the purposes of the Civil Service Code is to prohibit personal responsibility.
In complexity, there is safety.
One more thing. I strongly suspect that the reason so many outside contractors are used by the federal government is explicit or implicit hiring freezes. Hiring more people to do the work would expose them to criticism for padding the federal workforce. The fees of outside contractors can be hidden in all those billions of unaudited budgets. And after leaving the federal government you can always go to work for one of those outside contractors. It’s perfect.
I am all for punishing unaccountable management. (Could we start with Bankers?) That said, I really dont know what clearance would really stop a lone wolf intent on gaining info that he will leak to the world, especially if he doesnt care if he gets caught. To stop that, you need internal checks within the system, not the clearance.
Steve
I am all for punishing unaccountable management. (Could we start with Bankers?)
What about Dodd-Frank? Wasn’t that 2600 page bill supposed to be this administration’s solution for financial reform? Unfortunately, at least according to one appraisal of this 3-year old law, it has fallen short on it’s oversight of the big banks that seem to rankle you.