DOD Personnel Clearances
Comprehensive Timeliness Reporting, Complete Clearance Documentation, and Quality Measures Are Needed to Further Improve the Clearance Process Gao ID: GAO-09-400 May 19, 2009The Department of Defense (DOD) personnel security clearance program has been on GAO's high-risk list since 2005, due to delays in the process and incomplete documentation. The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) conducts most of DOD's clearance investigations, which DOD adjudicators use to make clearance decisions. The Deputy Director for Management at the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) chairs a Performance Accountability Council that is responsible for reforming the clearance process. Conducted under the authority of the Comptroller General, GAO's report addresses the (1) reporting on timeliness for DOD clearances, (2) documentation completeness for making initial top-secret clearance decisions for DOD personnel, and (3) reporting on the quality of the clearance process. To assess these issues, GAO analyzed data on most DOD clearances granted in fiscal year 2008, randomly sampled and analyzed 100 OPM investigative reports and DOD adjudicative files for clearances granted in July 2008, and analyzed 2006-09 executive branch annual clearance reports.
DOD and OPM met statutory timeliness requirements for personnel security clearances in fiscal year 2008, but the executive branch's 2009 required report to Congress did not reflect the full range of time to make all initial clearance decisions. Currently, 80 percent of initial clearance decisions are to be made within 120 days, on average, and by December 2009, a plan is to be implemented in which, to the extent practical, 90 percent of initial clearance decisions are made within 60 days, on average. Under both requirements, the executive branch can exclude the slowest percent, and then report on an average of the remaining clearances. The most recent report stated that the average time to complete the fastest 90 percent of initial clearances for military and DOD civilians in fiscal year 2008 was 124 days, on average. However, without taking averages or excluding the slowest clearances, GAO analyzed 100 percent of initial clearances granted in 2008 and found that 39 percent still took more than 120 days. The absence of comprehensive reporting limits full visibility over the timeliness of initial clearance decisions. With respect to initial top secret clearances adjudicated in July 2008, documentation was incomplete for most OPM investigative reports and some DOD adjudicative files. GAO independently estimated that 87 percent of about 3,500 investigative reports that adjudicators used to make clearance decisions were missing required documentation, and the documentation most often missing was employment verification. Although DOD leadership asserted that adjudicators follow a risk-managed approach, DOD has not issued formal guidance clarifying if and under what circumstances adjudicators can adjudicate incomplete investigative reports. For DOD adjudicative files, GAO estimated that 22 percent were missing required documentation of the rationale for granting clearances to applicants with security concerns, and the documentation most often missing was related to foreign influence. Neither OPM nor DOD measures the completeness of its investigative reports or adjudicative files. As a result, both are limited in their ability to explain the extent or the reasons why some documents are incomplete. Incomplete documentation may lead to increases in both the time needed to complete the clearance process and in overall process costs and may reduce the assurance that appropriate safeguards are in place to prevent DOD from granting clearances to untrustworthy individuals. The executive branch's annual reports to Congress on the personnel security clearance process have provided decision makers with limited data on quality. The 2009 report did not provide any data on quality but, unlike previous reports, identified quality metrics that the executive branch proposes to collect. GAO has stated that timeliness alone does not provide a complete picture of the clearance process and emphasized that attention to quality could increase reciprocity--accepting another federal entity's clearances. The executive branch, though not required to include information on quality in its annual reports, has latitude to report appropriate information and has missed opportunities to make the clearance process transparent to Congress.
RecommendationsOur recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.
Director: Team: Phone:GAO-09-400, DOD Personnel Clearances: Comprehensive Timeliness Reporting, Complete Clearance Documentation, and Quality Measures Are Needed to Further Improve the Clearance Process
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Report to Congressional Committees:
United States Government Accountability Office:
GAO:
May 2009:
DOD Personnel Clearances:
Comprehensive Timeliness Reporting, Complete Clearance Documentation,
and Quality Measures Are Needed to Further Improve the Clearance
Process:
GAO-09-400:
GAO Highlights:
Highlights of GAO-09-400, a report to congressional committees.
Why GAO Did This Study:
The Department of Defense (DOD) personnel security clearance program
has been on GAO‘s high-risk list since 2005, due to delays in the
process and incomplete documentation. The Office of Personnel
Management (OPM) conducts most of DOD‘s clearance investigations, which
DOD adjudicators use to make clearance decisions. The Deputy Director
for Management at the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) chairs a
Performance Accountability Council that is responsible for reforming
the clearance process. Conducted under the authority of the Comptroller
General, GAO‘s report addresses the (1) reporting on timeliness for DOD
clearances, (2) documentation completeness for making initial top-
secret clearance decisions for DOD personnel, and (3) reporting on the
quality of the clearance process. To assess these issues, GAO analyzed
data on most DOD clearances granted in fiscal year 2008, randomly
sampled and analyzed 100 OPM investigative reports and DOD adjudicative
files for clearances granted in July 2008, and analyzed 2006-09
executive branch annual clearance reports.
What GAO Found:
DOD and OPM met statutory timeliness requirements for personnel
security clearances in fiscal year 2008, but the executive branch‘s
2009 required report to Congress did not reflect the full range of time
to make all initial clearance decisions. Currently, 80 percent of
initial clearance decisions are to be made within 120 days, on average,
and by December 2009, a plan is to be implemented in which, to the
extent practical, 90 percent of initial clearance decisions are made
within 60 days, on average. Under both requirements, the executive
branch can exclude the slowest percent, and then report on an average
of the remaining clearances. The most recent report stated that the
average time to complete the fastest 90 percent of initial clearances
for military and DOD civilians in fiscal year 2008 was 124 days, on
average. However, without taking averages or excluding the slowest
clearances, GAO analyzed 100 percent of initial clearances granted in
2008 and found that 39 percent still took more than 120 days. The
absence of comprehensive reporting limits full visibility over the
timeliness of initial clearance decisions.
With respect to initial top secret clearances adjudicated in July 2008,
documentation was incomplete for most OPM investigative reports and
some DOD adjudicative files. GAO independently estimated that 87
percent of about 3,500 investigative reports that adjudicators used to
make clearance decisions were missing required documentation, and the
documentation most often missing was employment verification. Although
DOD leadership asserted that adjudicators follow a risk-managed
approach, DOD has not issued formal guidance clarifying if and under
what circumstances adjudicators can adjudicate incomplete investigative
reports. For DOD adjudicative files, GAO estimated that 22 percent were
missing required documentation of the rationale for granting clearances
to applicants with security concerns, and the documentation most often
missing was related to foreign influence. Neither OPM nor DOD measures
the completeness of its investigative reports or adjudicative files. As
a result, both are limited in their ability to explain the extent or
the reasons why some documents are incomplete. Incomplete documentation
may lead to increases in both the time needed to complete the clearance
process and in overall process costs and may reduce the assurance that
appropriate safeguards are in place to prevent DOD from granting
clearances to untrustworthy individuals.
The executive branch‘s annual reports to Congress on the personnel
security clearance process have provided decision makers with limited
data on quality. The 2009 report did not provide any data on quality
but, unlike previous reports, identified quality metrics that the
executive branch proposes to collect. GAO has stated that timeliness
alone does not provide a complete picture of the clearance process and
emphasized that attention to quality could increase reciprocity”
accepting another federal entity‘s clearances. The executive branch,
though not required to include information on quality in its annual
reports, has latitude to report appropriate information and has missed
opportunities to make the clearance process transparent to Congress.
What GAO Recommends:
GAO recommends that, in annual reports to Congress, OMB provide
Congress with more information on timeliness and quality and that OPM
and DOD address documentation completeness issues. OMB and DOD
concurred, while OPM did not state whether it concurred with GAO‘s
recommendations.
View [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-09-400] or key
components. For more information, contact Brenda S. Farrell, 202-512-
3604 or farrellb@gao.gov.
[End of section]
Contents:
Letter:
Results in Brief:
Background:
DOD and OPM Met 2008 Timeliness Requirements, but the Executive
Branch's 2009 Report Did Not Reflect the Full Range of Clearance
Timeliness:
Investigation and Adjudication Documentation Was Incomplete for
Favorably Adjudicated Initial Top Secret Clearances:
Executive Branch Reports on the Personnel Security Clearance Process
Contain Limited Information on Quality:
Conclusions:
Recommendations for Executive Action:
Agency Comments and Our Evaluation:
Appendix I: Scope and Methodology:
Appendix II: The Federal Investigative Standards Used in the
Investigation Phase of the Personnel Security Clearance Process:
Appendix III: Federal Adjudicative Guidelines Used in the Adjudication
Phase of the Personnel Security Clearance Process:
Appendix IV: Comments from the Department of Defense:
Appendix V: Comments from the Office of Personnel Management:
Appendix VI: GAO Contacts and Staff Acknowledgments:
Related GAO Products:
Tables:
Table 1: Analysis of 100 Percent of GAO Sample of Initial DOD Personnel
Security Clearance Eligibility Decisions in Fiscal Year 2008:
Table 2: List of Organizations and Groups Contacted to Obtain
Information about the Personnel Security Clearance Process:
Table 3: Information Required by Federal Investigative Standards for
Each Clearance Level and for Initial and Renewal Clearances:
Figures:
Figure 1: Six Phases in the Personnel Security Clearance Process:
Figure 2: Timeliness of 100 Percent of GAO Sample of Initial DOD
Personnel Security Clearance Eligibility Decisions in Fiscal Year 2008:
Figure 3: Estimated Percentage of Incomplete OPM Investigation Reports
by Investigative Standard:
Figure 4: Estimated Percentage of Incomplete Adjudication Files by
Adjudicative Guideline:
[End of section]
United States Government Accountability Office:
Washington, DC 20548:
May 19, 2009:
Congressional Committees:
In fiscal year 2008, the Department of Defense (DOD) granted
eligibility for initial or renewal security clearances to more than
630,000 applicants who were military, DOD civilian, or private industry
personnel working on DOD contracts.[Footnote 1] Clearances potentially
give these applicants access to information that, if improperly
disclosed, could, in some cases, cause exceptionally grave damage to
national security. Long-standing delays in the clearance process led us
to designate DOD's personnel security clearance process as a high-risk
area in 2005.[Footnote 2] That designation continued in 2007 and 2009,
when we identified continued delays in the clearance process and
additional concerns with clearance documentation.[Footnote 3]
The Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004[Footnote
4] (IRTPA) established, among other things, milestones for reducing the
time to complete initial clearances. IRTPA currently requires that DOD
and other agencies that adjudicate security clearances make a decision
on at least 80 percent of initial clearance applications within 120
days, on average, measured from the receipt date of an individual's
completed application to the date when an agency makes the adjudication
decision. Further, IRTPA calls for the executive branch to implement a
plan by December 17, 2009, under which, to the extent practical, at
least 90 percent of decisions are made on applications for an initial
personnel security clearance within 60 days, on average. IRTPA also
requires the executive branch to provide a report to Congress, by
February 15 of each year, on the progress made during the preceding
year toward meeting IRTPA's requirements for security clearances,
including the length of time agencies take to complete investigations
and adjudications, a discussion of impediments to the functioning of
IRTPA's requirements, and any other information or recommendations the
executive branch considers appropriate.[Footnote 5]
Multiple executive branch agencies are responsible for different phases
in the federal government's personnel security clearance process. With
respect to DOD's personnel security clearance process, DOD is
responsible for determining which military, DOD civilian, and private
industry personnel working on DOD contracts require access to
classified information and must apply for a security clearance and
undergo an investigation. The Office of Personnel Management (OPM), in
turn, conducts these investigations for DOD. OPM investigators--often
contractors[Footnote 6]--use federal investigative standards and OPM
internal guidance as criteria for collecting background information on
applicants. Federal guidelines require that DOD adjudicators use the
information contained in the resulting investigative reports to
determine whether an applicant is eligible for a personnel security
clearance, and DOD regulation also requires that DOD adjudicators
document their rationale for determining clearance eligibility. In June
2007, a Joint Reform Team--currently consisting of DOD, the Office of
the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), the Office of Management
and Budget (OMB), and OPM--was established, in part, to enable DOD and
other agencies to achieve IRTPA timeliness goals and improve the
processes related to the granting of security clearances. OMB officials
have expressed concerns about the ability of the government to meet the
2009 IRTPA timeliness requirements. In June 2008, Executive Order 13467
established a governmentwide governance structure, including a
Performance Accountability Council chaired by the Deputy Director for
Management at OMB that is responsible for driving the implementation
and oversight of these reform efforts.
Under the authority of the Comptroller General to conduct evaluations
on his own initiative, and in the context of the Joint Reform Team's
clearance reform efforts and the issues we identified in our High-Risk
Series, we evaluated the security clearance process at DOD.
Specifically, we addressed the following questions regarding security
clearances for military, DOD civilian personnel, and private industry
personnel working on DOD contracts: (1) How complete are the timeliness
data that the executive branch reported for clearances granted in
fiscal year 2008? (2) How complete is the documentation of
investigations and adjudications for initial top secret security
clearances favorably adjudicated within DOD? (3) To what extent did
executive branch reporting to Congress from 2006 through 2009 on DOD
and other federal agencies include information on quality in the
security clearance process?
To determine the completeness of the timeliness data that the executive
branch reported for DOD clearances granted in fiscal year 2008, we
reviewed the requirements specified in IRTPA, conducted an independent
analysis of the timeliness of DOD personnel security clearances in
fiscal year 2008, and analyzed the timeliness data contained in the
executive branch's 2009 report to Congress on clearances granted in
fiscal year 2008. In our independent analysis, we measured the
timeliness of nearly 450,000 initial clearances and more than 180,000
clearance renewals[Footnote 7] at the confidential, secret, and top
secret levels that were adjudicated in fiscal year 2008. These nearly
630,000 clearances account for more than 93 percent of DOD personnel
security clearances adjudicated in fiscal year 2008.[Footnote 8] We
conducted electronic testing on the data we used in our independent
analysis and compared values in DOD's and OPM's electronic databases
with the data contained in the original clearance files. We found that
the data we used were sufficiently reliable for the purposes of this
report. To determine the completeness of both investigation and
adjudication documentation for initial top secret security clearances
favorably adjudicated within DOD, we independently and randomly
selected and reviewed a generalizable sample of 100 OPM-provided
investigative reports and associated DOD adjudicative files for
clearances granted to military, DOD civilian, and private industry
personnel working on DOD contracts in July 2008 by the central
adjudication facilities of the U.S. Army, U.S. Navy, and U.S. Air
Force.[Footnote 9] We limited our focus to initial top secret
clearances because (1) we have identified documentation problems with
this clearance level in previous work; (2) investigators gather the
most information for investigations for top secret clearances; and (3)
individuals granted top secret clearances have access to information
that, if improperly disclosed, could cause exceptionally grave damage
to national security. Using a standardized instrument, we compared the
documentation in the OPM-provided investigative reports with the
requirements outlined in federal investigative standards and OPM
internal guidance. Similarly, we used a standardized instrument to
compare the documentation in the DOD adjudicative files with federal
adjudicative guidelines and DOD regulation. Based on the results of
this review, we developed statistical estimates for about 3,500
[Footnote 10] clearances granted in July 2008 by these central
adjudication facilities.[Footnote 11] We also interviewed key OPM
officials at the Federal Investigative Services Division and spoke
separately with a random sample of OPM federal and contract
investigators. In addition, we interviewed key leadership officials and
DOD adjudicators at DOD's three central adjudication facilities. To
assess the extent to which the executive branch's reporting to Congress
on DOD and other federal agencies included information on quality in
the security clearance process, we analyzed annual reports to Congress
on personnel security clearances submitted between 2006 and 2009.
We conducted this performance audit from March 2008 through May 2009 in
accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. Those
standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain
sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for our
findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We believe that
the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our findings and
conclusions based on our audit objectives. Appendix I contains a
detailed description of our scope and methodology.
Results in Brief:
While DOD and OPM met current statutory timeliness requirements for
personnel security clearances in fiscal year 2008, the executive
branch's 2009 report to Congress on clearances did not reflect the full
range of time it takes to make all initial clearance decisions. IRTPA
requires that the executive branch report annually on the progress made
during the preceding year toward meeting the act's current timeliness
requirements for clearances. Currently, IRTPA requires that decisions
on at least 80 percent of initial clearances be made within 120 days,
on average. IRTPA also requires that to the extent practical, a plan be
implemented by December 2009 under which 90 percent of initial
clearance decisions be made within 60 days, on average. Furthermore,
IRTPA provides the executive branch broad discretion to report any
additional information it considers appropriate. Accordingly, the
executive branch's 2009 report stated that the average time for
completing the fastest 90 percent of initial clearances in fiscal year
2008 was (1) 124 days for military and DOD civilians and (2) 129 days
for private industry personnel working on DOD contracts. While the
average in the report can be used to assess the extent to which DOD and
other agencies are positioned to meet IRPTA's December 2009 timeliness
requirements, the average is the only timeliness metric in the report,
and it did not include the slowest 10 percent of initial clearances in
its calculation. The report's metric, therefore, does not communicate
the full range of time it took DOD and OPM to complete initial
clearances. We analyzed 100 percent of 450,000 initial DOD clearances
completed in fiscal year 2008 and did not average or exclude any
portion of the data from our calculations. Using this methodology, we
found that 39 percent of clearances took more than 120 days to
complete. By limiting its reporting on timeliness to the average of the
fastest 90 percent of the initial clearance decisions made in fiscal
year 2008, the executive branch did not provide congressional decision
makers with visibility over the full range of time it takes to make all
initial clearance decisions and the reasons why delays continue to
exist. We are, therefore, recommending that the Deputy Director for
Management at OMB, as the Chair of the Performance Accountability
Council, include comprehensive data on the timeliness of the personnel
security clearance process in future versions of the IRTPA-required
annual report to Congress. In oral comments, a senior official at OMB
concurred with our recommendation, commenting that OMB recognized the
need for more reporting on timeliness and underscored the importance of
reporting on the full range of time to complete all initial clearances.
With respect to initial top secret clearances adjudicated in July 2008,
documentation was incomplete for most OPM-provided investigative
reports and some of the related DOD adjudicative files. We estimated
that 87 percent of about 3,500 investigative reports that adjudicators
used to make clearance decisions were missing at least one type of
documentation required by the federal investigative standards and OPM's
internal guidance, based on our independent review of a random sample
of clearances granted to military, DOD civilian, and private industry
personnel working on DOD contracts during this time by the central
adjudication facilities of the U.S. Army, the U.S. Navy, and the U.S.
Air Force. The type of documentation most frequently missing from
investigative reports was verification of all of the applicant's
employment. Although DOD asserted that adjudicators follow a risk-
managed approach for granting security clearances, DOD has not issued
formal guidance clarifying if and under what circumstances adjudicators
can adjudicate incomplete investigative reports. With respect to
adjudicative files, we estimated that 22 percent did not contain the
required documentation even though DOD regulation requires that
adjudicators maintain a record of each favorable and unfavorable
adjudication decision and document the rationale for granting clearance
eligibility to applicants with security concerns revealed during the
investigation. Documentation most frequently missing from adjudicative
files was the rationale for granting security clearances to applicants
with security concerns related to foreign influence. Neither OPM nor
DOD assesses the completeness of their investigative reports or
adjudicative files, which limits their ability to explain the extent to
which incomplete documentation exists or the reasons why some documents
are incomplete. Incomplete investigative and adjudicative documentation
may lead to increases in the time it takes to complete the clearance
process and in the overall costs of the process (e.g., labor) and may
reduce the assurance that appropriate safeguards are in place to
prevent DOD from granting clearances to untrustworthy individuals. We
are recommending that DOD clarify its guidance to specify when
adjudicators can use incomplete investigative reports in adjudication
decisions. To improve the completeness of clearance documentation, we
are also recommending that OPM measure the completeness of its
investigative reports and DOD measure the completeness of its
adjudicative files. DOD concurred with both of our recommendations
addressed to the department and described specific steps it expects to
implement later this year to address them. In commenting on our report,
OPM did not state whether it concurred with our recommendation directed
to that agency.
The executive branch's 2006 through 2009 IRTPA-required reports to
Congress on the clearance process provided congressional decision
makers with limited information on quality--a measure that could
include topics such as the completeness of the documentation of
clearance decisions. While the 2006 and 2008 reports did not contain
any mention of quality, the 2007 report mentioned a single quality
measure--the frequency with which adjudicating agencies returned OPM's
investigative reports due to quality deficiencies. We consider that
measure, by itself, unreliable because DOD adjudication officials told
us of their reluctance to return incomplete investigative reports due
to their perception that returning them would result in delays. The
2009 report does not contain any data on quality but proposes two
measures of investigative report quality and plans to measure
adjudicative quality. We have previously reported that an emphasis on
timeliness alone does not provide a complete picture of the clearance
process and have emphasized the importance of ensuring quality in all
phases of the process. Since the passage of IRTPA, quality has become
more important because reciprocity is a key element of the act. One
challenge to reciprocity has been the reluctance of some federal
agencies, due to concerns about quality, to accept clearances issued by
other agencies. This reluctance leads, in turn, to reduced efficiency
and greater costs. While IRTPA contains no requirement for the
executive branch to report any information on quality, IRTPA grants the
executive branch broad latitude to include any appropriate information
in its reports. Without reporting on quality in the clearance process,
the government's ability to provide assurances that it is exercising
all of the appropriate safeguards when granting clearances is limited.
Because the executive branch has not fully addressed quality in its
reports, it has missed opportunities to provide congressional decision
makers with full transparency over the clearance process. We are
recommending that the Deputy Director for Management at OMB, in the
capacity as the Chair of the Performance Accountability Council,
include metrics on quality in future versions of the IRTPA-required
annual reports. In oral comments, a senior official at OMB concurred
with our recommendation and emphasized that it is important to provide
Congress more transparency about quality in the clearance process.
Background:
Security clearances are required for access to certain national
security information, which may be classified at one of three levels:
confidential, secret, and top secret. The level of classification
denotes the degree of protection required for information and the
amount of damage that unauthorized disclosure could reasonably be
expected to cause to national security. Unauthorized disclosure could
reasonably be expected to cause (1) "damage," in the case of
confidential information; (2) "serious damage," in the case of secret
information; and (3) "exceptionally grave damage," in the case of top
secret information.[Footnote 12]
The Six Phases of DOD's Personnel Security Clearance Process:
To ensure the trustworthiness and reliability of personnel in positions
with access to classified information, DOD relies on a multi-phased
personnel security clearance process.[Footnote 13] DOD's Office of the
Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence has responsibility for
developing and overseeing DOD's process for determining eligibility for
clearances for military and DOD civilian personnel and private industry
personnel working on DOD contracts. That process includes obtaining
background investigations, primarily through OPM's Federal
Investigative Services Division. Figure 1 shows the progression of the
six phases involved in determining whether to grant an applicant a
clearance.
Figure 1: Six Phases in the Personnel Security Clearance Process:
[Refer to PDF for image: illustration]
1. Requirements setting:
DOD determines if a position requires access to classified information,
and if so, the level of clearance needed.
2. Application submission:
Applicant provides materials and security officer reviews and submits
request for investigation.
3. Investigation:
OPM, or one of its contractors, conducts an investigation and sends an
investigative report to an adjudication facility.
4. Adjudication:
On the basis of information in the investigative report, DOD
adjudicators determine eligibility to access classified information.
5. Appeal:
If a clearance is denied or revoked, appeals of the adjudicative
decision are possible.
6. Clearance renewal:
If a clearance holder has a long-term need to access classified
information, the clearance must be renewed: top secret, 5 years;
secret, 10 years; and confidential, 15 years. (renewal begins at Phase
2)
Source: GAO analysis of DOD-provided information.
[End of figure]
If, during the requirements setting phase, DOD determines that a
position requires a clearance, in the application submission phase a
security officer (1) requests an investigation of the individual
filling that position; (2) forwards a personnel security questionnaire
(standard form 86) using OPM's Electronic Questionnaires for
Investigations Processing (e-QIP) system or a paper copy of the
standard form 86 to the individual to complete; (3) reviews the
completed questionnaire; and (4) sends the questionnaire and supporting
documentation, such as fingerprints, to OPM. After the application is
submitted, DOD security officers often grant interim clearances to the
applicants to enable them to access classified information while
awaiting the completion of the clearance process. DOD grants interim
clearances on a more limited evaluation on the basis of electronic
checks of national records, credit checks, and checks of current
personnel and security records at applicants' current duty stations.
In the investigation phase, OPM or one of its contractors uses federal
investigative standards[Footnote 14] and OPM's internal guidance to
conduct and document the investigation of the applicant. The scope of
information gathered in an investigation depends on the level of
clearance needed and whether an investigation for an initial clearance
or a reinvestigation for a clearance renewal is being conducted. For
example, the federal standards require that investigators collect
information from national agencies such as the Federal Bureau of
Investigation for all initial and renewal clearances. However, the
federal standards require investigators to corroborate education and
interview educational sources, as appropriate, only in investigations
supporting top secret initial clearances. In appendix II, we list the
information required for each clearance level and for initial and
renewal clearances. OPM's internal guidance includes both OPM's product
table and the July 2007 investigator's handbook. The product table
lists the investigative items OPM will include based on the type of
clearance investigation to be conducted, and the handbook outlines the
policies, procedures, and guidance to which all persons performing
investigative work under the authority of OPM must adhere.
For an investigation for a confidential or secret clearance,
investigators gather much of the information electronically. For an
investigation for a top secret clearance, investigators gather
additional information through more time-consuming efforts such as
traveling to conduct in-person interviews to corroborate information
about an applicant's employment and education. In 2009, OPM estimated
that approximately 6-10 labor hours were needed for each investigation
for a secret or confidential clearance and 50-60 labor hours were
needed for the investigation for an initial top secret clearance. After
the investigation is complete, OPM provides the resulting investigative
report to the appropriate DOD adjudication facility.
In the adjudication phase, DOD adjudicators at one of DOD's central
adjudication facilities use the information from the investigative
report to determine whether an applicant is eligible for a security
clearance. To make clearance eligibility decisions, federal
requirements specify that adjudicators consider guidelines in 13
specific areas that elicit information about (1) conduct that could
raise security concerns and (2) factors that could allay those security
concerns, even when serious, and permit granting a clearance.[Footnote
15] For example, under the foreign influence guideline, a connection to
a foreign person or government is a condition that could raise a
security concern. One factor that could allay this security concern is
if the connection to a foreign person or government is established
while the applicant conducted business on behalf of the U.S.
government. These guidelines are listed in appendix III. Once
adjudicators render the decision to approve, deny, or revoke
eligibility for a security clearance, adjudicators are required by DOD
regulation to document the rationale behind the decision in DOD's Joint
Personnel Adjudication System.[Footnote 16] Typically, adjudicators
notify the applicant's employer of the decision.
The final clearance renewal phase takes place for individuals who have
been previously granted and already hold a clearance. Renewals for
holders of confidential and secret clearances take place every 15 and
10 years, respectively, and renewals for top secret clearances take
place every 5 years. To grant a renewal clearance, OPM or one of its
contractors conducts and documents a reinvestigation of the clearance
holder, which also is based on federal investigative standards and
OPM's internal guidance. DOD adjudicators then use the same decision-
making processes to determine whether a clearance holder is eligible
for a clearance renewal using the adjudicative guidelines.
DOD adjudication facilities and their appeal boards are authorized to
grant, deny, or revoke security clearance eligibility. Individuals who
are denied a clearance or have their clearance eligibility revoked may
appeal these decisions to the relevant Personnel Security Appeals
Board. The appeals process may involve any individual or organization
that could provide information relevant to an applicant's security
clearance decision (e.g., adjudication facilities, employer, and
investigative agency). The time to complete the appeals process varies
from weeks to years.
Governmentwide Personnel Security Clearance Reform Efforts:
Recent steps taken to reform security clearance processes include the
formation of the Joint Security and Suitability Reform Team (Joint
Reform Team) in June 2007. The Joint Reform Team was formed, in part,
to address IRTPA's requirements that the executive branch implement a
plan by December 17, 2009, under which, to the extent practical, at
least 90 percent of initial clearances investigations and adjudications
are completed within 60 days, on average. DOD and OMB officials have
noted that the existing personnel security clearance system is unlikely
to allow DOD and other agencies to meet these requirements and that
clearance process reforms are necessary to meet them. Agencies included
in this governmentwide reform effort are the Office of the Director of
National Intelligence, DOD, OMB, and OPM. The Joint Reform Team
submitted an initial reform plan to the President on April 30, 2008.
The plan proposed a new process for determining clearance eligibility
that departs from the current system in a number of ways, including the
use of a more sophisticated electronic application, a more flexible
investigation process, and the establishment of ongoing evaluation
procedures between formal clearance investigations.
The President's June 30, 2008, executive order was another recent step
taken to reform the security clearance process and included the
formation of the Performance Accountability Council in June 2008.
[Footnote 17] The President's order directed, among other things, that
executive branch policies and procedures be aligned and use consistent
standards, to the extent possible, for investigating and adjudicating
whether an individual is (1) suitable for government employment, (2)
fit to be a contract employee, or (3) eligible for access to classified
information. The council is accountable to the President to achieve
reform goals, consistent with the order, and also oversees newly
designated Security and Suitability Executive Agents. The order
designates the Deputy Director for Management at OMB as the chair of
the council and grants the chair the authority to designate officials
from additional agencies to serve as members.[Footnote 18]
Prior GAO Work on Personnel Security Clearances:
Since placing DOD's program on our high-risk list in 2005, we have
issued a number of reports and testified at several hearings on
personnel security clearance issues. Most recently, in December 2008,
[Footnote 19] we issued a report of our preliminary observations about
timeliness and quality. We also testified in 2008 on key factors for
reforming the security clearance program, the clearance process for
industry personnel, and joint reform efforts to improve the
governmentwide clearance process.[Footnote 20]
DOD and OPM Met 2008 Timeliness Requirements, but the Executive
Branch's 2009 Report Did Not Reflect the Full Range of Clearance
Timeliness:
IRTPA currently requires that the executive branch report annually on
the progress made during the preceding year toward meeting the act's
timeliness requirements for clearances and that clearance decisions on
at least 80 percent of initial clearances be made within 120 days, on
average. IRTPA also requires that a plan be implemented by December
2009 under which, to the extent practical, 90 percent of initial
clearance decisions be made within 60 days, on average. Furthermore,
IRTPA provides the executive branch broad discretion to report on any
additional information it considers appropriate.
Accordingly, the executive branch's 2009 report presented an average of
the fastest 90 percent of initial clearance decisions and, in so doing,
began to anticipate IRTPA's December 2009 requirements. The report
stated that the average time for completing the fastest 90 percent of
initial clearances for military and DOD civilians in fiscal year 2008
was 124 days. The report also stated that the average time for
completing the fastest 90 percent of initial clearances for private
industry personnel working on DOD contracts in fiscal year 2008 was 129
days.[Footnote 21] To determine whether DOD and OPM met IRTPA's current
timeliness requirement that clearance decisions on at least 80 percent
of initial clearances be made within 120 days, on average, we conducted
an independent analysis and took an average of the fastest 80 percent
of 450,000 initial DOD clearances including military and DOD civilians,
or private industry personnel working on DOD contracts completed in
fiscal year 2008. These clearances were completed in an average of 87
days. In fact, our independent analysis revealed that DOD and OPM
completed the fastest 47 percent of initial clearances in 90 days or
fewer.
The executive branch's 2009 report presented an average as its only
metric and excluded the slowest 10 percent of initial clearances from
the timeliness calculation. The average the executive branch reported
can be used to assess the extent to which DOD and other agencies are
positioned to meet IRPTA's December 2009 timeliness requirements.
However, because the average is the sole metric presented for
timeliness and because the slowest 10 percent of the data is excluded,
the report does not communicate the full range of time it took OPM and
DOD to complete the clearances.
We analyzed 100 percent of 450,000 initial DOD clearances completed in
fiscal year 2008 to identify the full range of time to complete these
clearances. To conduct this analysis, we did not average the data or
exclude any portion of the fiscal year 2008 initial clearances from our
calculations. In addition, we examined the percentage of initial
clearances that took more than 300 days and 120 days to complete,
respectively. Our analysis revealed that 11 percent of the initial
clearance eligibility decisions took more than 300 days to complete and
that 39 percent took more than 120 days to complete (see fig. 2).
Figure 2: Timeliness of 100 Percent of GAO Sample of Initial DOD
Personnel Security Clearance Eligibility Decisions in Fiscal Year 2008:
[Refer to PDF for image: stacked vertical bar graph]
Days to complete: 0-30;
Top Secret clearances: 316;
Secret clearances: 30,504.
Days to complete: 31-60;
Top Secret clearances: 4,089;
Secret clearances: 98,012.
Days to complete: 61-90;
Top Secret clearances: 11,818;
Secret clearances: 65,555.
Days to complete: 91-120;
Top Secret clearances: 17,561;
Secret clearances: 47,614.
Days to complete: 121-150;
Top Secret clearances: 11,334;
Secret clearances: 27,740.
Days to complete: 151-180;
Top Secret clearances: 8,514;
Secret clearances: 18,135.
Days to complete: 181-210;
Top Secret clearances: 6,737;
Secret clearances: 13,713.
Days to complete: 211-240;
Top Secret clearances: 4,790;
Secret clearances: 11,905.
Days to complete: 241-270;
Top Secret clearances: 3,363;
Secret clearances: 9,369.
Days to complete: 271-300;
Top Secret clearances: 2,438;
Secret clearances: 6,725.
Days to complete: 301-330;
Top Secret clearances: 1,592;
Secret clearances: 5,118.
Days to complete: 331-360;
Top Secret clearances: 1,013;
Secret clearances: 4,029.
Days to complete: 361-390;
Top Secret clearances: 750;
Secret clearances: 3,276.
Days to complete: 391-420;
Top Secret clearances: 733;
Secret clearances: 2,984.
Days to complete: 421-450;
Top Secret clearances: 746;
Secret clearances: 2,563.
Days to complete: 451-480;
Top Secret clearances: 786;
Secret clearances: 2,328.
Days to complete: 481-510;
Top Secret clearances: 753;
Secret clearances: 1,941.
Days to complete: 511-540;
Top Secret clearances: 753;
Secret clearances: 1,814.
Days to complete: 541-570;
Top Secret clearances: 831;
Secret clearances: 1,718.
Days to complete: 571-600;
Top Secret clearances: 1041;
Secret clearances: 1,496.
Days to complete: 601-630;
Top Secret clearances: 1,261;
Secret clearances: 1,382.
Days to complete: 631-660;
Top Secret clearances: 1,269;
Secret clearances: 1,194.
Days to complete: 661-690;
Top Secret clearances: 1,138;
Secret clearances: 1,041.
Days to complete: 691 or more;
Top Secret clearances: 2,450;
Secret clearances: 2,023.
Notes: Because confidential clearances require the same amount of time
to complete as secret clearances, they are combined in this figure.
39 percent of initial clearances took more than 120 days to complete.
GAO's sample consisted of approximately 450,000 initial clearance
eligibility decisions completed for military, DOD civilian, and private
industry personnel working on DOD contracts in fiscal year 2008.
[End of figure]
Our analysis also revealed that 33 percent of decisions for initial
confidential and secret clearances and 61 percent of decisions for
initial top secret clearances took more than 120 days to complete (see
table 1).[Footnote 22]
Table 1: Analysis of 100 Percent of GAO Sample of Initial DOD Personnel
Security Clearance Eligibility Decisions in Fiscal Year 2008:
Initial clearance type: All confidential, secret, and top secret;
Percentage of total number of initial clearances we measured: 100;
Percentage of initial clearances that took more than 120 days to
complete: 39.
Initial clearance type: Confidential/secret;
Percentage of total number of initial clearances we measured: 81;
Percentage of initial clearances that took more than 120 days to
complete: 33.
Initial clearance type: Top secret;
Percentage of total number of initial clearances we measured: 19;
Percentage of initial clearances that took more than 120 days to
complete: 61.
Source: GAO analysis of OPM and DOD data.
Note: We measured the clearance timeliness of the investigation and
adjudication phases from the date that OPM receives a completed
clearance application to the adjudication date. These initial
confidential, secret, and top secret clearances were adjudicated at the
central adjudication facilities of the U.S. Army, the U.S. Navy, the
U.S. Air Force, and the Defense Industrial Security Clearance Office
during fiscal year 2008.
[End of table]
Further, the executive branch's report also did not reflect the full
range of time that DOD and OPM took to complete top secret clearance
renewals in fiscal year 2008 because the report (1) again relied on an
average as the key metric for renewal timeliness and (2) excluded
information on the slowest 10 percent of renewals from that average.
IRTPA does not specify timeliness requirements for clearance renewals,
nor does it require the executive branch to include information about
renewals in its annual report. While the report included timeliness
data for top secret renewal clearance decisions, it did not present
timeliness data for confidential and secret level renewal clearance
decisions.
Finally, the report did not provide information on the reasons for
delays in the personnel security clearance process. In our own analysis
of DOD clearance timeliness, we found that delays in the process to
complete secret and top secret clearances occurred in both the
investigation and the adjudication phases. Reasons for delays in the
investigation phase, according to OPM officials and investigators and
OPM contract investigators we interviewed, included (1) delays in
obtaining records from third-party sources such as law enforcement
entities, (2) the overseas deployment of individuals who are the
subjects of clearance investigations, (3) incomplete personnel security
questionnaires, and (4) OPM report formatting requirements and software
tools. Reasons for delays in the adjudication phase, according to the
leadership and adjudicators of central adjudication facilities we
interviewed, included (1) incomplete investigative reports, (2) the
format of the OPM-provided investigative reports, and (3) commands that
are slow to provide additional information related to the individual
seeking the clearance.
By focusing on the extent to which DOD and other agencies are meeting
IRTPA's timeliness requirements, the executive branch's 2009 IRTPA-
required report to Congress was not fully transparent about the extent
of, and reasons for, delays in the process. The absence of
comprehensive reporting on clearance timeliness limits congressional
decision makers' ability to thoroughly evaluate, and identify with
precision, where and why delays continue to exist within DOD's
personnel security clearance process.
Investigation and Adjudication Documentation Was Incomplete for
Favorably Adjudicated Initial Top Secret Clearances:
Documentation in Most of the OPM-Provided Investigative Reports Was
Incomplete:
Based on our independent analysis, we estimated that 87 percent of the
investigative reports for about 3,500 initial top secret clearances--
which were favorably adjudicated--were missing at least one type of
documentation required by federal investigative standards and OPM's
internal guidance.[Footnote 23] We categorized an investigative item as
incomplete if the investigative report did not contain the required
documentation for that item as prescribed in the federal investigative
standards and OPM's internal guidance. To the extent possible, we
counted an item as complete if the report included documentation of an
investigator's unsuccessful attempt to gather the required information
(documentation known as an investigator's note). However, the most
notable exception to this approach relates to the presence of
documentation regarding interviews of the applicant. OPM officials told
us that an interview with the applicant is an important element of a
clearance investigation because the applicant is a key source of
information. Since the interview with the applicant cannot be replaced
by another information source, we counted that investigative item as
incomplete even though the report may have documented unsuccessful
attempts to interview the applicant.
We did not make evaluative judgments about the importance of one
missing investigative item over another during our review because the
federal investigative standards do not assign a level of importance to
each investigative requirement. When we explained how we measured the
completeness of an investigative item to officials at OPM's Federal
Investigative Services Division, they told us that gathering all of the
information required by the federal investigative standards does not
necessarily indicate a quality investigation. They also told us that an
investigative report that includes all of the items required by the
federal investigative standards does not equate to having obtained the
right or best sources of information about an applicant.
As shown in figure 3, the investigative reports most frequently did not
contain (1) verification of all of the applicant's employments, (2)
information from the required number of social references for the
applicant, and (3) complete security forms.[Footnote 24] We also
estimated that 12 percent[Footnote 25] of the 3,500 investigative
reports did not contain a personal subject interview.[Footnote 26]
Officials from OPM's Federal Investigative Services Division's Quality
Management and Training Group reviewed eight of the investigative
reports we reviewed and agreed with some but not all of the items we
had identified as missing in the reports. Nonetheless, OPM officials
concurred with our assessment that documentation for at least one item
required by federal investigative standards or OPM's internal guidance
was missing in each of the eight investigative reports.
Figure 3: Estimated Percentage of Incomplete OPM Investigation Reports
by Investigative Standard:
[Refer to PDF for image: vertical bar graph]
Investigative standard: Former Spouse;
Percentage of incomplete investigative reports: 2%.
Investigative standard: Financial;
Percentage of incomplete investigative reports: 3%;
Investigative standard: Spouse Records;
Percentage of incomplete investigative reports: 8%;
Investigative standard: Local Records;
Percentage of incomplete investigative reports: 9%;
Investigative standard: Subject Interview;
Percentage of incomplete investigative reports: 12%;
Investigative standard: Education;
Percentage of incomplete investigative reports: 16%;
Investigative standard: Residence;
Percentage of incomplete investigative reports: 17%;
Investigative standard: National Records;
Percentage of incomplete investigative reports: 18%;
Investigative standard: Forms;
Percentage of incomplete investigative reports: 31%;
Investigative standard: Social References;
Percentage of incomplete investigative reports: 32%;
Investigative standard: Employment;
Percentage of incomplete investigative reports: 33%.
Note: All estimates in figure 3 have a margin of error, based on a 95
percent confidence interval, of +/-10 percent and are based on our
review of a random sample of 100 OPM-provided investigative reports for
initial top secret clearances granted in July 2008 by the U.S. Army,
the U.S. Navy, and the U.S. Air Force central adjudication facilities.
[End of figure]
The following examples illustrate some of the types of documentation
missing from the investigative reports we reviewed:
* Documentation for employment and social references. One investigative
report did not have required documentation of a record verifying the
applicant's current employment at another federal government agency.
Even though the investigative standards require two references that the
investigator finds on his or her own rather than references the
applicant identifies, the report contained documentation from only one
investigator-developed reference with social knowledge about the
applicant.
* Documentation for education, employment, and social references.
Another investigative report did not have documentation of a record
review at an educational institution the applicant attended. The
investigative report also did not contain documentation from the
required number of corroborating individuals to verify the applicant's
period of unemployment and did not contain documentation of an inquiry
with a former employer where the applicant's employment had been
terminated. Finally, the report contained interview documentation from
only one required investigator-developed reference with social
knowledge about the applicant.
In addition to reviewing reports that were missing required
investigative items, we observed that some investigative reports
contained information that raised at least one issue of a security
concern regarding the applicant's actions but did not contain
additional documentation to resolve this issue.[Footnote 27] Federal
standards state that investigations may be expanded as necessary to
resolve issues. The following example shows an investigative area that
lacked the documentation needed to resolve an issue.
* A personal conduct[Footnote 28] issue was unresolved. In one
investigative report we reviewed, an interview with the former spouse
revealed that the applicant had contact with and tried to provide
financial assistance to illegal immigrants. There was no other
documentation in the investigative report indicating that the alleged
association with illegal immigrants was investigated further, nor did
the existing documentation in the investigative report resolve this
issue.
When we reviewed this example with officials at OPM's Federal
Investigative Services Division's Quality Management and Training
Group, they agreed that the investigator(s) should have conducted a
special interview with the applicant to resolve the issue.
OPM Does Not Assess the Level of Completeness of Investigative Reports
or the Reasons for Incompleteness:
OPM does not measure the extent to which its investigative reports meet
federal investigative standards. While OPM does not assess its reports
for completeness, it does conduct report reviews that make judgments
of, among other things, whether an investigative report is sufficient
to enable an adjudicator to make a clearance decision. When making
judgments, OPM report reviewers consider the federal investigative
standards as well as the unique aspects of each investigation. For
example, federal investigative standards require an interview of the
applicant, and OPM report reviewers consider whether an applicant is
available for that interview in instances in which that applicant is
deployed to a remote location. While OPM reviews its own investigative
reports, these reviews are not data-driven measures of the frequency
with which investigative reports meet federal investigative standards.
By not measuring the completeness of investigative reports using the
federal investigative standards, OPM is limited in its ability to
explain the extent to which incomplete reports exist and reasons why
some reports are incomplete.
DOD Adjudicators Accept Incomplete Investigative Reports:
DOD adjudicators made their clearance decisions based on incomplete
investigative reports. Although there is no specific requirement that
DOD adjudicators make their decisions based on complete reports,
officials at one DOD adjudication facility told us that their
adjudicators are trained to assume OPM-provided investigative reports
will be incomplete. At another adjudication facility, officials said
that they encourage the adjudicators to send back as few investigative
reports to OPM as possible and to find work-arounds instead. At a third
adjudication facility, DOD adjudicators told us that they try to avoid
sending investigative reports back to OPM due to time and cost
considerations.
DOD has not issued formal guidance clarifying if and under what
circumstances adjudicators can adjudicate incomplete investigative
reports, although DOD adjudicators follow a risk-managed approach when
granting security clearances. In the written response to a similar
point we made in our December 2008 report,[Footnote 29] that DOD
adjudicators based clearance decisions on incomplete investigative
reports, the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence stated that
DOD assumes a risk-managed approach in order to ensure critical
operational mission positions are filled in a timely manner. He
expressed confidence in the risk-managed approach, even when clearance
decisions are based on investigative reports that are incomplete.
Further, he stated that the risk-managed approach includes a process of
gathering preliminary information to mitigate risk, such as a review of
local security and personnel files. However, because DOD has not
articulated in policy when it is appropriate for adjudicators to accept
incomplete investigative reports, it cannot be certain that
adjudicators are basing their decisions to accept and adjudicate from
these reports on a uniform risk tolerance standard that is acceptable
to DOD.
Documentation in Some DOD Adjudicative Files Was Incomplete:
We estimated that 22 percent[Footnote 30] of the adjudicative files for
about 3,500 initial top secret clearances that were favorably
adjudicated had incomplete documentation. Specifically, DOD
adjudicators did not document that they considered adjudicative
guidelines in instances where the investigative report contained
significant derogatory information that raises a potential security
concern, as required under DOD regulation.[Footnote 31] When an
applicant's investigation has a potential security concern, the
regulation requires that a record of the rationale underlying the
decision be kept in the adjudicative file. According to DOD officials,
this record of rationale should include identification of the
applicable adjudicative guidelines--criteria covering 13 areas of
security concerns used to determine an applicant's clearance
eligibility--and the associated mitigating factors. In our analysis, we
did not evaluate the merit of the DOD adjudicators' decisions to grant
clearances. Instead, we assessed only whether the documentation for
each required rationale was complete. DOD adjudicative files were most
often missing documentation for adjudicative guidelines in instances in
which the applicants had foreign influence, financial considerations,
and criminal conduct security concerns, as shown in figure 4.
Figure 4: Estimated Percentage of Incomplete Adjudication Files by
Adjudicative Guideline:
[Refer to PDF for image: vertical bar graph]
Adjudication guideline: Foreign influence;
Percentage of incomplete adjudicative files: 9%.
Financial considerations;
Percentage of incomplete adjudicative files: 9%.
Criminal conduct;
Percentage of incomplete adjudicative files: 5%.
Personal conduct;
Percentage of incomplete adjudicative files: 2%.
Alcohol consumption;
Percentage of incomplete adjudicative files: 1%.
Drug involvement;
Percentage of incomplete adjudicative files: 1%.
Source: GAO analysis of DOD adjudication reports.
Note: All estimates have a margin of error, based on a 95 percent
confidence interval, of +/-8 percent and are based on our review of a
random sample of 100 OPM-provided investigative reports for initial top
secret clearances granted in July 2008 by the U.S. Army, U.S. Navy, and
U.S. Air Force central adjudication facilities.
[End of figure]
The following examples from our analysis illustrate our findings.
Adjudicators must take into account 13 federal adjudicative guidelines
when assessing whether investigative reports contain evidence of
potential security concerns. In these examples, potential security
concerns were documented in the investigative report. However, we did
not observe required documentation that the DOD adjudicator had used
the appropriate adjudicative guideline to make the decision to grant
these clearances.
* Consideration of the foreign influence and financial guidelines were
incorrect or missing. In one case, documentation included three
testimonial statements given by two coworkers and one supervisor, all
of whom had recent knowledge about the applicant, stating that the
applicant was in a romantic relationship with a woman who resided
overseas at the time of the investigation. However, these three
individuals provided differing information regarding the woman's
nationality. Although the adjudicative file documented foreign
influence as a security concern, the documentation in the file
erroneously cited information not present in the investigative report
as the mitigating factor for the security concern. Additionally, while
the investigation documentation indicated that half of the applicant's
accounts were in collection status, the required consideration of the
financial guideline was not documented.
* Consideration of the personal conduct guideline was missing. In one
case, the applicant's investigative report documented a history of
unreliability and unwillingness to comply with rules and regulations.
The investigative report documented absences without leave from two
branches of the military and dereliction of duty. Although this
behavior is consistent with the security concerns laid out under the
federal adjudicative guideline for personal conduct, required
consideration of the personal conduct guideline was not documented.
We shared our findings on eight adjudicative files with DOD
adjudication facility leadership and select adjudicators. They agreed
with our findings in six of the adjudicative files, including the two
examples we just described. We revised our analysis of the findings
with which the DOD adjudication facility leadership and select
adjudicators did not agree, and this revision is reflected in our
estimate.
DOD Does Not Assess the Level of Completeness in Adjudicative Files or
the Reasons for Incompleteness:
DOD does not measure the extent to which its adjudicative files meet
the guidelines required by DOD regulation. While DOD does not assess
the level of completeness in its files, DOD does conduct reviews that
make judgments of, among other things, whether the adjudicator made the
appropriate decision based on the adjudicative guidelines. While DOD is
providing an independent judgment of its own adjudicative decisions,
these reviews are not data-driven measures of the frequency with which
adjudicative files meet DOD's regulation to document the rationale
underlying the decision. By not measuring the completeness of
adjudicative files departmentwide, DOD is limited in its ability to
explain the extent to which incomplete files exist and reasons why some
files are incomplete.
Incomplete Investigation and Adjudication Documentation Negatively
Affects the Clearance Process:
Incomplete OPM-provided investigative reports lead to delays and
increase the cost of DOD's personnel security clearance process. DOD
adjudication facility leadership told us that at times they perform
limited investigative work--such as obtaining bankruptcy records--to
comply with investigative standards to fill the gaps in information
they have received. Conducting investigative work at this point in the
process increases the amount of time and labor costs required to make
an adjudicative determination. Further, incomplete adjudication
documentation may introduce risk in the clearance renewal phase of the
clearance process. Some DOD adjudicators and adjudication facility
leadership raised concerns that incomplete initial adjudicative files
can negatively affect their ability to identify trends when they
adjudicate clearance renewals. Incomplete documentation in the
clearance process may reduce the assurance that appropriate safeguards
are in place to prevent DOD from granting clearances to untrustworthy
individuals. Officials from DOD and OPM told us, however, that reforms
currently under consideration by the Joint Reform Team might begin to
remedy these concerns.
Executive Branch Reports on the Personnel Security Clearance Process
Contain Limited Information on Quality:
Past executive branch IRTPA-required reports to Congress on the
personnel security clearance process have provided congressional
decision makers with limited information on quality in the process.
[Footnote 32] For example, the 2006 and 2008 reports did not mention
the existence or development of any quality measures for the personnel
security clearance process at DOD or other federal agencies. In
contrast, the 2007 report included one quality measure--the frequency
with which adjudicating agencies returned OPM's investigative reports
due to quality deficiencies. According to this report, overall, less
than 1 percent of all completed investigations were returned to OPM
from the adjudicating agencies for this reason. However, we have
repeatedly reported since the late 1990s[Footnote 33] that this
measure, by itself, is an unreliable quality indicator because
adjudication officials told us that they were reluctant to return
incomplete investigative reports because of their perception that
returning the reports would result in delays in the clearance process.
DOD adjudication leadership and adjudicators alike told us that they
continue to be reluctant to return incomplete investigative reports for
the same reason.
While the 2009 report[Footnote 34] does not contain data on quality, it
proposes two measures of investigative report quality and plans to
measure adjudicative quality.[Footnote 35] The report states that
information on investigative and adjudicative quality will be collected
and briefly describes how the investigative and adjudicative
performance measures will be reported within the executive branch. It
also describes proposed initial measures of reciprocity for personnel
security clearances--that is, a federal entity's acceptance of a
clearance granted by another department, agency, or military service.
Finally, the report states that a first step to improve quality is to
properly train and certify individuals conducting investigative and
adjudicative work and outlines actions to identify core competencies
and training curricula.
Previously we have pointed out that an emphasis on timeliness in the
clearance process alone does not provide a complete picture of the
process. In prior reports and testimonies,[Footnote 36] we have
emphasized the importance of ensuring quality in all phases of the
process. In our 1999 and 2006 reports, for example, we measured quality
in the process in a number of ways which identified factors beyond
timeliness.[Footnote 37] In 1999 we assessed the adequacy of
investigator training by determining the number of training courses
offered to investigators and the course attendance rates. We also
obtained investigators' viewpoints about the investigative process by
surveying them about the manageability of their workload, adequacy of
their training, the clarity of policy guidance, the manner of
conducting investigations, and the frequency with which their
investigations were returned for additional work.[Footnote 38]
Moreover, in 2006, we determined the completeness of clearance
documentation by comparing investigative reports to the federal
standards and also compared adjudicative files to federal adjudicative
guidelines.
Since the passage of IRTPA, quality has become more important because
reciprocity is also a key element of the act. As we have previously
noted,[Footnote 39] one challenge to reciprocity has been the
reluctance of some federal agencies to accept clearances issued by
other agencies due to concerns about quality. The reluctance of federal
agencies to accept clearances already granted leads, in turn, to
reduced efficiency and greater costs.
While IRTPA contains no requirement for the executive branch to report
any information on quality, the act provides the executive branch broad
latitude to include any appropriate information in its reports. Without
reporting to Congress on quality in the clearance process, the
government's ability to provide assurances that it is exercising all of
the appropriate safeguards when granting clearances is limited.
Moreover, because the executive branch has not fully addressed quality
in its IRTPA-required reports to Congress, it has missed opportunities
to provide congressional decision makers with full transparency over
the clearance process.
Conclusions:
The fact that OPM and DOD are currently meeting IRTPA timeliness
requirements represents significant and noteworthy progress. IRTPA
allows the executive branch to calculate timeliness by averaging a
portion of the initial clearance decisions, and the executive branch
has opted to present this average in its annual reports. However,
because the executive branch report presents an average of only a
portion of the initial clearance decisions, Congress does not have
comprehensive information about the remaining delays that continue to
exist or, importantly, about the reasons for their occurrence that
could help ascertain if corrective actions to accelerate clearance
decisions are possible. Further, while OPM and DOD have been meeting
their timeliness requirements, they have been doing so by relying on
investigative reports and adjudicative files that are incomplete,
according to both agencies' own standards, bringing into question
whether these agencies are in the best position to provide assurances
that they have implemented all appropriate safeguards. Finally, the
executive branch has not been reporting on quality in the clearance
process, further impeding the ability of decision makers to carry out
effective oversight.
Recommendations for Executive Action:
We are making five recommendations to OMB, OPM, and DOD.
To provide more comprehensive information about personnel security
clearance timeliness, which would aid the ongoing personnel security
clearance reform efforts, we recommend that the OMB Deputy Director for
Management, in the capacity as the Chair of the Performance
Accountability Council, include appropriate statistics that describe
the full range of the time required to complete all initial clearance
applications in the executive branch's IRTPA-required annual reports.
To improve the completeness of future investigation documentation, we
recommend that the Director of OPM direct the Associate Director of
OPM's Federal Investigative Services Division to measure the frequency
with which its investigative reports meet federal investigative
standards, so that the executive branch can identify the factors
leading to incomplete reports and include the results of such
measurement in the annual IRTPA-required report to Congress on
clearances.
To improve the completeness of future adjudication documentation, we
recommend that the Secretary of Defense direct the Under Secretary of
Defense for Intelligence to measure the frequency with which
adjudicative files meet the requirements of DOD regulation, so that the
executive branch can identify the factors leading to incomplete files
and include the results of such measurement in the annual IRTPA-
required report to Congress on clearances.
To improve DOD's adjudication process, we are recommending that the
Secretary of Defense direct the Under Secretary of Defense for
Intelligence to issue guidance that clarifies when adjudicators may use
incomplete investigative reports as the basis for granting clearances.
To provide more transparency in future versions of the IRTPA-required
annual report to Congress on personnel security clearances, we
recommend that OMB's Deputy Director for Management, in the capacity as
the Chair of the Performance Accountability Council, include metrics on
quality.
Agency Comments and Our Evaluation:
We provided a draft of our report to OMB, DOD, and OPM. In response to
this draft, we received oral comments from OMB. Also, we received
written comments from DOD and OPM and reprinted them in their entirety
in appendices IV and V, respectively.
Office of Management and Budget:
In its oral comments, OMB concurred with both of our recommendations to
that agency, commenting that it recognized the need for more reporting
on timeliness and quality. In addition, OMB described some steps that
the Performance Accountability Council is taking to address our
recommendations. In response to our recommendation that OMB include
appropriate statistics that describe the full range of the time
required to complete all initial clearance applications in the
executive branch's IRTPA-required annual reports, OMB underscored the
importance of reporting on the full range of time to complete all
initial clearances. OMB stated that the Performance Accountability
Council is developing measures to account, more comprehensively, for
the time it takes to complete the end-to-end clearance process. In
response to our recommendation that OMB provide more transparency in
future versions of the IRTPA-required annual report to Congress by
including metrics on quality, OMB emphasized that it is important to
provide Congress more transparency about quality in the clearance
process. OMB stated that the Performance Accountability Council is
developing metrics to measure quality in the clearance process.
Department of Defense:
In its written comments, DOD concurred with both of the recommendations
we made to the department. DOD also described specific steps it expects
to implement later this year to address the recommendations.
In response to our recommendation that DOD measure the frequency with
which adjudicative files meet the requirements of DOD regulation, DOD
emphasized that both adjudicative and investigative quality are
important to the department. DOD also stated that it has developed
tools to assess not only the quality of its adjudicative files, but
also OPM's investigative reports, adding that DOD will implement its
investigative quality tool by the end of June 2009 and its adjudicative
quality tool by the end of calendar year 2009. DOD stated that it would
use its investigative quality tool, the Rapid Assessment of Incomplete
Security Evaluations (RAISE), to assess investigative quality and
completeness by systematically collecting and reporting specific
information about the scope, issues, and utility of all deficient
investigative cases. DOD indicated that it would use its adjudicative
quality tool, the Review of Adjudication Documentation Accuracy and
Rationales (RADAR), to gather specific information about adjudicative
processes at DOD adjudication facilities and assess the quality of
adjudicated cases.
In response to our recommendation that DOD issue guidance clarifying
when adjudicators may use incomplete investigative reports as the basis
for granting clearances, DOD stated that it intends to issue this
guidance by the end of fiscal year 2009. DOD also stated its intention
to issue additional guidance, also by the end of fiscal year 2009, that
outlines standards that adjudicators will be required to follow when
they document their rationale for granting clearances to applicants
with security issues documented in an otherwise incomplete
investigative report.
Office of Personnel Management:
In its written comments, OPM did not indicate whether it concurred with
the one recommendation we made to that agency to measure the frequency
with which its investigative reports meet federal investigative
standards but did provide detailed responses to each of our three
findings. Also, OPM highlighted improvements it has made in reducing
delays in the clearance investigations process since DOD transferred
this function to OPM in 2005. OPM commented that it took a critical
program in disarray and turned it around under very challenging
conditions. As we reported in December 2008,[Footnote 40] we agree that
OMB, DOD, and OPM have jointly made significant progress and met
IRTPA's timeliness requirements for initial clearances completed in
fiscal year 2008. We also stated in our draft report that the fact that
OPM and DOD are currently meeting IRTPA timeliness requirements
represents significant and noteworthy progress. Nevertheless, we
continue to believe that measuring the frequency with which OPM's
investigative reports meet federal investigative standards would enable
the executive branch to identify the factors leading to incomplete
reports and that including the results of such measurement in the
annual IRTPA-required report to Congress on clearances would improve
the completeness of future investigation documentation. Our response to
OPM's comments follows.
As we previously stated, our first finding addressed that IRTPA-
required annual reports to Congress did not provide comprehensive
timeliness data, and OMB, to whom our recommendation was directed,
concurred with our recommendation to provide these data. OPM also
provided comments on this finding and focused its remarks on the
timeliness and reporting requirements in IRTPA and on the clearance
timeliness data that it collects and reports to Congress outside of the
annual report required by IRTPA. OPM's comments on this topic and our
responses follow.
* OPM stated that the executive branch report to Congress was tailored
to address the timeliness requirements of IRTPA. IRTPA currently
requires that 80 percent of initial clearance decisions are to be made
within 120 days, on average. We agree that it is important to report
statistics that aid congressional decision makers in assessing whether
DOD and OPM are meeting the current requirements of IRTPA. However, in
its 2009 report, the executive branch did not provide data to address
IRTPA's current requirement. Instead, it reported an average of the
time to complete the fastest 90 percent of initial clearances.
* OPM stated that the goal for national performance of clearance
timeliness was established for the average timeliness of the fastest 80
percent of clearances. However, IRTPA does not specify that the fastest
80 percent of clearances be completed within an average of 120 days,
only that 80 percent be completed under such time requirements. In its
2009 report, the executive branch chose to report an average of the
fastest clearances in its reports, excluding the slowest percentage of
clearances and averaging what remained. While this may be a reasonable
approach, we continue to believe that by not including additional data
on the full range of time to make clearance decisions, the executive
branch's report was not fully transparent about the extent of any
remaining delays in the process.
* OPM commented that the framers of IRTPA specified that up to 20
percent of clearances, until December 2009, and up to 10 percent of
clearances thereafter would not be subject to the statute's timeliness
and reporting requirements.[Footnote 41] While we agree that OPM's
comment correctly summarizes IRTPA's timeliness requirements, we
disagree with OPM's characterization of IRTPA's reporting requirements.
In fact, IRTPA does not specify that 20 or 10 percent of clearances are
not subject to the act's reporting requirements. Instead, IRTPA
requires that each report the executive branch provides to Congress
include the periods of time required by the authorized investigative
agencies and authorized adjudicative agencies for conducting
investigations, adjudicating cases, and granting clearances.
* OPM also stated that delays for the 10 to 20 percent of cases that
are not reported are typically due to the presence of serious issues
that require further, extensive investigation or the absence of a
required third party record. While this may be the case, it is not
possible to assess this assertion based on the information contained in
the annual IRTPA-required report to Congress. The report does not
contain information about the reasons for the delays in the clearances
that were excluded from the statistics presented in the report because
the report did not present information on the full range of time to
complete all initial clearances in the annual IRTPA-required report.
* OPM also stated that it periodically collects additional data on the
clearance process that it reports to Congress. We are aware that OPM
periodically collects and reports data on the clearance process.
However, the reports that OPM has shared with us contain the same
limitation in the presentation of clearance timeliness information that
are found in the executive branch's annual IRTPA-required report. For
example, in its National Oversight Report, OPM includes an average of
the end-to-end time to complete 100 percent of DOD clearances. However,
by relying on an average and not including additional, more
comprehensive analysis that describes the full range of the time
required to complete all initial clearances such as the analysis we
included in our finding on this topic, this report also does not
provide full visibility over clearance timeliness.
* In addition, OPM commented that it would not be accurate to assert
that it has limited visibility over the security clearance and
investigation process because it periodically collects data on the
clearance process that it reports to Congress. We did not comment on
OPM's visibility over the clearance or investigation process in this,
or any other, finding. Instead, we indicated that the executive
branch's 2009 IRTPA-required report to Congress did not provide
congressional decision makers with full visibility of clearance
timeliness because the report did not include additional data on the
full range of time to make all initial clearance decisions. As we
state, the result of this approach is that the report limits
congressional decision makers' ability to thoroughly evaluate, and
identify with precision, where and why delays continue to exist within
DOD's personnel security clearance process. As a result, we continue to
believe that our recommendation that OMB include appropriate statistics
that describe the full range of the time required to complete all
initial clearances in the executive branch's IRTPA-required annual
reports has merit.
Our second finding addressed the lack of complete documentation in
OPM's investigative reports and DOD's adjudicative files. We
recommended that OPM measure the frequency with which its investigative
reports meet federal investigative standards and that DOD measure the
frequency with which its adjudicative files meet DOD regulation. As we
previously stated, DOD concurred with our recommendations to it based
on this finding. OPM, while not stating whether it agreed with our
recommendation to it, did raise several concerns. Specifically, OPM's
response focused on the methodology we used to assess the completeness
of documentation in its investigative reports. OPM's comments on our
methodology and resulting findings and our responses follow.
* OPM stated that, under established procedures, investigators often
make decisions on the appropriate sources of information needed to
attest to an applicant's activities, character, and conduct when
sources of information specified in the federal investigative standards
are uncooperative or otherwise unavailable. Further, OPM asserted that
our methodology did not appear to take into account the judgment OPM's
investigators exercise or the availability of sources of information
and cited, as an example, that in three of the investigative reports we
shared with OPM, the applicants were unavailable because they were on a
military deployment. We disagree with OPM's assertion. As we explain in
our report, we categorized an investigative item as incomplete if the
investigative report did not contain the required documentation as
prescribed in the federal investigative standards and OPM's internal
guidance. We also explained that, to the extent possible, we counted an
item as complete if the report included documentation of an
investigator's unsuccessful attempt to gather the required information.
Further, we stated in our report that the most notable exception to
this approach related to documentation of interviews of the applicant
because as OPM officials told us the applicant is a key source of
information. Also, the interview with the applicant cannot be replaced
by another information source. Therefore, as we describe in our report,
we counted the interview investigative item as incomplete even though
unsuccessful attempts to interview the applicant may have been
documented. However, we included in our report an explanation that the
missing interviews in the investigative reports we reviewed were the
result of the applicants' deployment.
* OPM stated that we did not make evaluative judgments about the
importance of one missing investigative item over another even though
investigators and adjudicators routinely make such judgments. We agree
that, as we disclosed in our report, we did not make evaluative
judgments during our review because the federal investigative standards
do not assign a level of importance to each investigative requirement.
* OPM stated that in its review of our analysis of eight of the
investigative reports we shared with its staff, it did not fully agree
with our assessment of what we identified as missing documentation. OPM
also stated its ability to respond to our assessment on documentation
completeness was greatly limited since we did not provide all of the
investigative reports where we found incomplete documentation to OPM
officials so that they could review our work and provide an
accompanying explanation. Finally, OPM asserted that its review of the
limited sample provided casts doubt on our findings. It is true that
OPM officials did not fully agree with our assessment of documentation
completeness, but OPM officials did acknowledge that some required
documentation was in fact missing in each of the eight reports we
voluntarily shared in order to strengthen our methodology, as we
explained in our report. After the OPM officials' review, we
incorporated their feedback into our methodology and adjusted some of
our findings, which were reflected in the results we presented in our
draft report. We intentionally shared a subset of the investigative
reports, and the results of our analysis of those reports with OPM to
validate our findings. We also internally conducted a separate and
independent second review of a subset of the 100 investigative reports
we analyzed by comparing information in the investigative reports
against the federal investigative standards. To be as transparent as
possible, we shared our methodology with OPM throughout its development
and while implementing our data collection. Specifically, when we
developed an instrument to measure documentation of the completeness of
OPM's investigative reports, we shared this instrument with OPM
officials, among others, and refined it by integrating their feedback.
Additionally, we received and incorporated clarification from OPM on
our instrument on an ongoing basis while we used the instrument to
collect data. We believe our collaboration with OPM during our data
collection, combined with the fact that OPM officials did agree that
some documentation was missing in all of the reports we shared with
them, should negate any doubts OPM has about our findings.
* OPM stated the current federal investigative standards recognize that
information about an applicant may be obtained through alternative
information sources and provides for departing from the standards when
necessary. We disagree with OPM's characterization of the investigative
standards. When we reviewed the current federal investigative
standards, we found no provision for such deviations from the
requirements. Rather, the standards permit agencies to use lawful
investigative procedures in addition to the requirements to expand
investigations and resolve issues, as necessary.
* OPM stated that, on the one hand, it is possible to meet all of the
documentation requirements specified by federal investigative standards
and guidelines yet still have an investigation that is not sufficiently
thorough, while on the other hand, have a thorough investigation in
which required documentation of a single neighborhood or employment
reference could be incomplete. OPM officials made a similar point to us
during the course of our work, and we included this statement in our
report. However, we also reported that DOD adjudicators told us that at
times they perform limited investigative work to fill the gaps in
information they have received in OPM-provided investigative reports to
comply with investigative standards. This investigative work then
increased the amount of time and labor costs required to make an
adjudicative determination. As we explained in our report, basing
clearance decisions on incomplete documentation that has not fully
adhered to federal investigative standards may reduce the assurance
that appropriate safeguards are in place to prevent DOD from granting
clearances to untrustworthy individuals.
* OPM stated that procedures are being developed to better focus
investigative resources on the most productive sources of information
for each applicant and that the end result of this work will be a more
effective and efficient investigative process that ensures quality and
promotes reciprocity. While we are encouraged by OPM's planned actions,
we were unable to assess these efforts as they are still under
development.
Our third finding addressed the lack of discussion of quality in the
clearance process in IRTPA-required annual reports to Congress, and
OMB, to whom our recommendation was addressed, concurred with our
recommendation and emphasized the importance of providing Congress with
more transparency about quality in the process. OPM also provided
comments on this finding, stating that the quality of the investigative
and adjudicative processes is the most critical performance expectation
for OPM and the clearance-granting agencies. OPM further stated that,
because much of the information used in the clearance process is
subjective, it is challenging to measure quality, although it also
identified five quality metrics that it stated are a focus of the
agency. However, none of the metrics OPM cited were included in any of
the IRTPA-required reports the executive branch has provided to
Congress since 2006. As we stated in our report, the executive branch's
previous IRTPA-required reports have contained limited information on
quality. As a result, the executive branch has missed opportunities to
provide congressional decision makers with full transparency over the
clearance process. OPM indicated in its comments that additional
quality metrics are being developed and that it is testing a quality
review form that gives agencies the ability to report problems with an
investigation to OPM. OPM further stated that information collected
from this form will be included in quality information reported to
Congress. We believe these are positive steps and, if implemented,
would help address concerns we described in this finding. OPM's
comments on our findings on executive branch reporting of clearance
quality and our responses follow.
* OPM cited, as an example of its attention to quality, a metric it
referred to as the content sufficiency to support suitability actions.
In its description of this metric, OPM stated that the metric indicates
whether the information collected supports an unfavorable federal
employment suitability determination that is formally appealed.
Suitability investigations are used to determine whether individuals
are eligible for federal employment. OPM did not specify how this
metric would pertain to the quality of investigations to support
granting personnel security clearances.
* In discussing plans for future quality metrics that the executive
branch proposed in its 2009 IRTPA-required report to Congress, OPM
stated that we expressed concerns about these new metrics before they
were tested and implemented. We expressed no concerns about new metrics
proposed in the executive branch's report. However, we did express
concerns about an existing metric discussed in the executive branch's
report. This metric refers to the frequency with which adjudicating
agencies returned OPM's investigative reports due to quality
deficiencies. As we noted, we have repeatedly reported since the late
1990s that this measure, by itself, is an unreliable quality indicator
because, in our previous work, adjudication officials told us that they
were reluctant to return incomplete investigative reports because of
their perception that returning the reports would result in delays in
the clearance process. While we conducted the work for this report,
both DOD adjudication leadership and adjudicators told us that they
continue to be reluctant to return incomplete investigative reports for
the same reason.
* OPM further stated that we based our concerns about the frequency
with which adjudicating agencies returned OPM's investigative reports
due to quality deficiencies on anecdotal information that agencies may
not want to return investigations to OPM because of their perception
that this will delay case processing. OPM further stated that it may be
a mistake to credit our concerns because OPM had improved clearance
investigation timeliness. OPM's characterization of the information in
our report as anecdotal is not accurate because we systematically
collected key testimonial evidence from knowledgeable officials at each
of the central adjudication facilities. These knowledgeable officials
included leadership and adjudicators in positions of knowledge about
the clearance process. As we reported, these key officials told us that
they continue to be reluctant to return incomplete investigative
reports to OPM because they anticipate delays in the process.
We are sending copies of this report to the Director of the Office of
Management and Budget, the Secretary of Defense, and the Director of
the Office of Personnel Management. In addition, the report will be
available at no charge on the GAO Web site at [hyperlink,
http://www.gao.gov]. If you or your staff have any questions on the
information discussed in this report, please contact me at (202) 512-
3604 or farrellb@gao.gov. Contact points for our Offices of
Congressional Relations and Public Affairs may be found on the last
page of this report. GAO staff who made key contributions to this
report are listed in appendix VI.
Signed by:
Brenda S. Farrell, Director:
Defense Capabilities and Management:
List of Congressional Committees:
The Honorable Carl Levin:
Chairman:
The Honorable John McCain:
Ranking Member:
Committee on Armed Services:
United States Senate:
The Honorable Joseph I. Lieberman:
Chairman:
The Honorable Susan M. Collins:
Ranking Member:
Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs:
United States Senate:
The Honorable Daniel Inouye:
Chairman:
The Honorable Thad Cochran:
Ranking Member:
Subcommittee on Defense:
Committee on Appropriations:
United States Senate:
The Honorable Daniel K. Akaka:
Chairman:
The Honorable George V. Voinovich:
Ranking Member:
Subcommittee on Oversight of Government Management, the Federal
Workforce and the District of Columbia:
Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs:
United States Senate:
The Honorable Edolphus Towns:
Chairman:
The Honorable Darrell Issa:
Ranking Member:
Committee on Oversight and Government Reform:
House of Representatives:
The Honorable Silvestre Reyes:
Chairman:
The Honorable Peter Hoekstra:
Ranking Member:
Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence:
House of Representatives:
The Honorable Solomon P. Ortiz:
Chairman:
The Honorable J. Randy Forbes:
Ranking Member:
Subcommittee on Readiness:
Committee on Armed Services:
House of Representatives:
The Honorable Diane E. Watson:
Chairwoman:
The Honorable Brian Bilbray:
Ranking Member:
Subcommittee on Government Management, Organization, and Procurement:
Committee on Oversight and Government Reform:
House of Representatives:
The Honorable Anna G. Eshoo:
Chairwoman:
The Honorable Sue Myrick:
Ranking Member:
Subcommittee on Intelligence Community Management:
Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence:
House of Representatives:
[End of section]
Appendix I: Scope and Methodology:
To determine the completeness of the timeliness data that the executive
branch reported for clearances granted in fiscal year 2008 for the
Department of Defense (DOD), we reviewed Title III of the Intelligence
Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 (IRTPA), measured the
timeliness of nearly 630,000 clearances completed in fiscal year 2008
for military, DOD civilian, and industry personnel, and analyzed the
executive branch 2009 annual report to Congress required by IRTPA. The
nearly 630,000 clearances accounted for more than 93 percent of all
clearance decisions by DOD adjudicators for nonintelligence community
personnel in fiscal year 2008. IRTPA requires the executive branch to
provide an annual report to Congress by February 15 of each year that
includes, among other things, information on the progress made during
the preceding year toward meeting IRTPA's timeliness requirements. We
reviewed the executive branch's 2009 IRTPA-required report to Congress,
which fulfills IRTPA's requirement. We obtained fiscal year 2008
clearance timeliness records from two databases--the Office of
Personnel Management's (OPM) Personnel Investigations Processing
System, which maintains background investigation records, and DOD's
Joint Personnel Adjudication System, which maintains records on
clearance adjudications. We then linked the records from the DOD and
OPM databases using the unique case identification numbers assigned to
each DOD clearance record to develop the universe of clearances. We
measured the timeliness (from the date of the receipt of the completed
application to the final adjudication date) for nearly 450,000 initial
and more than 180,000 renewal confidential, secret, and top secret
clearances[Footnote 42] adjudicated by the central adjudication
facilities of the U.S. Army, U.S. Navy, U.S. Air Force, and the Defense
Industrial Security Clearance Office. We assessed the reliability of
the data from DOD's and OPM's databases by comparing values in the
electronic databases to 100 randomly selected original clearance
investigative files we obtained from the U.S. Army, U.S. Navy, and U.S.
Air Force central adjudication facilities for July 2008, reviewing
existing information about the data and the system that produced them,
and interviewing agency officials knowledgeable about the data. We
determined these data were sufficiently reliable for purposes of our
audit. We then used our timeliness analyses to assess the timeliness
data in the executive branch's 2009 IRTPA-required report.
To determine the completeness of clearance documentation for initial
top secret security clearances adjudicated favorably within DOD, we
evaluated investigation and adjudication documentation for initial top
secret clearances for military, DOD civilian, and private industry
personnel working on DOD contracts. We focused on initial top secret
clearances for three reasons: (1) we have identified documentation
problems with this clearance level in previous work; (2) investigators
gather the most information for investigations for top secret
clearances; and (3) individuals with top secret clearances have access
to information that, if improperly disclosed, could cause exceptionally
grave damage to national security. We independently selected a
stratified random probability sample of 100 OPM investigative reports
and associated DOD adjudicative files from the population of 3,993
applications that were identified as clearances that were favorably
adjudicated in July 2008 by the central adjudication facilities of the
U.S. Army, U.S. Navy, and U.S. Air Force.[Footnote 43] With this
sample, each clearance in the population had a known probability of
being selected. We stratified the population of clearances into three
groups by the adjudication facilities. Each clearance selected was
subsequently weighted in the analysis to account statistically for all
the clearances in the population.[Footnote 44] We estimated that the
total number of clearances DOD granted in July 2008 was 3,500 (+/-300).
For this population, we produced statistical estimates that have a
margin of error of plus or minus 10 percent or less at the 95 percent
confidence level.
* For our analysis of investigative reports, we reviewed the criteria
for conducting and documenting investigations outlined in federal
investigative standards, OPM's product table,[Footnote 45] OPM's July
2007 investigator's handbook, and an analytical tool developed by DOD's
Defense Personnel Security Research Center. Based on this criteria
review, we developed an instrument to measure the completeness of OPM's
investigative reports, refined this instrument by integrating feedback
from staff at OPM's Federal Investigative Services Division and DOD's
Defense Personnel Security Research Center, and pretested this
instrument for 2 weeks at a DOD adjudication facility by having
adjudicators use this instrument to assess investigative reports they
reviewed during the course of their work. On an ongoing basis, we
received and incorporated clarification from OPM. For each
investigative report, we compared information in the report against OPM
criteria. We then conducted a separate and independent review of a
subset of the sample. Voluntarily and to strengthen our methodological
approach, we shared the results of the completed reviews for eight
investigative reports with experts from OPM's Federal Investigative
Services Division's Quality Management and Training Group, which
conducts quality reviews of investigative reports, and we incorporated
their feedback into our methodology and adjusted some of our findings.
* For our analysis of adjudication documentation, we reviewed the
criteria for conducting and documenting adjudications outlined in
federal adjudicative guidelines, DOD Regulation 5200.2-R, DOD Personnel
Security Program, and an analytical tool developed by DOD's Defense
Personnel Security Research Center. Based on this review, we developed
a separate instrument to measure the completeness of DOD's adjudicative
files and refined this instrument by integrating feedback from staff at
DOD's Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and
Defense Personnel Security Research Center. For each adjudicative file,
two experienced and trained adjudicators, who adjudicate GAO
clearances, compared the information in the file against DOD criteria.
The GAO adjudicators then conducted an independent review of a subset
of the adjudicative file sample. We also shared our observations for
eight adjudicative files with DOD adjudication facility leadership and
10 DOD adjudicators with varying levels of professional experience and
made necessary adjustments based on their feedback.
To assess the extent to which the executive branch included information
on quality in the security clearance process in its 2006-09 reports on
security clearances for DOD and other federal agencies, we analyzed the
reporting requirements contained in IRTPA. Additionally, we reviewed
previously issued GAO clearance-related reports and testimonies that
identified quality measures and their potential utility. Finally, we
evaluated the information presented in the executive branch's annual
IRTPA-required reports issued to Congress in 2006 through 2009.
Throughout this review, we interviewed executive branch officials and
contractors about the clearance process, evaluated additional policies
and reports they provided to us, and discussed with them factors that
contributed to incomplete clearance documentation. The executive branch
organizations and groups are listed in table 2.
Table 2: List of Organizations and Groups Contacted to Obtain
Information about the Personnel Security Clearance Process:
DOD's Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence,
Arlington, Virginia:
DOD adjudication facilities:
* Army Central Adjudication Facility, Fort George Meade, Maryland;
* Navy Central Adjudication Facility, Washington, D.C.;
* Air Force Central Adjudication Facility, Bolling Air Force Base,
Washington, D.C.
Other DOD organizations:
* Defense Security Service, Headquarters, Alexandria, Virginia;
* DOD's Personnel Security Research Center, Monterrey, California.
OPM's Federal Investigative Services Division, Washington, D.C. and
Boyers, Pennsylvania.
OPM's Federal Investigators, Washington, D.C. metropolitan area.
Contract investigators from;
* CACI International Corporation, Arlington, Virginia;
* Kroll Government Services Inc., New York, New York;
* US Investigative Services, LCC, Falls Church, Virginia.
OMB's Office of the Deputy Director for Management, Washington, D.C.
Source: GAO.
[End of table]
We conducted this performance audit from March 2008 through May 2009 in
accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. Those
standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain
sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for our
findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We believe that
the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our findings and
conclusions based on our audit objectives.
[End of section]
Appendix II: The Federal Investigative Standards Used in the
Investigation Phase of the Personnel Security Clearance Process:
In the investigation phase, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) or
one of its contractors uses up to 14 federal investigative standards
and the OPM's internal guidance to conduct and document the
investigation of the applicant. The scope of information gathered in an
investigation depends on what level of clearance is needed and whether
an investigation for an initial clearance or a reinvestigation for a
clearance renewal is being conducted. For example, the federal
investigative standards require that investigators collect information
from national agencies such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation for
all initial and renewal clearances. However, the standards require
investigators to corroborate education by interviewing sources, as
appropriate, only in investigations supporting top secret initial
clearances. Table 3 lists the information required by the federal
investigative standards for each clearance level and for initial and
renewal clearances.
Table 3: Information Required by Federal Investigative Standards for
Each Clearance Level and for Initial and Renewal Clearances:
Type of information required: 1. Personnel security questionnaire:
Applicant's self-reported answers on a paper or electronic standard
form 86;
Type of security clearance and investigation: Confidential or secret:
Initial investigation or renewal: [Check];
Type of security clearance and investigation: Top secret: Initial
investigation: [Check];
Type of security clearance and investigation: Top secret: Renewal:
[Check].
Type of information required: 2. National agency check: Data from
Federal Bureau of Investigation, military records centers, and other
national agencies;
Type of security clearance and investigation: Confidential or secret:
Initial investigation or renewal: [Check];
Type of security clearance and investigation: Top secret: Initial
investigation: [Check];
Type of security clearance and investigation: Top secret: Renewal:
[Check].
Type of information required: 3. Credit check: Data from credit bureaus
where applicant lived, worked, and attended school for at least 6
months during the past 7 years;
Type of security clearance and investigation: Confidential or secret:
Initial investigation or renewal: [Check];
Type of security clearance and investigation: Top secret: Initial
investigation: v;
Type of security clearance and investigation: Top secret: Renewal:
[Check].
Type of information required: 4. Local agency checks: Data from law
enforcement agencies where applicant lived, worked, and attended school
during the past 5 years;
Type of security clearance and investigation: Confidential or secret:
Initial investigation or renewal: [Check];
Type of security clearance and investigation: Top secret: Initial
investigation: [Check];
Type of security clearance and investigation: Top secret: Renewal:
[Check].
Type of information required: 5. Date and place of birth:[A]
Corroboration of applicant's date and place of birth;
Type of security clearance and investigation: Confidential or secret:
Initial investigation or renewal: [Check];
Type of security clearance and investigation: Top secret: Initial
investigation: [Check];
Type of security clearance and investigation: Top secret: Renewal:
[Empty].
Type of information required: 6. Citizenship: For applicants born
outside of the United States, verification of U.S. citizenship directly
from the appropriate registration authority;
Type of security clearance and investigation: Confidential or secret:
Initial investigation or renewal: [Empty];
Type of security clearance and investigation: Top secret: Initial
investigation: [Check];
Type of security clearance and investigation: Top secret: Renewal:
[Empty].
Type of information required: 7. Education: Corroboration of most
recent or significant claimed attendance, degree, or diploma;
Type of security clearance and investigation: Confidential or secret:
Initial investigation or renewal: [Empty];
Type of security clearance and investigation: Top secret: Initial
investigation: [Check];
Type of security clearance and investigation: Top secret: Renewal:
[Empty].
Type of information required: 8. Employment: Review of employment
records for the past 7 years and interviews with workplace references,
such as supervisors and coworkers; corroboration and verification of
all unemployment exceeding 60 days and all prior federal and military
service;
Type of security clearance and investigation: Confidential or secret:
Initial investigation or renewal: [Empty];
Type of security clearance and investigation: Top secret: Initial
investigation: [Check];
Type of security clearance and investigation: Top secret: Renewal:
[Check].
Type of information required: 9. References: Data from interviews with
applicant-identified and investigator-developed leads;
Type of security clearance and investigation: Confidential or secret:
Initial investigation or renewal: [Empty];
Type of security clearance and investigation: Top secret: Initial
investigation: [Check];
Type of security clearance and investigation: Top secret: Renewal:
[Check].
Type of information required: 10. National agency check for spouse or
cohabitant: National agency check without fingerprint;
Type of security clearance and investigation: Confidential or secret:
Initial investigation or renewal: [Empty];
Type of security clearance and investigation: Top secret: Initial
investigation: [Check];
Type of security clearance and investigation: Top secret: Renewal:
[Check].
Type of information required: 11. Former spouse: Data from interview(s)
conducted with spouse(s) divorced within the last 10 years;
Type of security clearance and investigation: Confidential or secret:
Initial investigation or renewal: [Empty];
Type of security clearance and investigation: Top secret: Initial
investigation: [Check];
Type of security clearance and investigation: Top secret: Renewal:
[Check].
Type of information required: 12. Neighborhoods: Confirmation of all
residences for past 3 years via interviews with neighbors and records
check;
Type of security clearance and investigation: Confidential or secret:
Initial investigation or renewal: [Empty];
Type of security clearance and investigation: Top secret: Initial
investigation: [Check];
Type of security clearance and investigation: Top secret: Renewal:
[Check].
Type of information required: 13. Public records: Verification of
applicant's bankruptcies, divorces, and other court actions (criminal
or civil);
Type of security clearance and investigation: Confidential or secret:
Initial investigation or renewal: [Empty];
Type of security clearance and investigation: Top secret: Initial
investigation: [Check];
Type of security clearance and investigation: Top secret: Renewal:
[Check].
Type of information required: 14. Subject interview: An interview of
the applicant; additional interviews if needed to collect relevant data
or resolve significant inconsistencies, or both;
Type of security clearance and investigation: Confidential or secret:
Initial investigation or renewal: [Empty];
Type of security clearance and investigation: Top secret: Initial
investigation: [Check];
Type of security clearance and investigation: Top secret: Renewal:
[Check].
Source: GAO's interpretation of 32 C.F.R. §§ 147.18 - 147.24 (2008).
[A] The employing agency is responsible for corroborating the
applicant's date and place of birth unless the agency requests that OPM
corroborate the information as part of the investigation.
[End of table]
[End of section]
Appendix III: Federal Adjudicative Guidelines Used in the Adjudication
Phase of the Personnel Security Clearance Process:
In the adjudication phase, Department of Defense (DOD) adjudicators at
one of DOD's central adjudication facilities use the information from
the investigative report to determine whether an applicant is eligible
for a security clearance. To make clearance eligibility decisions,
federal and DOD requirements[Footnote 46] specify that adjudicators
consider federal adjudicative guidelines in 13 specific areas that
elicit information about (1) conduct that could raise security concerns
and (2) factors that could allay those security concerns, even when
serious, and permit granting a clearance. For example, under the
foreign influence guideline, a connection to a foreign person or
government is a condition that could raise a security concern. One
factor that could allay this security concern is if the connection to a
foreign person or government is established while the applicant
conducted business on behalf of the U.S. government. Following are the
13 specific areas of the federal adjudicative guidelines:
(1) allegiance to the United States;
(2) foreign influence, such as having a family member who is a citizen
of a foreign country;
(3) foreign preference, such as performing military service for a
foreign country;
(4) sexual behavior;
(5) personal conduct, such as deliberately concealing or falsifying
relevant facts when completing a security questionnaire;
(6) financial considerations;
(7) alcohol consumption;
(8) drug involvement;
(9) psychological conditions, such as emotional, mental, and
personality disorders;
(10) criminal conduct;
(11) security violations, such as deliberate or negligent disclosure of
classified information;
(12) outside activities, such as providing service to or being employed
by a foreign country; and:
(13) misuse of information technology systems, such as unauthorized use
of an information technology system.
[End of section]
Appendix IV: Comments from the Department of Defense:
Department of Defense:
Under Secretary Of Defense:
Intelligence:
5000 Defense Pentagon:
Washington, DC 20301-5000:
May 13, 2009:
Ms. Brenda S. Farrell:
Director:
Defense Capabilities and Management:
Government Accountability Office:
Washington, DC 20548:
Dear Ms. Farrell:
Thank you for the opportunity to review the draft report, GAO-09-400,
"DOD Personnel Clearances: Comprehensive Timeliness Reporting, Complete
Clearance Documentation, and Quality Measures are Needed to Further
Improve the Clearance Process, " (GAO Code 351179). The observations
detailed in the report provide an adequate assessment of the
Department's personnel security program. The enclosure provides
specific feedback on the Department's adjudicative decisions,
documentation, and quality assessment program. Should you have
additional questions or concerns, please contact Mr. Stanley Sims at
(703) 607-0089 or stanley.sims@osd.mil.
Sincerely,
Signed by:
[Illegible] for:
James R. Clapper, Jr.
Enclosure: As stated:
[End of letter]
GAO Draft Report, Dated April 21, 2009:
GAO Code 351179/GAO-09-400:
"DOD Personnel Clearances: Comprehensive "Timeliness Reporting,
Complete Clearance Documentation, and Quality Measures Are Needed to
Further Improve the Clearance Process"
Department Of Defense Comments To The Recommendations:
Recommendation 1: The GAO recommends that the Secretary of Defense
direct the Luster Secretary of Defense for Intelligence to measure the
frequency with which adjudicative files meet the requirements of DoD
regulation, so that the executive branch can identify the factors
leading to incomplete files and include the results of such measurement
in the annual Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004-
required report to Congress on clearances.
DOD Response: Concur. Adjudicative and investigative quality continues
to be of foremost importance to the Department. The Department has
already developed and successfully demonstrated tools to assess the
quality of investigative reports and adjudicative tiles. The Rapid
Assessment of Incomplete Security Evaluations (RAISE) tool will be used
to assess investigative quality and completeness by systematically
collecting and reporting specific information about the scope. issues.
and utility of all deficient investigative cases. The Department will
begin implementing RAISE by the end of June 2004. The Review of
Adjudication Documentation Accuracy and Rationales (RADAR) is a tool
used to gather specific information about adjudicative processes at DoD
adjudication facilities and assess the quality of adjudicated eases.
The Department will implement RADAR by the end of calendar year 2009.
Recommendation 2: The GAO recommends that the Secretary of Defense
direct the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence to issue
guidance that clarifies when adjudicators may use incomplete
investigative reports as the basis for granting clearances.
DOD Response: Concur. The Department of Defense remains vigilant in its
protection of safeguarding classified information through a risk-
management approach to adjudication. The Department has developed
guidance to assist adjudicators in deciding whether or not they should
adjudicate an investigation, favorably or unfavorably, based on a
technically incomplete investigation with little or no risk to national
security. The Department will issue the guidance by the end of fiscal
year 2009. It is also essential that DoD adjudicators appropriately and
thoroughly document adjudicative rationale when making clearance
eligibility determinations. The Department will issue guidance which
outlines standards and requirements for documenting adjudication
rationales for eases with issues and cases that are missing standard
investigative scope items but were still adjudicated. In addition to
supporting reciprocity and consistency, the standardized documentation
will better support quality assessments and improvements within the DoD
adjudicative process. The Department will issue guidance by the end of
fiscal year 2009.
[End of section]
Appendix V: Comments from the Office of Personnel Management:
The Director:
United States Office Of Personnel Management:
Washington, DC 20415:
[hyperlink, http://www.opm.gov]
[hyperlink, www.usajobs.gov]
"Our mission is to ensure the Federal Government has an effective
civilian workforce"
May 8, 2009:
Ms. Brenda S. Farrell:
Director, Defense Capabilities and Management:
Government Accountability Office:
Washington, DC 20548:
Dear Ms. Farrell:
Thank you for the opportunity to respond to GAO's draft report entitled
DOD PERSONNEL CLEARANCES: Comprehensive Timeliness Reporting, Complete
Clearance Documentation, and Quality Measures are Needed to Further
Improve the Clearance Process (GAO-09-400). The report discusses GAO's
assessment of OPM's investigation timeliness and quality, and of the
information OPM report annually to Congress on the security clearance
process.
As the new Director of OPM, I believe that it is critical that OPM
discharge its responsibility to conduct security clearance
investigations in a timely fashion, with high quality standards, and
the utmost integrity. In that regard, I have been very impressed with
what I have learned about the improvements OPM has made to the
investigative process since the Department of Defense (DoD) transferred
its personnel investigation function to OPM in 2005. Under DOD's aegis,
the clearance investigation process was marked by interminable and
unacceptable delays. Since OPM took over, numerous, highly significant
improvements have been made. These include:
* Reducing the average length of all Top Secret investigation from 392
days in FY 2004 to 74 days in March 2009, and Secret/Confidential from
179 days in FY 2004 to 37 days in March 2009.
* Reducing the timeliness of all Top Secret reinvestigations from 579
days in FY 2004 to 84 days in March 2009.
* Eliminating a backlog of pending background investigations, including
over 146,000 investigations in progress that were inherited from DoD
during the transition.
* Meeting all of the timeliness goals set by the Intelligence Reform
and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 (IRTPA), and doing so ahead of
statutory deadlines.
While I recognize that additional work is still needed. I want to
emphasize the remarkable progress that OPM has already accomplished.
OPM took a critical program that was in disarray and turned it around
under very challenging conditions.
The OPM staff has prepared the attached comments in response to your
draft report. I commend them to your attention and look forward to
continuing to work with GAO and our customers to meet the challenges of
providing timely and quality investigations. We appreciate the
opportunity to respond to your report.
Sincerely,
Signed by:
John Berry:
Director:
Enclosure:
[End of letter]
OPM's Comments On GAO Draft Report (GAO-09-400):
Reporting on Timeliness:
One of the findings in the report is critical of the executive branch's
2009 report to Congress in that it "... did not reflect the full range
of time it takes to make all initial clearance decisions."
It is important to understand that-while there are numerous ways to
measure and characterize the timeliness of the investigative process-
the report to Congress was tailored to address the specified timeliness
requirements of the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of
2004 (IRTPA). The framers of IRTPA took into consideration that some
investigations are, by necessity, more time consuming. Accordingly,
they specified that up to 20 percent of cases until December 2009, and
up to 10 percent of cases thereafter, would not he subject to the
statute's timeliness and reporting requirements. Delays for this
relatively small percentage of cases are typically due to the presence
of serious issues that require further, extensive investigation or a
required third party record that is not readily available. Moreover,
the use of "average" processing time versus a strict calculation of the
number/percent completed by a hard deadline recognizes that the
timeliness of each investigation is dependent upon the availability of
the sources of information needed. Many investigations are completed
well ahead of the timeliness goals, but others may take longer
depending upon the issues developed or the schedule of the required
sources. Although the goal for national performance was established for
the average timeliness of the fastest 80%, we have routinely provided
performance statistics for 100% of all work completed, as shown in
Director Berry's cover letter.
In addition, I wanted to bring to your attention the exhaustive data
OPM periodically collects and reports, which measure virtually every
aspect of the security clearance process. These reports have regularly
been provided to Congress to allow for detailed oversight and
transparency of these activities. These reports account for all major
components associated with processing and are not limited to the
fastest 80% of the security clearance decisions made. Further, we
regularly report on the timeliness and activities of the federal
agencies that provide critical records needed as part of the
investigation process.
For these reasons, it would not be accurate to assert that OPM has
limited visibility over the security clearance and investigation
process.
Incomplete Documentation:
In evaluating the quality of OPM's investigations, GAO measured the
content of the files strictly against the national investigative
standards and OPM's internal procedures as discussed in its
investigator's handbook and investigation product tables. While these
documents provide the framework for conducting background
investigations, the investigator assigned to the investigation must
often, under established procedures, make case-by-case decisions on the
proper and best sources needed to attest to a subject's activities,
character, and conduct when sources specified in the standards are
uncooperative or otherwise unavailable. GAO's audit does not appear to
have taken into account the judgment OPM's investigators are required
to exercise when conducting investigations or the availability of
sources. For example, three of the eight investigations GAO reviewed
and discussed with our quality review group showed the subjects of the
investigation were on military deployments and not available for the
subject interviews.
In addition, as GAO's report indicates, it did not make evaluative
judgments about the importance of one missing investigative item over
another. Investigators and adjudicators, however, routinely have to
make these judgments. GAO provided OPM with 8 of the 100 investigations
it reviewed in its audit that were characterized as "missing
documentation." OPM did not fully agree with GAO's assessment of the
eight examples provided and specifically asked that GAO share all of
the investigative files they deemed as missing documentation so that a
thorough review and explanation of processing could be provided. GAO's
decision not to provide those files greatly limited our ability to
respond to this assessment of quality. Our review of the limited sample
provided casts doubt on GAO's findings.
Further, the current federal investigative standards recognize that
full and complete coverage of an individual's background may be
obtained through alternative sources and, accordingly, provide for
deviations from the standards when necessary. It is entirely possible
to meet all of the coverage and documentation requirements specified in
the standards and guidelines, and still fail to provide a thorough and
complete investigation. Conversely, the lack of a single neighborhood
or employment source does not allow an inference that the investigation
was insufficiently thorough.
Finally, procedures are in development that will better focus
investigative resources on the most productive sources for each
individual under investigation. This will shift the emphasis to the
quality of sources rather than a quantity and category (e.g.,
neighborhood) requirement. Much work is still needed, but the end
result will be a more effective and efficient investigative process
that ensures quality and promotes reciprocity.
Quality Measures:
We are in full agreement with GAO that the quality of the investigative
and adjudicative processes is the most critical performance expectation
for OPM and the clearance granting agencies. Successful completion
identifies whether individuals may be trusted or may, instead cause
harm to national security or in some way violate public trust. It also
prevents individuals from being excluded from positions when they are
found to be trustworthy. While the subjective nature of much of the
information obtained poses challenges to quality measurement, numerous
elements of the process that contribute to the final determination can
be measured and assessed in terms of quality. In addition to the
metrics provided concerning deficiencies identified by our customer
agencies, OPM routinely focuses on the following.
Quality of Requests for Investigation: Performance data is routinely
reported, by agency, on the quality of the subject- and agency-provided
data that initiates a background investigation. In addition, agency
attention to the quality of the fingerprints submitted to support a
biometric check of the national criminal history data system is
measured by calculating the percent of unclassifiable fingerprints
rejected by the FBI.
Contractor Performance: Each contract OPM issues for investigative
services includes rigorous quality performance standards, with
performance measured by the extent of the rework needed. OPM's Quality
Assurance (QA) program includes summary review by professional federal
QA staff to ensure that deficiencies are corrected before an
adjudicative decision is made.
Federal Employee Performance .standards: From top to bottom, each
employee of OPM's investigations program has a critical performance
standard for the quality of work performed. There are numerous quality
check points and audit programs built into the investigative process
that identifies individual quality deficiencies prior to delivery to
the requesting agencies.
Content Sufficiency to Support Suitability Actions: One of the most
demonstrative measures of the quality of the investigative process is
whether or not the information collected supports an unfavorable
suitability determination that is formally appealed. For those
suitability actions taken by OPM and appealed to the Merit Systems
Protection Board (MSPB), 10 decisions were affirmed and only 1 was
reversed in FY 2008. In addition, each of the three cases filed with
the Federal courts was affirmed. This speaks to the quality and
completeness of OPM's investigations which are used to support OPM's
unfavorable suitability determinations.
Customer Satisfaction: Each year, OPM/FISD conducts a survey of
customer satisfaction with the quality, content, and timeliness of the
investigations completed. Historically, agencies have indicated a high
satisfaction level with the quality and content of OPM's investigative
products and services.
As the co-chair of the Performance Accountability Council's (PAC)
Performance on Measurements and Management Subcommittee, Kathy
Dillaman, Associate Director of FISD, has worked with the Office of the
Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) and other agencies to develop
additional metrics to measure the quality of the investigations. GAO
has expressed concerns about the new metrics before the measurements
have been tested and implemented, noting anecdotal information that
agencies may not want to return investigations to OPM because of their
perception that this will delay case processing. It is difficult to
respond to such anecdotes without further information and we suggest
that it may be a mistake to credit them in light of OPM's significant
improvement of the timeliness of investigations. It is also of concern
to OPM that an agency would suggest that it would ever decline to
return an investigation for further processing where such investigation
is necessary in the interest of national security. However, the new
metrics under development will provide the agencies with a simple and
easy means to report deficiencies to OPM. We are currently testing a
quality review form that gives the agency the ability to report
problems with the investigation to OPM. The feedback provided on these
forms will be calculated and included in the quality information
reported to Congress.
Recommendations for Executive Action:
GAO made recommendations to the Office of Management and Budget and the
Director of OPM concerning the collection and reporting of timeliness
and quality information. As noted earlier in our comments, OPM reports
timeliness as specified in the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism
Prevention Act of 2004. In addition, we regularly report to Congress
data that covers every aspect of the security clearance process to
allow for detailed oversight and transparency of these activities. We
also noted that additional quality metrics are being developed to
measure the quality of the investigations, including a new quality
feedback process. OPM will add these new quality metrics to its reports
to Congress.
[End of section]
Appendix VI: GAO Contacts and Staff Acknowledgments:
GAO Contact:
Brenda S. Farrell, (202) 512-3604 or farrellb@gao.gov:
Acknowledgments:
Key contributors to this report were David E. Moser, Assistant
Director; James D. Ashley; Catherine Gelb; Mae Jones; Shvetal Khanna;
James P. Klein; Caryn E. Kuebler; Ronald La Due Lake; Dolores McGhee;
Gregory A. Marchand; and Thomas R. Predmore.
[End of section]
Related GAO Products:
High-Risk Series: An Update. [hyperlink,
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-09-271]. Washington, D.C.: January
2009.
DOD Personnel Clearances: Preliminary Observations about Timeliness and
Quality. [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-09-261R].
Washington, D.C.: December 19, 2008.
Personnel Security Clearances: Preliminary Observations on Joint Reform
Efforts to Improve the Governmentwide Clearance Eligibility Process.
[hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-08-1050T]. Washington,
D.C.: July 30, 2008.
Personnel Clearances: Questions for the Record Regarding Security
Clearance Reform. [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-08-965R].
Washington, D.C.: July 14, 2008.
Personnel Clearances: Key Factors for Reforming the Security Clearance
Process. [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-08-776T].
Washington, D.C.: May 22, 2008.
Employee Security: Implementation of Identification Cards and DOD's
Personnel Security Clearance Program Need Improvement. [hyperlink,
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-08-551T]. Washington, D.C.: April 9,
2008.
DOD Personnel Clearances: Questions for the Record Related to the
Quality and Timeliness of Clearances. [hyperlink,
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-08-580R]. Washington, D.C.: March 25,
2008.
Personnel Clearances: Key Factors to Consider in Efforts to Reform
Security Clearance Processes. [hyperlink,
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-08-352T]. Washington, D.C.: February
27, 2008.
DOD Personnel Clearances: DOD Faces Multiple Challenges in Its Efforts
to Improve Clearance Processes for Industry Personnel. [hyperlink,
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-08-470T]. Washington, D.C.: February
13, 2008.
DOD Personnel Clearances: Improved Annual Reporting Would Enable More
Informed Congressional Oversight. [hyperlink,
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-08-350]. Washington, D.C.: February 13,
2008.
DOD Personnel Clearances: Delays and Inadequate Documentation Found for
Industry Personnel. [hyperlink,
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-07-842T]. Washington, D.C.: May 17,
2007.
DOD Personnel Clearances: Additional OMB Actions Are Needed to Improve
the Security Clearance Process. [hyperlink,
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-06-1070]. Washington, D.C.: September
28, 2006.
[End of section]
Footnotes:
[1] Security clearances are required for access to certain national
security information, which may be classified at one of three levels:
confidential, secret, and top secret. The level of classification
denotes the degree of protection required for information and the
amount of damage that unauthorized disclosure could reasonably be
expected to cause to national security.
[2] GAO, High-Risk Series: An Update, [hyperlink,
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-05-207] (Washington, D.C.: Jan. 2005).
[3] GAO, High-Risk Series: An Update, [hyperlink,
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-07-310] (Washington, D.C.: Jan. 2007);
and GAO, High-Risk Series: An Update, [hyperlink,
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-09-271] (Washington, D.C.: Jan. 2009)
[4] Pub. L. No. 108-458 (2004). We use the acronym "IRTPA" throughout
this report to refer to § 3001 of the act.
[5] On January 22, 2009, Representative Anna Eshoo, Chairwoman of the
Subcommittee on Intelligence Community Management, House Permanent
Select Committee on Intelligence, introduced H.R. 639, the Security
Clearance Oversight and Accountability Act. H.R. 639 would require
additional annual reports to Congress, including one identifying how
many security clearances completed during the previous year took longer
than 1 year to complete and the causes of significant delays in the
completion of those clearances and another including metrics for
adjudication and investigation quality.
[6] As of December 31, 2008, the total number of OPM investigators was
approximately 6,100. About 24 percent of these investigators are
federal employees, and about 76 percent are contractors.
[7] We use the term "clearance renewal" to refer to the issuance of a
clearance following a "periodic reinvestigation" to update a previously
completed background investigation, as described under IRTPA.
[8] We excluded from our timeliness analysis DOD's intelligence
community clearance applications and applications that OPM did not
investigate. Approximately 0.2 percent of the nearly 630,000 clearance
records in our sample were instances in which eligibility was initially
denied but eventually granted after appeal; according to DOD's
Personnel Security Research Center officials, this appeal process
lengthens the decision-making process.
[9] We did not obtain initial top secret clearance documentation from
the Defense Industrial Security Clearance Office, which adjudicates
clearances for industry personnel, as we did in our timeliness analysis
because we were able to review the clearance documentation of industry
personnel adjudicated at the adjudication facilities of the three
military departments.
[10] We sampled from 3,993 clearances but found that some of the
reports were out of the scope of our audit. Therefore, we estimate that
the number of initial top secret clearances that DOD granted at the
U.S. Army, the U.S. Navy, and the U.S. Air Force central adjudication
facilities in July 2008 was 3,500 (+/-300 clearances), based on a 95
percent confidence level.
[11] All estimates from this sample have margins of error of plus or
minus 10 percent or less.
[12] The White House, Exec. Order No. 12958, Classified National
Security Information, § 1.3 (Apr. 17, 1995) (as amended), 5 C.F.R.
§1312.4 (2008).
[13] Although the government proposed a plan to reform the personnel
security clearance process in April 2008, this process had not yet been
fully implemented at the time of our review. We evaluated DOD's
personnel security clearances under the current process.
[14] 32 C.F.R. §§ 147.18 - 147.24 (2008). While these standards were in
place at the time of our review, the executive branch approved revised
investigative standards in December 2008. The executive branch plans to
implement these revised standards in some federal agencies as they
implement reform efforts described in the April 2008 and December 2008
Suitability and Security Process Reform reports. See Joint Reform Team,
Security and Suitability Process Reform Initial Report (Washington,
D.C.: Apr. 30, 2008) and Joint Reform Team, Security and Suitability
Process Reform (Washington, D.C.: Dec. 17, 2008).
[15] 32 C.F.R. §§ 147.3 - 147.15 (2008).
[16] DOD Regulation 5200.2-R, DOD Personnel Security Program (Jan. 16,
1987) (current as of change 3, Feb. 23, 1996).
[17] The White House, Executive Order 13467, Reforming Processes
Related to Suitability for Government Employment, Fitness for
Contractor Employees, and Eligibility for Access to Classified National
Security Information (Washington, D.C.: June 30, 2008).
[18] The Joint Reform Team's December 2008 report updated the President
on the progress made and specified plans to further reform the security
clearance process. Separately, we are conducting a review of the
progress the Joint Reform Team has made toward achieving personnel
security clearance reform at the request of the Chairman of the House
Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and the Chairwoman of the
Subcommittee on Intelligence Community Management, House Permanent
Select Committee on Intelligence.
[19] GAO, DOD Personnel Clearances: Preliminary Observations about
Timeliness and Quality, [hyperlink,
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-09-261R] (Washington, D.C.: Dec. 19,
2008).
[20] GAO, Personnel Clearances: Key Factors for Reforming the Security
Clearance Process, [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-08-776T]
(Washington, D.C.: May 22, 2008); DOD Personnel Clearances: DOD Faces
Multiple Challenges in Its Efforts to Improve Clearance Processes for
Industry Personnel, [hyperlink,
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-08-470T] (Washington, D.C.: Feb. 13,
2008); and Personnel Security Clearances: Preliminary Observations on
Joint Reform Efforts to Improve the Governmentwide Clearance
Eligibility Process, [hyperlink,
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-08-1050T] (Washington, D.C.: July 30,
2008).
[21] The executive branch report also included information on
timeliness not specifically required by IRTPA, such as the average
length of time DOD and other agencies took to complete the application
submission phase of the clearance process.
[22] OPM officials estimated that confidential and secret level
clearances, whether initial or renewal, take the same amount of time to
investigate.
[23] This estimate has a margin of error, based on a 95 percent
confidence interval, of +/-9 percent and is based on our review of a
random sample of 100 OPM-provided investigative reports for initial top
secret clearances granted in July 2008 by the U.S. Army, U.S. Navy, and
U.S. Air Force central adjudication facilities. In addition, we
reviewed the investigative reports for the presence or absence of
required documentation. Available information often did not allow a
determination of why the documentation was missing. For example,
required documentation could be missing because an investigator failed
to gather the information or to document that the information was
gathered. In either case, an investigative report would not provide an
adjudicator with all of the information required by the federal
investigative standards and OPM's internal guidance.
[24] The federal investigative standards require a complete personnel
security questionnaire form, including applicable releases and
supporting documentation. Complete forms and releases are important
since they contain information needed to conduct an investigation;
certify that the applicant provided information that is true, complete,
and correct to the best of the applicant's knowledge and belief; and
show that investigators are authorized to obtain information from third
parties (e.g., individuals, employers, and credit bureaus).
[25] This estimate has a margin of error, based on a 95 percent
confidence interval, of +/-8 percent.
[26] Missing subject interviews in the investigative reports we
reviewed were the result of the applicants' deployment.
[27] We did not include our observations of investigative reports that
contained unresolved issues in our statistical analysis because we did
not systematically collect this information.
[28] Personal conduct refers to conduct involving questionable
judgment, untrustworthiness, unreliability, lack of candor, dishonesty,
or unwillingness to comply with rules and regulations that can raise
questions about an individual's reliability, trustworthiness, and
ability to protect classified information.
[29] GAO, DOD Personnel Clearances: Preliminary Observations about
Timeliness and Quality, [hyperlink,
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-09-261R] (Washington, D.C.: Dec. 19,
2008).
[30] This estimate has a margin of error, based on a 95 percent
confidence interval, of +/-10 percent and is based on our review of a
random sample of 100 DOD adjudicative files for initial top secret
clearances granted in July 2008 by the U.S. Army, the U.S. Navy, and
the U.S. Air Force central adjudication facilities. These adjudicative
files are associated with the 100 OPM-provided investigative reports we
reviewed and produced estimates from the previous analysis about the
documentation completeness in investigative reports.
[31] DOD 5200.2-R, DOD Personnel Security Program (January 1987)
(current as of change 3, Feb. 23, 1996).
[32] OMB, Report of the Security Clearance Oversight Group Consistent
with Title III of the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act
of 2004 (Washington, D.C.: February 2006-2008).
[33] GAO, DOD Personnel: Inadequate Personnel Security Investigations
Pose National Security Risks, [hyperlink,
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO/NSIAD-00-12] (Washington, D.C.: Oct.
27, 1999) and Personnel Clearances: Key Factors to Consider in Efforts
to Reform Security Clearance Processes, [hyperlink,
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-08-352T] (Washington, D.C.: Feb. 27,
2008).
[34] Letter from John P. Fitzpatrick, Acting Assistant Deputy Director
for Security, Office of the Director of National Intelligence, to
Committees of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives (Mar. 4,
2009).
[35] The discussion of these measures is included in the Joint Reform
Team's December 2008 report, Security and Suitability Process Reform
(Washington, D.C.: Dec. 18, 2008), which was included in the 2009 IRTPA-
required report. These two measures of quality for investigations are
(1) the number of deficient investigative reports returned by the
customer and accepted by the investigative provider and (2) the
validated results of an investigative product survey to be completed by
adjudicators. The Joint Reform Team's report also states that a similar
tool will be developed for adjudicative quality.
[36] For example, see [hyperlink,
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO/NSIAD-00-12]; DOD Personnel Clearances:
Additional OMB Actions Are Needed to Improve the Security Clearance
Process, [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-06-1070]
(Washington, D.C.: Sept. 28, 2006); and [hyperlink,
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-08-352T].
[37] [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO/NSIAD-00-12] and
[hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-06-1070].
[38] At the time of this 1999 report, DOD conducted personnel security
investigations, and we made recommendations to the Secretary of
Defense. In February 2005, DOD transferred its investigations functions
to OPM.
[39] [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-08-352T].
[40] [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-09-261R].
[41] Pub. L. No. 108-458 (2004).
[42] For the renewal clearances, we measured the timeliness as of the
completion of the application.
[43] We did not include initial top secret clearances from the Defense
Industrial Security Clearance Office, which adjudicates clearances for
some private industry personnel working on DOD contracts, in this
analysis as we did in our timeliness analysis because we were able to
review the clearance documentation of private industry personnel
adjudicated at the adjudication facilities of the three military
departments.
[44] We identified several clearances in our sample that were, in fact,
not favorably adjudicated and removed those clearances from our sample.
[45] The product table lists the investigative items OPM will include
based on the type of clearance investigation to be conducted.
[46] 32 C.F.R. §§ 147.3 - 147.15 (2008); DOD 5200.2-R, DOD Personnel
Security Program, App. 8 (Jan. 16, 1987) (current as of change 3, Feb.
23, 1996).
[End of section]
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