NSA surveillanceBackground check of Snowden may have been faulty
The Inspector General of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) told lawmakers that a 2011 security reinvestigation of Edward Snowden’s background, conducted by a government contractor, may have been faulty. Later in 2011, OPM began investigating the contractor — USIS — for contract fraud. That investigation is still ongoing. The IG told the lawmakers that eighteen background investigators and record searchers — eleven federal employees and seven contractors — have so far been convicted for falsifying background investigation reports. Their abuses included interviews that never occurred, answers to questions that were never asked, and record checks that were never conducted, the IG said.
The routine security reinvestigation of Edward Snowden’s background, conducted by a government contractor in 2011, may have been faulty, Office of Personnel Management (OPM) Inspector General Patrick McFarland told lawmakers Thursday.
“We do believe that there may be some problems” with the reinvestigation, McFarland said in response to Senator Jon Tester (D-Montana), chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs subcommittee on the federal workforce. Tester wanted to know if McFarland had any concerns about whether Snowden’s reinvestigation has been carried out in an appropriate and thorough manner.
McFarland said that U.S. Investigative Services (USIS), a Falls Church, Virginia-based company handling 45 percent of the federal government’s contracted background checks, conducted the 2011 reinvestigation into Snowden. USA Today reports that later that year, McFarland’s office began investigating USIS for contract fraud. That investigation is still ongoing.
In a statement, USIS said it received a subpoena for records from McFarland’s office in January 2012, with which it complied. USIS said it has cooperated fully with the government’s civil investigation, but said it has not been told it is under criminal investigation.
USA Today notes that USIS would not confirm or deny whether it had conducted any investigations into Snowden, saying those investigations are confidential.
McFarland told the subcommittee that eighteen background investigators and record searchers — eleven federal employees and seven contractors — have been convicted for falsifying background investigation reports since the IG began investigating so-called “fabrication cases” in 2006. The abuses included interviews that never occurred, answers to questions that were never asked, and record checks that were never conducted, McFarland said.
A nineteenth investigator pled guilty last month, McFarland said, and a twentieth is expected to plead guilty this week. Both investigators are contractors, he said.
Members of the committee said they were concerned about whether people receiving Top Secret level clearances are being properly vetted, and said there does not appear to be sufficient oversight of the work, which is largely outsourced.
“It is a reminder that background investigations can have real consequences for our national security,” Senator Claire McCaskill (D-Missouri) said of Snowden’s leaks. McCaskill chairs the contracting oversight subcommittee of the Senate’s Homeland Security Committee.
Reuters reports that security investigations of federal employees used to be conducted mainly by a large staff of full-time investigators who were civil servants at OPM. In 1996 the investigative functions of OPM were privatized, leading to the creation of USIS, which was awarded a contract with OPM to conduct background investigations for security clearances on employees of more than 95 federal agencies.
A January report from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence says there are 4.9 million people with clearance to access “confidential and secret” government information, of which 1.1 million, or 21 percent, work for outside contractors. Of the 1.4 million who have the higher “top secret” access, 483,000, or 34 percent, work for contractors.
