Other government agencies don’t agree that in person interviews should be a thing of the past. As a long time contractor I do and have always maintained this is or should be a government duty. Contractors have to make money usually for shareholders. It’s a low pay high volume business. I am open to CE but what is being evaluated? I have developed so much over the years of doing this job in face to face interviews . I think what’s lost in the conversation is that there was a time half the people we come across wouldn’t even be let in the door.
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I can see that you are jaded by the processes of the Field Investigator job duties and your role in this process. My guess is that you’ve only worked for the OPM/NBIB/DCSA contracts and vendors such as KGS/Perspecta/Peraton, SCIS/Paragon, or CACI. If so, I understand your points that these vendors put timeliness and volume over quality. Always have and always will. They are selfish, greedy, and even the mid levels managers at these vendors know this to be true. I also experienced this in my many years at USIS.
It wasn’t until I got away from the OPM/NBIB/DCSA contract that I realized there are other agencies and vendors out there that actually care about quality over volume and timeliness. You have to become an independent contractor and work direct federal contracts to observe and experience this viewpoint. Places where they give you time to do a quality job and not ask questions from a scripted outline. Sure, the federal investigative standards and adjudicative criteria apply to all agencies out there and the foundational principles are the same, however, the volume asked to complete in the amount of time provided is much much different when working on your own as an IC for different vendors and agencies than as a F/T hourly Investigator with the DCSA vendors.
“All I am saying is that CE is definitely a better way to conduct background investigations from the financial perspective. And the investigation will not have a major difference than how it is being done now.”
It may be less of a financial cost to do CE or it may not be. They are pulling credit reports regularly, criminal history reports regularly, foreign travel reports, etc. It more than likely will be less of a cost but I haven’t seen the numbers. Have you? Where you are wrong is saying that there is no major difference than how the investigations are being done now. I’ve already stated to you specifically how the reinvestigations will be different. Much different with few to any Subject Interviews, Source Interviews, and record reviews. If you cannot see the difference, I don’t know what to tell you. As an Investigator yourself if you are asking the normal routine questions on each case, you know things are developed often simply by being thorough and going through the entire SF-86 and discovering information (sometimes even serious issues) that is not listed on the Security Questionnaire. Some things are innocuous and other things can be quite serious. You remove the actual interviews from a reinvestigation process, and you get a lower quality product by far. So there are MAJOR differences. Apparently you cannot observe these differences because you want to argue with me about what quality is supposed to look like based upon your limited experience working the DCSA contract. Even DCSA with the vendors causing the problems with not allowing enough time for a quality report (volume over quality), the agency still gets quality in the end because they refile you time and time again until the report meets quality standards. DCSA has the strictest standards when it comes to providing quality to that customer based upon my experience and I’ve provided investigative work to every single agency in this industry.
“But if you believe that you are out there protecting national security by writing down on a notebook what a subject tells you then typing it up, then good work and keep it up.”
I do believe I have a small part to play in doing quality work and protecting national security…simply by doing my job and asking all of the questions and not compromising myself ever to provide timeliness over quality. It’s all about quality. Even if the vendors don’t live up to that standard. I can and I will. And I don’t just write what the Subject tells me. I have enough experience to probe and ask follow up questions when something seems off. I’ve discovered various issues by rephrasing questions and really pondering what information I have been provided and then follow up with more questions.
If you really believe that all that you are is a glorified note taker, you probably should look for a new career and find something else to do. Yes, the note taking is onerous. However, the questions we ask each source, subject, and record provider does ensure the quality standards are always met for each individual case. Keep working hard, growing, and learning more each day about your job and you’ll find that you’ll provide quality thorough reports that meet investigative standards. My other recommendation I would make is get out of the full time hourly rate race and become an IC and multi credential and work multiple contracts non DCSA related. It will improve your job satisfaction greatly to operate your own business and to work contracts and for other agencies you want to work for that treat you better, pay you better, and provide higher job satisfaction.
With regard to this statement: “If you actually are serious about this profession and do this job thoroughly and accurately, you’ll uncover issues (and even some serious issues) on almost every case you work.” I am not an investigator, but I do not believe it likely you will uncover issues of “substance” on almost every case you work. I think, perhaps, what matters are the issues of substance. What percentage of those who apply are eventually granted clearances? I believe it is pretty high. If issues that make a difference in the adjudication process were uncovered with every case investigated, then, I would expect the percentage granted to be lower.
I am not advocating for CE/CV to replace the current renewal/reinvestigation process. I just have issue with what I believe was the suggestion that the vast majority of investigations uncover issues that make a difference.
If you aren’t an Investigator then you simply don’t know. I didn’t say you’ll uncover serious issues on every case but often by doing quality work on every case and asking the questions, you’ll uncover issues often.
Issues are of adjudicative value whether they be small or great. Our job as Investigators isn’t to guess which issues restrict someone from having a security clearance. Our jobs is to report all issues and be thorough and provide as much information as possible in the investigative process whether the issues be great or insignificant or innocuous.
My point was that by asking all of the questions and caring about quality over timeliness or any other factor, provides a high quality investigative product. Does this always uncover serious issues or issues at all on some cases? No. But my experience as an Investigator is more often than not, I uncover issues and developed issues on most cases by simply doing the job that is expected of me.
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An “issue” does not have to be serious. If your neighbor tells me you graduated from the University of XXX when you listed no education, that’s an issue. If I go to get your transcript at said university and they tell me you have a $5000 financial hold on your account for overdue tuition, that’s an issue. And so on. Just because something isn’t “serious”, doesn’t mean it isn’t worth looking into.
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I remember a story that an investigator told me. He had already completed the required number of interviews at a subject’s prior workplace and was getting ready to go to his next appointment… but he still had some time and something told him, let’s go back and do one more…
and that was the guy who was willing to spill the beans on the applicant’s misdeeds.
Of course he had no idea how that last interview affected the outcome of the investigation, but it certainly made some adjudicator’s job a little more difficult.
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