Top Issues in 2017 for Security Clearance Denials

Can a senator or a house rep do anything about the adjudication timetable?

I doubt it. But then again it is Washington. It is a process.

A congressman isn’t going to circumvent the adjudication process by asking for it to be completed sooner or asking that it be decided in your favor. Not unless you usually call him “Dad” or some such thing.

There are only a few things that congress could really do. They can provide more money for the process or they can provide legislation that changes the process. Changing the process will mean making it less arduous, meaning more people slip through. There may be ways that much of the investigation can be sped up. The problem though, as I have seen and heard it here, is the amount of time that your file sits around with no activity.

My clearance took 18 months to get. It was in the hands of an investigator for about five weeks. Of course it took almost six months to get it in the hands of that investigator. I don’t expect that an adjudicator spent weeks or months pouring over file. A day? Two? Three? Even that seems like a lot. Actually, once I received my SOR, the lawyers and the ALJ seemed to work pretty quickly. I went SOR, response, FORM, response, ALJ decision in about three months.

It’s all of the down time in between these processes, that I guess are caused by the backlog, that slows the process.

I was hoping whenever my BI went to adjudication that they could do something.

I had my senator speed up the background investigation part. As I know he is still conducting interviews. It has been since January 9, and I hope it goes to adjudication soon!

I am laughing in HORROR! I hope mine doesn’t take that long.

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Now that it’s behind me, I can laugh too. But it was not very amusing at the time.

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I bet. The 9th of March will be my year mark and I am getting pretty frustrated.

I wonder if 16+months after BI started that receiving a revised offer is good news?

It’s interesting to look back at this report in 2018. All the main problems are still in place. And after Facebook leaks, it’s now a big question whether private companies are better at solving security issues.

Historically, the biggest internal intelligence issues have come from top secret cleared operatives or analysts who needed money. In the case of Ames, he needed 50k so he just walked into the Russian embassy and started guving the KGB a bunch of intel. And Ames was arguably one of the best CIA officers our country has ever seen.

Really? That’s not what I have read

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He fooled us for years.

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We can argue that Ames was not one of the best CIA officers. Read his work history and he was average - at best - with a few periods of good performance.

He was a noted security problem because of poor handling of classified, not following procedure, laziness, and extra marital affairs. Ames is the example of an agency ignoring every warning sign and keeping someone on board.

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We’re annually briefed on him and others and they are used in training examples. I think the IC and DoD now go a bit overboard when making clearance decisions but if safeguarding national security information is paramount then…

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If you are talking about the evalvs when he was an analyst then sure. But, to be in CI and a double agent for Russia during the cold war…you can be poor in certain facets, like Ames was in Mexico as an analyst, and still have some incredible tradecraft skill. I dont respect traitors, but its hard for me to say he was not one of the best actual spies.

Here…look up Studies in Intelligence vol. 57 no. 1. The Russian Ames gave the intel to stated “that piece of paper contained more information about CIA espionage than had ever before been presented in a single piece of communication.” And, this lasted ten yrs. So, in respect to operations and spying and not analytic side of the house I find it hard to argue that he wasnt really good at the game.

I shouldnt have said best CIA officer but in the spying industry’ in general…my bad!

Ames also had a pushy wife who spent too lavishly for their income level.

His lavish spending habits notwithstanding!