Background Checks Take Too Much Time, GAO Says

Office of Personal Management Director Linda M. Springer, shown at a 2004 conference, says the GAO's conclusions do not reflect the current situation. (By Bill O'leary -- The Washington Post)

The Bush administration appears at risk of missing a deadline set by Congress aimed at shortening the time it takes to investigate federal employees and contractors for security clearances and determine whether they can be trusted with classified information.

The 2004 Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act requires that 80 percent of all security clearances be completed in an average of 120 days. The law's goals include improved analytical methods at national security agencies, an effort that requires timely processing of security clearances to expand the workforces at 16 intelligence agencies.

But a report issued by the Government Accountability Office, the congressional watchdog agency, suggests that the administration could miss the Dec. 17 deadline for timely processing of security clearances stipulated in the 2004 law.

For its study, the GAO looked at a small but important group of people seeking security clearances -- government contract employees applying for top-secret clearances. The private-sector employees waited more than a year on average to receive their top-secret clearances, the GAO found.

The GAO examined 2,259 cases of industry personnel granted top-secret clearances in January and February of this year. The clearance process took an average of 446 days for an initial clearance and 545 days for a clearance update, the GAO said.

About 90 percent of the government's background investigations are conducted by the Office of Personnel Management. The Defense Department uses information from the background checks to grant about 80 percent of security clearances, including those for contract workers at Defense and 23 other federal agencies.

The ranks of contractors in the defense and intelligence communities have grown since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks as agencies have moved to strengthen homeland security. As of May, contract workers held about 34 percent of the 2.5 million clearances granted by the Defense Department, the GAO noted.

Linda M. Springer , director of the OPM, faulted the GAO report, calling it "based on outdated information." She said the handling of many of the cases covered in the report had been slowed by a 2005 agreement with the Pentagon to consolidate personnel security investigations at the OPM. "The GAO's critical findings do not accurately reflect the current state of affairs," Springer said.

The cases examined by the GAO turned up problems that may be continuing, however. The GAO found that the OPM's "current methods do not fully capture and portray the time required to obtain a clearance."

The OPM, which has scrambled to increase its staff to keep pace with requests for background checks on government workers, relies on "an inexperienced investigative workforce" and cannot always use technology to shorten processing time because some data must be entered into computer systems from paper applications, the GAO said.

Background checks also are delayed because OPM investigators have problems getting access to some criminal and employment records at state and local levels, the GAO said.

In its review, the GAO turned up troubling signs that some top-secret clearances are based on incomplete investigative reports. A study of 50 investigative reports found 47 were missing data required by federal rules, the GAO said.

One person under investigation acknowledged having extramarital affairs, but the GAO found no documentation showing that the affairs had been investigated. Investigators also found that the person had defaulted on a loan worth several thousand dollars but did not explore the issue further, the GAO said.

Other background reports lacked information on where applicants worked and lived, their overseas trips, and their personal conduct, the GAO said.

"The use of incomplete investigations and adjudications in the granting of top secret clearance eligibility increases the risk of unauthorized disclosure of classified information," the GAO said.

Clay Johnson III , deputy director for management at the Office of Management and Budget, said in a letter to the GAO that he will convene a working group to study the issue. The quality of background investigations, he wrote, "is of paramount importance."