SENATORS RECOMMEND IMPROVEMENTS IN SECURITY CLEARANCE PROGRAMS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP87-00812R000200090011-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 5
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 7, 2010
• Sequence Number: 11
• Publication Date: June 6, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/10/07: CIA-RDP87-00812R000200090011-5 STAT
UNITED STATES SENAT*
Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations
William V. Roth k. Chairman
Warren B. Rudman, Vice Chairman
Sam Nunn, Ranking Minority Member
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE For Additional Information,
June 6, 1985 Contact: Eleanore J. Hill
Phone: [phone]
SENATORS RECOMMEND IMPROVEMENTS
IN SECURITY CLEARANCE PROGRAMS
Senators William V. Roth, Jr., (R-Del.) and Sam Nunn (D-Ga.) of the
Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations today called for fewer security
clearances, improved and more frequent background checks, tighter controls on
the dissemination of classified documents and a more active leadership role by
the National Security Council as steps that can be taken immediately to curb
the rise in Soviet espionage in the United States.
The Subcommittee held hearings on the government's security clearance
program in April where shortcomings in the effort to combat espionage were
cited. The hearings were based on an investigation by the Subcommittee
Minority staff under the direction of Senator Nunn, as Ranking Minority
Member, with the concurrence of Senator Roth, the Chairman.
As a result of the hearings, a report of the investigation, including
the recommendations made public today, will be circulated among Subcommittee
Members by Roth and Nunn.
Senators Roth and Nunn released copies of their proposed findings and
recommendations at the press conference and, in a joint statement, urged
Subcommittee Members to concur in the findings and the Congress and executive
branch to use the report as the vehicle for taking prompt action to strengthen
espionage control procedures.
Senators Roth and Nunn said:
"It is increasingly apparent that the Soviet Union and its surrogates
have embarked on a massive espionage venture in this country wherein they hope
to obtain as much of our classified information as they can. The U.S. must
respond in a prompt and effective fashion.
"There are today more than 4 million persons with security clearances
in this country. Given the massive numbers of clearance requests, all too
often security clearances are granted with insufficient amounts of background
inquiry. Equally important, our hearings showed that far too little
commitment of resources is being made to periodically reinvestigate cleared
personnel. Studies have shown that rarely do people enter federal service
intending to commit espionage. It is usually after they have been on the job
for a time that, for a variety of reasons, they become vulnerable to Soviet
recruitment attempts. That is why the periodic reinvestigation is so
important.
"We should do a better job of clearing government and defense workers.
That objective can be.a more realistic one if the number of cleared personnel
is cut to the minimum. Far more workers have clearances than need them. For
example, Pentagon officials testified at our hearings that 33 percent of the
Top Secret clearances among defense contractor employees are held by people
who never see a Top Secret document. With fewer background checks to conduct,
government can do a better job on those that are really necessary.
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/10/07: CIA-RDP87-00812R000200090011-5
 Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/10/07: CIA-RDP87-00812R000200090011-5
"In addition, the Pentagon particularly should be more prudent in its
dissemination of secret documents. The fewer people who see such papers, the
fewer opportunities there are for. compromise.
"The National Security Council and the interagency working group
formed to implement National Security Decision. Directive Number 84 (NSDD 84)
should be encouraged, perhaps by the President himself, to move quickly to
implement comprehensive reform in the way we provide for personnel security.
Continued bureaucratic delay. and interagency disputes should not be allowed to
further forestall sound security measures. The NSC should take prompt and
decisive action to address and help solve the many serious problems which
undercut the government's ability to effectively protect classified
information."
The Roth-Nunn findings and recommendations are attached.
Attachment
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/10/07: CIA-RDP87-00812R000200090011-5
 Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/10/07: CIA-RDP87-00812R000200090011-5
June 6, 1985
Findings, Conclusions and Recommendations for Corrective Action
in'Federal Government Security Clearance Programs
1. The government's personnel security program should be devoted to
accurately detecting potentiali security risks as well as efficiently
clearing large numbers of personnel.
2. The number of personnel holding clearances for access to highly sensitive
information must be reduced. - Our current system cannot adequately insure
the continued integrity and reliability of the 4.2 million Americans who
today hold security clearances. Furthermore, hearing testimony strongly
suggested that many of those 4.2 million have no actual need for a
security clearance. Clearance requests have reached unmanageable numbers,
resulting in diluted investigative resources and background investigations
of diminished quality. The President should issue an executive order
directing that government agencies- and contractors substantially cut the
number of security clearances within 2 years with a goal of a 50%
reduction. As an added incentive, those agencies and contractors who make
the largest cuts should be given priority on remaining clearance requests.
3. Complementing the reduction in clearances, there must also be a
significant effort to insure that information is classified only where
truly necessary to maintain the national security. Although the
Subcommittee's investigation did not focus in detail on the problem of
overclassification, the 1984 report of the Information Security Oversight
Office, released shortly after the Subcommittee's hearings, confirmed that
"overclassification" of information remains a problem within the
government.
4. The National Security Council should promptly complete its review of the
personnel security programs. Although the National Security Council has
been charged with initiating needed reforms in personnel security, this
had not been accomplished at the time of the hearings. Given the critical
importance of these reforms to our national security, the National
Security Council should act promptly and without further delay, to carry
out this responsibility. Absent such action, Congress will be forced to
consider enacting legislation to replace, revise, and consolidate the
dated executive orders which now govern the government's security
clearance programs.
5. An executive body should be established with personnel security oversight
responsibilitle& for the entire government similar to those which the
Information Security Oversight Office now holds for the classification of
information. This organization should specify and enforce uniform
government-wide standards for security investigations and adjudications
for both personnel and facility clearances. Standard requirements for
formal training for both investigators and' adjudicators should be
established.
6. Congress must also focus on problems dealing with classified information
in the legislative branch. For the most part, there are no established
standards or procedures. Personal offices and Committee practices vary
widely in terms of their handling of clearances and classified material.
There are. few, if any, checks in this system. We believe an overall
review of security procedures in the legislative branch should be
conducted by the Rules Committee in consultation with the Intelligence
Committee with a goal of recommending improvements where needed. We
commend the Senate Intelligence Committee's efforts in this area and
recommend the review of their practices and procedures as a model for
such improvements.
7. A more thorough quality background should be conducted on those
individuals with Secret clearances who have access to highly sensitive
information. Hearing testimony established, without dispute, that the
national agency check, now currently used as the basis for most Secret
clearances, is woefully inadequate as a background investigation. Some
effort should-be made to review and perhaps restructure the massive Secret
clearance category with a view to prioritizing those clearances actually
affecting the most critical and sensitive information.
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/10/07: CIA-RDP87-00812R000200090011-5
 Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/10/07: CIA-RDP87-00812R000200090011-5
-2-
8. There should be regular periodic reinvestigations for personnel with
Secret and Top Secret clearances. Timely reinvestigation should be
considered as important and be accorded as much priority as the initial
background investigation. Cleared employees, at both government and
contractor levels, should be required to complete yearly updated personnel
security questionnaires. Some responsibility for updates should be
shifted where possible to the users' security departments.
9. More realistic sanctions, such as debarment, suspension, and the
imposition of monetary fines, should be meted out to employers of cleared
personnel, including defense contractors, if they knowingly or through
negligence violate personnel security regulations. Greater emphasis
should be placed on the. use of these sanctions in an effort to increase
the accountability of contractors for security violations.
10. Legislation should be enacted which would allow security clearance
investigative agencies such as the Defense Investigative Service and the
Office of Personnel Management to obtain needed background information
from state and local agencies as well as private corporations. Currently,
they are often refused needed information due to interpretations of a
variety of laws, including state privacy acts, the federal privacy act,
and the Fair Credit Reporting Act.
11. An interagency group should be formed to develop a more effective means
for conducting personnel security investigations regarding immigrant
aliens and recently naturalized citizens who apply for security
clearances. U. S. agencies which assist in clearance investigations
abroad should recognize the critical importance of this task to national
security and prioritize their efforts accordingly.
12. Responsible government agencies should increase efforts in the area of
personnel security research to develop appropriate investigative
strategies and procedures and to identify, where possible, areas of
personnel vulnerability. Hearing testimony indicated that, at least in
the Defense Department, there has been no significant dedication of
resources for furthering study in this area, despite its growing
importance to our national security.
13. Congress should consider the need for legislation clearly specifying that
the Merit Systems Protection Board is authorized to review employment, as
opposed to security, decisions. The Board, whose expertise does not
encompass questions of national security, should not be engaged in the
denial or reinstatement of security clearances.
14. The government should determine the feasibility of utilizing available
technology for the encoding of classified documents to prevent their
unauthorized duplication and removal. If feasible, this technology should
be implemented as soon as possible on, at the least, a prioritized basis
determined by the sensitivity and vulnerability of the material involved.
15. Continuing security awareness programs on behalf of federal agencies and
industrial contractors should be given the highest priority. These
programs should emphasize the harsh realities and grave personal
consequences of espionage in an attempt to dispel popular misconceptions
of espionage as an often glamorous and intriguing adventure.
16. Within the Department of Defense, all industrial clearance adjudication,
including Special Access Programs (SAP) or Sensitive Compartmented
Information (SCI) procurements, should be consolidated. According to
hearing testimony, the present division of adjudication authority
generates inconsistency, unpredictability and duplication of effort within
the Department of Defense clearance system.
17. Under current rules, contractors who reduce security costs have a
competitive advantage in the bidding process. Current Federal Acquisition
Regulations should be reviewed to determine whether they can be modified
to segregate security costs from those overhead rate determinations used
for the award of contracts. Testimony suggested that the current
inclusion of security costs in overhead gives contractors a "disincentive"
to strengthen and improve security programs.
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/10/07: CIA-RDP87-00812R000200090011-5
 Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/10/07: CIA-RDP87-00812R000200090011-5
18. Defense Investigative Service (DIS) and Office of Personnel Management
(OPM) investigators are not currently authorized to use the National Crime
Information Center (NCIC) data bank. Law enforcement agencies routinely
use that data bank to quickly obtain updated criminal record information.
The Attorney General should proceed with arrangements for both the Defense
Investigative Service and Office of Personnel Management to be granted
access to the National Crime Information Center by the Board of Governors.
for to clcriminal
earance
unavailable cess
Use of wthe hiche are often otherwise facilitate
records
investigations.
19. Government agencies and contractors should emphasize and strictly adhere
to the "need to know" standard in submitting clearance requests. Greater
responsibility should be delegated to the employers of cleared personnel,
including contractors, to "prescreen" individuals submitted for
clearances. In order to strengthen their incentive to eliminate
unnecessary clearances, the costs of investigations conducted by the
Defense Investigative Service should be charged to the appropriate DOD
service or agency, similar to the system now employed by the Office of
Personnel Management. Contractors should be charged for the cost of any
DIS investigations requested beyond established quotas for those
Service
requests.Under rerules, costs a Investigative by those
investigations are covered y the DIS budget, rather
agencies requesting the investigations.
20. The requirements for cleared personnel and facilities vary in response to
federal budget priorities. To meet uneven demand, the Office of Personnel
Management and the Department of State have instituted plans of
contracting with experienced outside investigators who can be called upon
during surge periods, thus delivering adequate investigative products
without unnecessarily expanding the permanent federal workforce. All
agencies responsible for conducting personnel security investigations
should examine the feasibility of, and consider, following this procedure
during surge periods.
21. Currently, only three professional employees in the Department of Defense
are responsible for policy operations for what amounts to the largest
personnel security program in the free world. More realistic staffing
would help eliminate the need to periodically create oversight committees
to propose reforms of the program. The office in DOD dealing with
adequately
personnel
ande funded so polic be enhanced
staffed
security program.
22. In keeping with these recommendations, the Subcommittee commends the work
of the Department of Defense Industrial Security Review Committee as set
forth in its December 1984 report. The Committee's analysis of the
Defense Industrial Security Program was extremely helpful to the
Subcommittee in identifying and examining major shortcomings within the
program. The Subcommittee recommends that the Department of Defense
review and implement where feasible the Committee's recommendations for
improvement of the Industrial Security Program, with particular emphasis
on those portions dealing with the enhancement of personnel security
investigative standards; the reduction of industrial clearances; increased
and improved security requirements for industrial contractors - including
strict monitoring of after-hours access; and revision of the industrial
security inspection system.
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/10/07: CIA-RDP87-00812R000200090011-5