-Caveat Lector-
08/20/99- Updated 12:35 AM ET
Security panel opposed
cost-cutting moves
By Edward T. Pound, USA TODAY
WASHINGTON - The general counsel of the Defense
Security Service was not the only official to oppose the
agency's decisions to relax investigative standards for
background reviews of employees of the military and
defense contractors.
Beginning in 1996, the Security Policy Board, an
interagency body of top security, defense and
intelligence officials, took issue with the policy
initiatives sponsored by the Defense Security Service.
Like Thomas Willess, the Security Policy Board thought
the initiatives were wrongheaded and contrary to
government regulations. Willess was the general counsel
until he was removed and transferred to another Defense
Department agency in September 1998.
Many agents who conduct background investigations
said in interviews with USA TODAY that they also
disagreed strongly with the policy changes. They said
they remain concerned that many candidates for security
clearances were cleared without complete background
checks.
Agencies doing background reviews on candidates for
security clearances must follow minimum,
governmentwide investigative standards. The standards
include reviewing financial and law-enforcement
records, verifying education, birth date and citizenship,
and interviewing neighbors and candidates.
In October 1996 the Security Policy Board, whose
members were appointed by President Clinton and
include the director of the Central Intelligence Agency
and top government officials, made its position clear. It
disagreed with the policy changes initiated by Margaret
Munson, then the director of the DSS. Munson has said
she initiated many changes to save money and modernize
the agency. She was succeeded by Steven Schanzer in
mid-1998.
Peter Saderholm, then staff director of the Security
Policy Board, said in a memo that the DSS was
undertaking initiatives "that run counter" to
governmentwide investigative standards. He wrote that
the security service was trying to save money at the
expense of thorough checks.
"Apparently, rather than fight for adequate funding,"
Saderholm said, the security service "has chosen an
assault on standards."
Saderholm cited a policy that eliminated many
neighborhood visits by agents, who would have checked
a candidate's lifestyle and interviewed neighbors. Under
Munson's policy change, the agency decided to
telephone many neighbors.
Willess, some of the agents and other officials in the
Defense Security Service believed that violated
government policy.
The Security Policy Board warned that the security
service was acting unwisely. The board's personnel
security committee said the unilateral changes would
"constitute a serious deterioration in the quality" of
investigations, according to the minutes of the
committee's meeting on Oct. 23, 1996.
The committee said the Security Policy Board was
created "to have all government agencies work together
in a cooperative and collaborative effort to develop new
policy."
The security service's unilateral action "will be
undermining the process in a way contrary to both law
and the wishes of the president." Government
regulations, the committee said, require "uniform,
governmentwide standards."
Nonetheless, the security service later broadened the
policy on reducing the number of neighborhood checks
and substituting telephone calls .
Agents were required to substitute telephone interviews
for in-person conversations with references, including
friends and employers. Again, Willess advised
superiors the initiative was wrongheaded.
Several agents and former security service officials told
USA TODAY that thousands of security checks did not
meet investigative standards. In many cases, they said,
some background reviews were done almost entirely
over the telephone. Agents derided the program, calling
it "Operation Phone to the Bone."
In an open letter to Munson in February 1998, an agent
in California, Tien Doan, expressed concern that the
policies would harm national security . "It may be hard
to remember but our ultimate mission, despite
revisionist interpretations to the contrary, is to help
safeguard national security," Doan wrote. "What price
do you put on that?"
The telephone policy was instituted as a way to speed
up completion times on background investigations.
Willess had argued against the policy. In a directive last
September, the Pentagon scrapped the policy, ordering
the security service to conduct almost all interviews in
person.
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