How a mediocre resume like Snowden's can slip through the net of Top Security background checks
Today I got another notice in my email for a job: The Job title was Cyber Warrior, I clicked on it and looked a little further, my Cisco certifications would be very welcome, and even CISSP, as well as certification as Certified Ethical Hacker (yes, there is such a thing), most of these can be obtained without practical experience, just get a study guide and sit and pay for the exam. It is comparable to what we used to call "Paper" admins, that plagued MCSE certifications when LANS/System admin requirements became a scare skill set. The market was quickly flooded with folks that had the paper certification, but no actual experience, but knew enough to 'get by' initially, but as you worked with these people, it was evident that their knowledge was lacking. Companies were willing to look the otherway if the candidate did not have a degree.Combine that with an ability to slip through a shoddy process for Clearing people, and even though the spotlight is on BAH, they only rank 9th in the list of companies with federal contracts. The background checks go through what is the equivalent of a central clearing process.
So it always perplexes when I hear about people with actual IT experience that have been out of work for sometime..
Snowden’s path into secretive national security jobs has raised concerns about the system that outsources many of the government’s most sensitive background checks to an army of private investigators and pays hundreds of millions of dollars in federal contracts to companies that employ them. The company with the biggest share of contracts is under a federal investigation into possible criminal violations involving its oversight of background checks, officials familiar with the matter told The Associated Press. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the investigation.
USIS, which started out with 700 former government employees in 1996 and is now run by a private equity fund, dominates the background check industry, taking in $195 million in government payments last year and more than $215 million already this year.
The OPM turned to private security screeners in the late 1990s because of growing backlogs that were snarling the government’s hiring process. A force of 2,500 OPM investigators and more than 6,700 private contract screeners has sliced into those backlogs, reducing the time it takes on average for background screening by 9 percent in 2010. As of 2012, more than 4.9 million government workers held security clearances. Senior federal appointments are still carefully investigated by FBI agents, and the FBI and the CIA still maintain strong in-house screening staffs to vet their own sensitive positions. But privatization efforts started during the Clinton administration keep farming out work to contractors. The Defense Department turned over its screening work to OPM in 2004 and even intelligence agencies that conduct their own investigations relegate some checks to private companies.
The inspector general appointed to watch over the OPM, Patrick McFarland, said at a Senate hearing last month that there were problems with Snowden’s most recent screening before he was hired to work for defense contractor Booz Allen Hamilton Inc. as an NSA computer systems analyst. McFarland did not specify the problems, but he said Snowden was screened and approved last year by USIS. USIS is one of three top security companies — the others are KeyPoint Government Solutions Inc. and CACI Premier Technology Inc. — working under a five-year contract with the OPM worth a total of $2.4 billion. The inquiry into USIS’ conduct is unusual in its focus on an entire company, but law enforcement authorities repeatedly have zeroed in on individual background check investigators in recent years for falsifying reports. At least seven private contract and 11 government investigators have been convicted since 2005, authorities said. Currently, authorities are probing nearly 50 separate cases of alleged falsification by screeners.
The prosecutions have included a young CIA background investigator sentenced to two months in jail in 2010 for fabrications in 80 different reports, and two USIS screeners convicted separately in January and in April for making false statements in background check reports. One convicted USIS screener, Bryan Marchand, had not conducted the interview or obtained the record in more than four dozen reports he submitted to federal agencies, according to the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington. A series of spot checks on the OPM’s screening system in 2009 and 2010 by McFarland’s office hinted at lapses by USIS and other private companies. The inspector general warned the OPM that USIS did not flag misconduct issues to OPM within the required time frame. Baer, who underwent numerous screenings as a CIA operative and whose wife once worked as a background investigator, said that private contract screeners are often paid low wages and pressured by their bosses to meet crushing deadlines — working conditions that could lead to sloppy investigations and cover-ups. Several former background investigators have sued government contractors in recent years for lost overtime and other wages
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/how-did-snowden-make-it-through-the-federal-background-check-system.php
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