Firm that checked NSA leaker being probed

[alp227]

Source: AP

The government contractor that performed a background investigation of the man who says he disclosed two National Security Agency surveillance programs is under investigation, a government watchdog said Thursday.

Patrick McFarland, the inspector general at the Office of Personnel Management, said during a Senate hearing that the contractor USIS is being investigated and that the company performed a background investigation of Edward Snowden.

McFarland also told lawmakers that there may have been problems with the way the background check of Snowden was done, but McFarland and one of his assistants declined to say after the hearing what triggered the decision to investigate USIS and whether it involved the company's check of Snowden.

"To answer that question would require me to talk about an ongoing investigation. That's against our policy," Michelle Schmitz, assistant inspector general for investigations, told reporters after the hearing. "We are not going to make any comment at all on the investigation of USIS."

Read more: http://bigstory.ap.org/article/senator-firm-checked-nsa-leaker-being-probed

---

See also washington post "Firm that did background check on Snowden is under investigation"

[longship]

1. D'ya think they may have screwed up?

Nawwwww!

Nothing to worry about here. Don't mind the big security leak goin' on over there. Nothing to see here.

We did nothing!!! Nothing at all! So it's not our fault.

[Zen Democrat]

2. What about his security clearance at the CIA. He worked there.

[longship]

12. Nope.

And I used to have a DOD secret. I wouldn't have approved the guy.

[DURHAM D]

3. I am shocked.

What could possibly go wrong with for profit contractors doing the clearance checks on the for profit contractors?

Fascism should rightly be called Corporatism, as it is the merger of corporate and government power.
Benito Mussolini

I want my portion of the treasury that is currently going out to private contractors for work that should be being done by our government to be shifted to some program that benefits the poor.

------------------------
ETA: The second linked article is a must read. The Office of Personnel Management is a giant cluster fuck of fabricated clearance checks.

Quotes from that article:

McCaskill, chairwoman of the other subcommittee, was skeptical about the use of so many contractors doing background checks. USIS, she said, gets $45 million a year for administrative support “to do office work,” plus “several hundred million dollars a year to do background checks.” It takes 999 people to do the office work; only 35 are federal employees.

“Why are we paying contractors instead of hiring people?” McCaskill wanted to know.

An OPM official said contractors cost less but acknowledged that the agency had no cost-benefit analysis.
“I’m tired of this assumption being made that contractors are cheaper” when some studies show they are more expensive, McCaskill said.

Sometimes, the investigators need to be investigated.

Since 2006, 18 investigators and record searchers have been criminally convicted, according to the inspector general.

“One of the most flagrant criminal violations that we encounter is the falsification of background investigation reports,” McFarland said in testimony submitted for the hearing. “We refer to these as ‘fabrication cases.’ ”

[PSPS]

4. Yes, how did someone unwilling to betray american values get a security clearance? Right?

[delrem]

14. Nail, THWACK, is in.

[Iliyah]

5. Regardless of what went wrong

plan b c d and e have rolled in so whatever is being exposed now and in the future has been revised to the max. National Security = NSA's ability on spying has improved for better or worst, therefore what Snowden and Greenwald did and still doing just secured NSA's resolve for many years to come.

[davidpdx]

10. If the only thing that came out of this is them getting rid of the damn contractors

I'd take it. I still think they need to explain what the NSA is doing as well as any breaches in security. As I said in another post below the outsourcing of the background checks really pisses me off.

[ReRe]

16. Whatever they do, it's going to take...

... quite a while to do it. If they did this all at once, it would be like sending the 11 million undocumented Mexicans back to Mexico all at once. Guess they could just federalize all the employees and kick the PRIVATE CONTRACTOR (PC) management out the door and replace them with government management. Remember, 70% of the intel budget goes to PCs. And there's around 1,000 of them. Guess they could just federalize the PC's, lock stock and barrel.

Things need to be rolled back to pre-9/11 status, do away with the Patriot Act and stop all this extra snooping on the American public. This is another reason our economy is so effed up and it's taking so long to get back on our feet.

[okaawhatever]

23. Ditto. I was also a little concerned about the apparent question in his job history.

When I read about the "probe" into the contract background check people it said the questionable portion was whether they missed something in his job history. I think the term used was they hadn't "satisfactorily explained" job discrepancies. (I guess he didn't list China as a reference LOL). I would have thought his time with the CIA would have been in a computer. How is that cia work history isn't recorded somewhere. Is it something they have to call and say, "Hello CIA, this is NSA can you tell me if Snowden worked for you?"


p.s. the contractors should be intervaginally probed.

[timdog44]

6. It seem that

there are so many in the surveillance business that most of us are the only ones not in the know. When you have hundreds of thousands and maybe over a million in the America who "top secret" clearance, it is all a joke.

The surveillance is not a joke, just to clarify, it is a joke that so many can know all this and keep it secret.

[Raine1967]

7. The most Effed up thing here is this:

Clearances are outsourced.

[davidpdx]

9. I agree, see below for my rant

[davidpdx]

8. This pisses me off more than the allegations about the NSA

I believe within the last week I made a comment that the whole contracting thing is just asking for trouble. The fact that one contractor is doing backgrounds that are fake for another contractor is just ludicrous. Why aren't these being done within the Department of Homeland Security? We shouldn't be handing out security clearances like they are candy. I happened to catch this on TV a few minutes ago where they said one person did a whole bunch of fake background checks and then it turns out, yes you guessed it, her own background check was faked. Senator McCaskill said that she thought it would be more efficient and cheaper to have a computer do the checks and have fewer people who specialize in doing fieldwork to do follow ups when needed. It seems like the money saved from that would allow the government to bring the background checks in-house to the DHS where they belong.

[DURHAM D]

11. This is what really pisses me off as well.

I have been trying to find out for more than a week if the private contractors were being cleared by private contractors. More than one DUer informed me in no uncertain terms that the clearance checks were still done by the "government" and I was barking up the wrong tree.

I hope they are paying attention now.

So damn aggravating. Glad Senator McCaskill is on tv talking about this.

[davidpdx]

15. I think it is a very valid point

The people that are behind the program ARE important and we should be reassured that they are federal employees (not working for contractors) and they have gone through thorough background checks. Given the information that is coming out now, it very much makes me wonder how many people in these various firms could have criminal convictions. We don't know.

Up until now the TP from those who support Snowden has been it isn't about him. I think this very much changes the conversation in that it is about EVERYONE who has a security clearance who work for contractors including Snowden. You can't very well complain about the govt doing what they are doing without realizing that the people behind the scenes are a crucial part of it and so is their background.

[Raine1967]

18. This does indeed change the conversation.

Government should be the ones who decide who gets these clearance and government only.

A coworker of my husband left the company for another job. He needed a security clearance. About a week after he announced he was leaving, we had a card left by a field agent from the FBI saying basically they wanted to talk to my husband -- who was listed a reference-- about his former co-worker.

That is really not a big deal -- its pretty par for the course when it comes to Gov contracting jobs like that -- what has me really curious at this point is this: did a company like USIS ask the FBI to interview my husband or is the FBI supplying that information to a private company?

This is INCREDIBLY effed up -- and this is how we have a guy like Snowden sitting in Hong Kong - with state secrets (possibly) claiming he's ready to blow the lid on a lot of things.

I hate this.

[davidpdx]

19. That is interesting about your husband's co-worker

I agree the situation need to be taken more seriously and very strenuous background checks need to be taking place. As for Snowden, only time will tell where that goes.

[LeftInTX]

13. Fox was actually covering this!

Even they were disgusted

(Fox was on at the gym when I was working at out.)

[Kolesar]

17. "Totally screwed up letting...er, uh,...our hero get clearance...uh, don't wanna talk about it"

Paulites' heads explode
"Where do you go putting that story up on the forum!?"

[madville]

20. It's not hard to get a clearance if one is truthful on the application

That's what they mainly look for, dishonesty. For example, you smoked pot in high school? No big deal as long as you admit it on the application and they don't find out when they interview former high school classmates.

[NotHardly]

21. Investigate the first firm that hired Snowden

Should probably investigate CIA as well, they hired him first!

[politicaljunkie41910]

22. Blame Cheney and Rumsfield. Cheney began the process of contracting out what previously were

government in-house jobs starting back when he was Defense Secretary under Bush 41 and he oversaw the first Gulf War. It escalated once he left government and went to work as the CEO for Haliburton (which is what made him a millionnaire) and suddenly jobs formerly done by the military were being contracted out at a cost of 2-3 times what soldiers made for doing the same job. Then he comes back into government as Bush 41's VP and then we have government outsourcing of jobs on steroids. And don't be fooled. There is no cost savings going on. The contracted employees make 2-3 times what government employees made, plus benefits, and they even began the process of pilfering off our best trained soldiers, to become their guns for hire. If you were a trained Navy Seal, why would you remain with the Navy when you can become one of KBRs guns for hire at 3 times the pay and no accountability for your screw ups.

[RobinA]

24. Why The Assumption

that a mistake was made? The guy didn't have "whistleblower" stamped on his forehead. The notion that they can just sense who is going to whistle blow or otherwise give up secrets is just nonsense. They and we like to think they have that power, but they don't.