By Joseph Marks – DefenseOne | April 27, 2017
The government’s failure thus far to fix long delays and dangerous imprecision in the government’s security clearance and vetting system is one of James Clapper’s greatest regrets from his time in office, the former Director of National Intelligence said Wednesday.
Clapper’s 6-year tenure included National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden’s release of thousands of documents about government surveillance programs.
The government has experimented since the Snowden breach with continuous analysis systems that look for anomalies in how and when employees access sensitive information and with continuous evaluation programs that scour public records about employees, such as divorces, arrests, public social media and home sales and purchases. Those programs are not yet universal, however, and most continuous evaluation programs remain in pilot phase.
Standing up those programs won’t guarantee there isn’t another damaging leak of sensitive information from the intelligence community, Clapper said during the Gigamon Federal Cybersecurity Summit, but it will dramatically lower the chances.
“The clearance system we have is broken,” he said.
The government must also ensure that its updated vetting system for security clearances is capable of tracking employees and contractors as they move from company to company, from contract to contract, and in and out of the federal government, Clapper said.
Clapper is concerned, however, that continuous evaluation could turn off some prospective intelligence community employees, he said.
“They’re going to say: ‘This is just too much big brother. There’s too much invasiveness and intrusiveness in my life and so I don’t think I’m going to work here.’ I do worry about that,” he said.
The best answer, he said, isn’t to pare back those programs but “some very aggressive creative and sensitive education for the workforce.”
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By Joseph Marks | April 27, 2017
Joseph Marks covers cybersecurity for Nextgov. He previously covered cybersecurity for Politico, intellectual property for Bloomberg BNA and federal litigation for Law360. He covered government technology for Nextgov during an earlier stint at the publication and began his career at Midwestern newspapers covering everything under the sun. He holds a bachelor’s degree in English from the University of Wisconsin in Madison and a master’s in international affairs from Georgetown University.
