[Infowarrior] - Ex- convicts and addicts may get DoD clearance

[Richard Forno]

Ex- convicts and addicts may get DoD clearance
The Hill ^ | 7/10/07 | Elana Schor and Roxana Tiron

Posted on 07/09/2007 7:03:30 PM PDT by JeanS

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1863350/posts

At the Pentagon¹s request, Senate defense authorizers tucked deep within a
defense bill a repeal of the department¹s restriction on granting security
clearances to ex-convicts, drug addicts and the mentally incompetent.

The repeal provision now is creating discord between the Senate Armed
Services and the Intelligence committees. In its markup of the 2008 defense
authorization bill, the Intelligence panel voted to delete the Armed
Services provision.

The fate of the provision could become a flashpoint this week as the Senate
takes up the bill.

The Senate Armed Services panel seeks to repeal a seven-year-old law that
established mandatory standards disqualifying certain people from receiving
security clearances.

Under the law, members of the military services, employees of the Department
of Defense or contractors working for the Pentagon cannot receive a security
clearance if they were convicted of a crime in any U.S. court and went to
prison for at least one year; if they are unlawful users of illegal
substances; if they are considered mentally incompetent or if they were
dishonorably discharged or dismissed from the armed forces.

According to the Senate Armed Services Committee report, the Department of
Defense requested the provision¹s repeal because the mandatory standards
³unduly limit the ability of the Department to manage its security clearance
program and may create unwarranted hardships for individuals who have
rehabilitated themselves as productive and trustworthy citizens.²

The law negatively affects individuals who have committed a qualifying crime
but have determined trustworthy by ³national adjudicative standards,²
according a Pentagon spokesman. Because the statute only applies to the
Pentagon, it hinders clearance reciprocity with other federal agencies, he
added.

The Senate Intelligence Committee, however, warned of the dangers of a
blanket repeal of the law, which could lead to unintended compromises or
mishandling of classified information.

In its report on the bill, the panel said the waiver authority provided to
the Pentagon to make the case for certain people who have either been
convicted of a crime or have been dishonorably discharged is sufficient in
providing flexibility.

Processing waivers can take up to 18 months, according to several industry
sources familiar with the process.

The panel also said ³an individual who is currently using illicit substances
or is mentally incompetent is not suited for access to classified
information.²

Although the Intelligence Committee voted 10-5 to oppose the Armed Services
panel and the Pentagon¹s stance, Chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) and two
other panel Democrats made an unexpected break with the majority of the
committee.

³As all other members, we would be deeply concerned about the grant of
security clearances to persons who have been imprisoned for more than a year
or who are current drug users,² Rockefeller and Sens. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.)
and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) wrote in an statement of ³additional views²
accompanying their panel¹s report on the bill.

But the three Democrats endorsed repealing the limit on security clearance
standards to expedite the ongoing joint effort to streamline the complex
system that began with the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act
of 2004, which consolidated the country¹s intelligence agencies under one
national director.

³[W]e have heard no reason to question Š the assessment of DoD and the Armed
Services Committee that national security can be protected without this one
DoD-specific statute,² the Democrats wrote.

Sen. Kit Bond (R-Mo.), vice chairman of the Intelligence Committee and a
fierce defender of classified-information safeguards, wrote his own
³additional views² with four fellow Republicans that strongly defended his
amendment.

The curb on giving clearances to felons and addicts is a ³reasonable measure
Š that should be preserved,² Bond wrote, with Sens. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine),
Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) and Richard Burr (R-N.C.).
³Further, we believe that we should give serious consideration to extending
similar security clearance restrictions to the rest of the Intelligence
Community.²

The Pentagon is the largest user and granter of security clearances in the
government, with 2.5 million clearances of the 3.2 million total, according
to 2006 Pentagon data.

The Department of Defense has been plagued for several years with a large
backlog of security clearances, and contractors with an already granted
security clearance have become a hot commodity.

Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) knows from one constituent that the restriction
‹ dubbed the Smith Amendment for its original author, former Sen. Bob Smith
(R-N.H.) ‹ would take away jobs and opportunities from ³hard-working
Americans who made mistakes in the past, but have served their time.²

He said the law does not affect one person alone, but people who have given
their ³blood, sweat and tears to this country,² and who have paid the price
for their mistakes.

A constituent in his district who had worked for DISA for 20 years and had a
security clearance despite a two-year jail term in the 1970s was facing the
prospect of losing a his job, benefits and retirement pay, Cummings said in
an interview.

Cummings, who introduced a separate bill in the House, stressed that the
Pentagon regularly runs security checks on all its employees.

³There is no need to include an added burden,² he said. ³I am very much
concerned about making sure that we in this post-9/11 period be very
careful.² He said the legislation provides the right balance in addressing
homeland security and protecting the rights of people who may have made
mistakes in the past but received security clearance ³over and over.²

Because President Bush has threatened to veto the defense authorization
bill, it is important to have a standalone bill that is supported by the
Pentagon, Cummings added.

Alan Chvotkin, senior vice president and counsel at the Professional
Services Council, said his organization has pushed for uniform standards
across the government for receiving security clearances.

³We have always supported a risk-based adjudication,² he added. ³No single
factor in and of itself should be the reason why [individuals] should be
denied a clearance. That should be a professional judgment by the
adjudicator.²

The number of people found ineligible for a DoD security clearance under the
provisions of the Smith Amendment is relatively small, said the Pentagon
spokesman.

³This is not some kind of affirmative action for convicts,² Steven
Aftergood, director of the Project on Government Secrecy at the Federation
of American Scientists, said. ³We¹re not talking about giving clearances to
psychopaths and drug dealers, but preserving the ability to employ people
who may have been convicted of a crime decades ago in a period of their life
they have long since outgrown.²

Removing the restriction opens the door to security clearances for
high-profile felons, such as I. Lewis ³Scooter² Libby, the senior White
House aide whose prison sentence was commuted by President Bush last week.

³Could a Scooter Libby be hired by DoD?² Aftergood said. ³The answer is, he
wouldn¹t be automatically disqualified.²