REPORT OF AUDIT - THE AGENCY'S SECURITY CLEARANCE PROCESS

• Document Type: SPECIALCOLLECTION
• Collection: FOIA Collection
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 06408119
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 22
• Document Creation Date: March 16, 2022
• Document Release Date: November 10, 2016
• Case Number: F-2014-02626
• Publication Date: June 30, 2003

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' SEC TMC1
CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
Office of Inspector General
REPORT OF AUDIT
(U) The Agency's Security Clearance Process
30 June 2003
DATE ISSUED
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Report of Audit
(U) The Agency's Security Clearance Process
(U) EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
(U) OBJECTIVE
(U) The objective of the audit was to determine whether the Agency
conducts security clearance investigations and adjudicates the results of
those investigations in an efficient manner and in keeping with sound
security management practices.
(U) BACKGROUND
(C) A security clearance represents a determination that an individual is
eligible for access to classified information of a designated level. During
ffip�od 1 April 2001 through 31 March 2002, the Agency processed
ecurity clearances for applicants, staff employees, and contractor
representatives.
(UHAIU0) Within the Agency, the Office of Security (OS) is responsible
for granting security clearances to individuals before the Agency gives them
access to classified material. For staff applicants, the Recruitment Center
and the Office of Medical Services (OMS) make determinations regarding
suitability of individuals to become Agency employees. The Recruitment
Center is responsible for prescreening applicants for suitability issues and
for scheduling medical and polygraph examinations. OMS conducts
physical and psychological evaluations of applicants.
(C) Case managers within OS's Clearance Division recommend whether to
grant security clearances for individuals based on information collected.
Case managers rely on information from the polygraph examination, the
background investigation, and other personnel security sources in making
their decision.
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(U) RESULTS IN BRIEF
(UHAIU0) We found that OS follows security clearance practices that
comply with applicable regulations and that OS compiles comprehensive
evidence to support security clearance decisions. We also found that OS has
taken some steps to improve the timeliness of the clearance process by
reinforcing the authority of the Recruitment Center related to the processing
of applicants and-empowering case managers to take actions necessary to
complete the adjudication of cases.
(S) Statistics provided to Agency senior management regarding the time
required to process applicants for security clearances do not present a
complete picture of the length of time it takes to clear applicants. Agency
officials established a median goal of 120 days to clear staff applicants for
security clearances. We applied the methodology used by OS and
determined that the median time to process all applicants during the period
1 April 2001 through 31 March 2002 was 108 days. This is within the
median goal of 120 days, but the methodology is misleading because it
includes applicants who were not granted a security clearance and
individuals who received a clearance outside of the normal process.'
(S) In reality, the Agency cleared within 120 days only 25 percent of the
applicants processed during the timeframe who went through the normal
process and were granted a security clearance. Inclusion of the processing
time for individuals who did not receive a clearance or complete the normal
process understates the time reported for processing new applicants.
(S) In addition, use of the median statistic does not provide a complete
picture of applicant processing time. For the period 1 April 2001 through
31 March 2002, the median processing time for all applicants was 108 days,
but the average (mean) processing time was 170 days. Processing times for
applicants who exceeded the median ranged from 109 to 1,355 days; the
time for 25 percent of the applicants exceeded 200 days. For those who
went through the normal process and were granted a clearance, the median
time was 128 days; the mean time was 188 days.
(UHARTO) For the timeframe that we reviewed, the adjudication process
represented a significant portion of the total processing time. We found that
there were no established milestones, and senior case managers did not
perform periodic supervisory reviews in the applicant, reinvestigation, and
I (UHARJO) As used in this report, the term "normal process" refers to completing all the steps
through which an applicant would process. These include the prescreening for suitability, the
physical examination and the psychological assessment, the polygraph examination, the
background investigation, and the adjudication determination.
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industrial branches to ensure that all cases are adjudicated as quickly as
possible. Case managers work independently to prioritize and complete
adjudication of their cases, and there is little oversight of their progress or
the status of cases.
(U) SUMMARY OF RECOMMENDATIONS
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(U) MANAGEMENT COMMENTS AND OUR EVALUATION
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(UllAIU0) The scope of the audit included a review of the efficiency of the
security clearance process for all categories of personnel, including applicants,
staff reinvestigations, industrial contractors, and operational cases. Because
only applicant processing had a stated goal or criteria for granting security
approvals-120 days as depicted in the CBJ�we concentrated our audit effort
on measuring the Agency's success in processing applicants against that goal.
However, the audit review of the efficiency of the adjudication process was
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conducted not only for applicants, but also for staff reinvestigations and
industrial contractors. The sample period used during the audit, 1 April 2001
to 31 March 2002, was selected to provide us with the most recent information
regarding the processing of security clearances.
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(C) In our opinion, using the mean number of days to measure success for
approving applicants for employment is reasonable. The median is insensitive
to large, outlying values. This property is a defect when looking at a
performance metric for a production process, such as the granting of security
clearances. By using the median as a measure of the security clearance
process, OS emphasizes the success of 50 percent of the applicants who
obtained security clearances within the 120-day goal and diverts attention from
applicant cases that significantly exceed that goal. We do not advocate
eliminating the median to report applicant processing time, but recommend
that OS supplement its reporting by also showing the mean processing time.
(C) We measured the timeliness of the security clearance process for staff
applicants in accordance with the goals set forth by the Agency and
communicated to Congress in the CBJ. Including individuals who are quickly
eliminated from consideration for staff employment or individuals who
because of special circumstances received a security clearance in a matter of
days does not present a fair representation of the Agency's performance in
approving applicants for employment with the Agency.
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\ OS currently provides Agency management with only one measurement
of applicant processing time (the median), and we believe that is misleading.
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(U) TABLE OF CONTENTS
(U) OBJECTIVE, SCOPE, AND METHODOLOGY 1
(U) BACKGROUND 2
(U) Office of Security 3
(U) Clearance Division 3
3
(U) 4
(U) The Recruitment Center 4
(U) Office of Medical Services 4
(U) DETAILED COMMENTS 5
(U) Security Clearance Investigations Comply With
DCID 6/4 and Agency Regulation 10-1 5
(U) Actions Taken by the Agency to Improve the
Applicant Security Clearance Process 5
(U) Reporting of Applicant Processing Time to Senior
Management Needs To Be More Comprehensive 6
(U) Applicants Who Did Not Receive Security
Clearances 7
(U) Some Individuals Did Not Go Through the
Normal Clearance Process 8
(U) Other Statistical Measures May Be More
Insightful 8
(U) Adjudication of Cases Could Be Improved 11
(U) List of Recommendations Exhibit A
(U) Audit Team Members Exhibit B
(U) Polygraph Division
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(U) OBJECTIVE, SCOPE, AND METHODOLOGY
(U) The objective of the audit was to determine whether the Agency
conducts security clearance investigations and adjudicates the results of those
investigations in an efficient manner and in keeping with sound security
management practices.
(UHATUO) We reviewed Agency and Intelligence Community
directives that establish personnel security policies, procedures, and
standards for granting security clearances. We evaluated internal Agency
studies, Office of Inspector General inspection reports, and other Federal
agency audit reports that deal with the security clearance process. We
discussed with Agency security personnel and with personnel at other
Federal agencies actions planned or taken to automate their security
clearance process and personnel security files.
(UHAIU0) We discussed the security clearance process with managers
from the Office of Security (OS), the Recruitment Center, and the Office of
Medical Services (OMS) to determine the current procedures to process
personnel for Agency security clearances. We met with personnel from the
Counterintelligence Center to evaluate procedures for performing name
traces of personnel identified during the security clearance process. We also
obtained flow charts that delineated the process to grant security clearances
to staff and contract applicants and to renew security clearances for current
Agency staff and contract personnel.
(UHAIU0) We interviewed program managers senior case
managers, and�Ccase managers who adjudicate cases within the Office
of Security's Clearance Division to obtain general informatiogarding the
adjudication process. We met withn Agency managers an recently
hired employees to discuss their opinions about the timeliness of the (b)(3)
security clearance process.
(131/AIU0) From the Agency's
database, we selected a statistical sample of 107 security files of individunls
who received security clearances during the periods 1 April 1999 through
31 March 2000 and 1 April 2001 through 31 March 2002. We assessed
whether the data collected and used by the OS to compute and report
processing times was accurate and agreed with supporting documentation
contained in personnel security files. We also reviewed the files to determine
if the information required by DCID 6/4, Personnel Security Standards
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Governing Eligibility for Access to Sensitive Compartmented Information
(SCI) was collected. We did not assess the quality of background
investigations. The Office of Inspector General reported on issues related to
background investigations in the Inspection Report of the Central Intelligence
Agency's Operational Counterintelligence and Counterespionage Programs,
dated February 2003.
(UHAIU0) We reviewed the processing times for Agency applicants,
current staff employees, and contract employees who received security
clearances during the periods 1 April 1999 through 31 March 2000 and
1 April 2001 through 31 March 2002. We calculated the processing times
for each step of the security clearance process to identify areas where
significant elapsed time had occurred.
(UHAIU0) We conducted our audit work at Agency facilities within
the Washington, D.C. area from March 2002 to October 2002. Our audit
was performed in accordance with generally accepted government auditing
standards. Comments on a draft of this report were provided by officials
from OS and OMS and were considered in the preparation of the final
report.
(U) BACKGROUND
(S) Executive Order 12968, Access to Classified Information, requires
that all Federal agencies establish a security program to ensure individuals
are cleared before they are given access to classified material. A security
clearance represents a determination that an individual is eligible for access
to classified information of a designated level. Agency Regulation 10-1,
Security Clearances, Accesses, and Approvals, defines a security clearance as
"a formalization of a security determination that an individual is authorized
access, on a 'need-to-know' basis, to a specific level of classified information
(that is, TOP SECRET, SECRET, CONFIDENTIAL)." According to OS
records, the Agency processedn7individuals for security clearances
during the period 1 April 2001 through 31 March 2002.
(UHAIU0) Director of Central Intelligence Directive (DCID) 6/4,
Personnel Security Standards Governing Eligibility for Access to Sensitive
Compartmented Information (SCI), sets forth policy to protect classified
information through the application of personnel security standards,
procedures, and continuing security programs. Among other things, DCID 6/4
requires a background investigation and verification of all information
provided by an applicant before an individual is granted a Top Secret security
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clearance. Agencies may require polygraph examinations when deemed
necessary by the agency head.
(U) Office of Security
(UHAIU0) OS is responsible for granting or determining the eligibility
of individual% to receive an Agency security clearance. The Polygraph and
Investigations Divisions within OS collect information, which is then
forwarded to Clearance Division to assess whether an individual meets the
standards to be cleared for access to classified material required under DCID
6/4 and Agency Regulation 10-1.
(U) Clearance Division
(S) The Clearance Division is the hub for all security clearance
processing. It is responsible for monitoring and tracking the progress of
assessments occurring on individuals being processed for access to Agency
activities, information, and facilities. In the Clearance Division, case
managers work
Case managers (adjudicators) recommend whether to grant
a security clearance based on their analysis and adjudication of the
information collected about an individual; in particular, data obtained from
the background investigation and the polygraph examination. Senior case
managers approve or disapprove the recommendation.2
(U) Polygraph Division
(UHAIU0) The Polygraph Division is responsible for conducting
polygraph examinations on individuals as part of the Agency security
clearance process. The type of polygraph depends on the status of the
individual
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After the
polygraph examination is administered, the results are passed to the
responsible case manager within one of Clearance Division's
adjudication programs.
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(U)
(UHAIU0) is responsible for administering
background investigations of Agency employees, applicants, and contractors.
Background investigations include interviews with the individuals being
investigated, with their designated references, and with other individuals who
have been referred by these references. The investigations also include police
record checks and interviews with neighbors who live in close proximity to the
individual. For staff applicants, the background investigation is usually
conducted after completion of the polygraph examination. As with the
polygraph examination results, forwards the summary
of the background investigation to the appropriate case manager within
Clearance Division.
� (U) The Recruitment Center
(UHAIU0) The Recruitment Center is responsible for recruiting Agency
employees, coordinating and supporting recruitment initiatives, monitoring
hiring requirements, and prescreening applicants for suitability issues. Once
an applicant returns the conditional offer of employment packet that
documents an intent to be employed with the Agency, the Recruitment Center
ensures that the information in the packet is complete and schedules the
medical and polygraph examinations for the applicant. If the Recruitment
Center notes adverse suitability issues during the prescreening process, the
applicant may be disqualified from further processing at that time. After the
Agency approves the applicant's security clearance, the Recruitment Center is
responsible for scheduling an entrance-on-duty date.
(U) Office of Medical Services
(UHAIU0) As part of the Agency's hiring process, OMS conducts
medical and psychological assessments of applicants. The medical
assessment includes a physical evaluation that includes blood tests, hearing
and visual examinations, and an overall physical assessment.4 The
psychological evaluation requires the applicant to complete a mental health
questionnaire, undergo psychological testing, and meet with a psychologist or
psychiatrist for a suitability evaluation. OMS may disqualify an applicant if
adverse suitability issues arise from the physical or psychological
examinations. OMS shares its determinations with the Clearance Division.
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(U) DETAILED COMMENTS
(UHAIU0) The Agency conducts a security clearance investigation to
examine an individual's life history, character, trustworthiness, reliability,
and soundness of judgment before granting or renewing a security
clearance. We found that OS performs the investigations and adjudications
in accordance with sound security management practices. We also found
that the Agency has taken positive steps to improve the security clearance
process for applicants in the last two years. However, statistics reported to
Agency senior management regarding the time required to process
applicants do not present a realistic picture of how long it takes to clear
applicants. Although the Agency generally conducted security clearance
investigations efficiently, additional controls and oversight may help to
reduce the time expended to adjudicate cases.
(U) Security Clearance Investigations
Comply With DCID 6/4 and Agency
Regulation 10-1
(1.1//A1U0) OS security clearance practices comply with the requirements
of DCID 6/4 and Agency Regulation 10-1. These requirements include
completing the required background investigation, national and local agency
checks, credit checks, and polygraph examination. Our review of a sample of
investigations for Agency and contractor applicants and reinvestigations
for current Agency and contractor personnel indicated that OS compiled a
comprehensive file of evidence to support the decisions to grant security
clearances to new applicants or to renew security clearances for current
Agency and contractor personnel.
(U) Actions Taken by the Agency to
Improve the Applicant Security
Clearance Process
(S) The Agency has conducted numerous studies and reviews to
improve the timeliness of the applicant security clearance process. Among
the actions taken as a result of these studies are the following:
�
the Recruitment Center was to start
exercising its authority to withdraw a conditional offer of
employment to a staff applicant if they determine early in the
process that an applicant would not be approved for Agency
employment because of suitability issues. Prior to that time, the
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Recruitment Center did not withdraw a conditional offer of
employment until the OS case manager decided that the
applicant should not be granted a security clearance.
� OS placed an officer within the Recruitment Center to
improve overall coordination and expedite the processing of
applicants. One of the functions of the officer is to provide
oversight of Recruitment Center officers who screen personal
history statements for missing information and other issues
that may indicate potential suitability issues before the
applicant is scheduled for the polygraph interview,
medicallpsychological examination, and background
investigation.
� Case managers within the Clearance Division are empowered
to make unilateral decisions and take a more proactive
approach in completing individuals' security clearance cases.
For example, case managers can now contact applicants
directly for additional information. In the past, only the
Recruitment Center had the authority to directly contact
applicants for this purpose.
� In its correspondence requesting additional information
from applicants, the Recruitment Center now instructs the
applicant to respond with an answer by a given time period or
the Agency will discontinue processing the case for
employment.
(U) Reporting of Applicant Processing
Time to Senior Management Needs To
Be More Comprehensive
(S) The reporting of the time expended to process staff and operational
applicants for security clearances does not provide senior management with
a complete assessment of the actual time elapsed to clear applicants, and
therefore, may create a false impression of the actual success of the program.
During the period 1 April 2001 through 31 March 2002, OS processed
security clearance investigations and granted security clearances to
staff and operational applicants=
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(U) Applicants Who Did Not
Receive Security Clearances
(S) The processing time for applicants who did not obtain security
clearances was included in the reporting statistics. Based on data obtained
from OS, about percent of Agency applicants who start the security
process after their initial interviews either withdraw or are not cleared for
Agency positions. For example, during the period 1 April 2001 through
31 March 2002 percent) applicants did not obtain security
clearances. Applicants do not receive clearances because they withdraw
from the process due to personal reasons or are disqualified based on
6 (UHAIU0) The median is a value that represents the mid-point of a set of values, above and
below which lie an equal number of values. In this instance, the Agency meets the median goal
when OS clears 50 percent of the applicants put into process in 120 days or less.
7 (UHAIU0) As used in this report, the term "normal process" refers to completing all the steps
through which an applicant would process. These include the prescreening for suitability, the
physical examination and the psychological assessment, the polygraph examination, the
background investigation, and the adjudication determination.
(b)(1)
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suitability issues. Therefore, including the elapsed processing time for these
applicants distorted the reporting of the overall performance of OS in
granting security clearances to applicants.
(U) Some Individuals Did
Not Go Through the Normal
Clearance Process
(S) The statistics also included processing times for individuals who
received clearances but did not go through the normal applicant clearance
rocess. For example, during the period 1 April 2001 through 31 March 2002,
percent) individuals, who OS categorized as applicants,
received a secunty clearance within 60 days.8 Even more significant, OS
(b)(3) cleared f thes 'ndividuals in 10 days or less.
(S) To better understand the circumstances that permit the Agency to
grant security clearances to individuals in less than 60 days, we examined
the security files off of therindividuals who were cleared within
10 days. We noted that the four individuals were not Agency applicants
but were individuals who were granted a permanent or temporary security
clearance for various reasons. For example, OS granted a temporary
security clearance within one day to allow an individual to attend a two-day,
classified conference. After the conference, OS terminated the security
clearance. Another individual, a member of the DCI' s National Security
Advisory Panel, required access to classified material. Since he had
previously received a background investigation and a polygraph by the
Department of Defense, OS cleared him immediately. Inclusion of
individuals who have not completed all phases of the security process in the
processing statistics understates the time reported to clear new applicants.
(U) Other Statistical Measures
May Be More Insightful
(S) In our opinion, by using the median as the sole reported statistic,
Agency officials do not have a true picture of the overall applicant processing
time. For example, for the period 1 April 2001 through 31 March 2002, the
median time to process all applicants, based on the OS methodology, was
(b)(3) 108 dan The applicants who were processed in more than 108 days took
fro on�days to complete the process, with-7( percent) of the
apphcants requiring more than 200 days to process. Using the same data as
above, we determined that OS took an average (mean) of 170 days to process
8 (UHAII.10) Based on our review of the time required to complete all phases of the security
clearance process, we believe it would be highly unlikely that OS could complete the process in
less than 60 days.
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all applicants. This value is much closer to the six months that many in the
Agency believe it takes to clear a new applicant and may be a better indicator
of performance. In addition, for those staff applicants who went through the
normal process and were granted a security clearance, the median time was
128 days; the mean time was 188 days.
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(C) In our opinion, using the mean number of days to measure success
for approving applicants for employment is reasonable. The median is
insensitive to large, outlying values. This property is a defect when looking at
a performance metric for a production process, such as the granting of security
clearances. By using the median as a measure of the security clearance
process, OS emphasizes the success of 50 percent of the applicants who
obtained security clearances within the 120-day goal and diverts attention
from applicant cases that significantly exceed that goal. We do not advocate
eliminating the use of the median to report applicant processing time, but
recommend that OS supplement its reporting by also showing the mean time
to process applicants.
(C) We measured the timeliness of the security clearance process for
staff applicants in accordance with the goal set forth by the Agency and
communicated to Congress in the CBI Including individuals who are quickly
eliminated from consideration for staff employment or individuals who
because of special circumstances received a security clearance in a matter of
days does not present a fair representation of the Agency's performance in
approving applicants for employment with the Agency. We agree that OS
should track cases to ensure accurate budget and personnel requirements, but
to accurately report the time required to clear applicants it should include the
statistics of only those applicants who completed the normal process and
obtained clearances.
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(U) Adjudication of Cases
Could Be Improved
(S) During the period 1 October 2001 through 31 March 2002, we
determined that the time to complete the adjudication portion of the security
clearance process represented a significant portion total time to
complete the entire process. For example, a total o pplicants were
granted security clearances between 1 October 2001 and 31 March 2002; the
time to adjudicate their cases ranged between one clay and 647 days, with an
average of 62 days. We found that there were no established milestones or
periodic supervisory reviews conducted in the applicant, reinvestigation,
and industrial branches to ensure that all cases are adjudicated as quickly as
possible.
(UHAIU0) Once a case is ready for adjudication (when the background
investigation, polygraph, and all other required checks are completed), the
case file is passed to the appropriate adjudication office within the
Clearance Division. The case is reviewed, logged in, and placed in a
cabinet with other case files waiting to be adjudicated. A senior case
manager periodically selects case files from the cabinet and distributes them
to the case managers. Other than cases designated as a high priority, files
are distributed randomly among case managers. Each case manager has
about cases to be adjudicated at any one time. Once the case
managers adjudicate their cases, they pass them to the senior case manager
for review and concurrence. When the senior case manager concurs with
the decision of the case manager, the file is passed on to a processor, who
closes out the case in the database.
(UHAIU0) Individual case managers are not given deadlines for
completion of reviews and are not required to provide justification when the
cases remain open for an inordinate amount of time. In most instances, case
managers work independently to prioritize and complete cases. Some case
managers have developed their own systems for tracking cases, but no one
tracks all cases to ensure they are processed as quickly as possible.
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(UHAIIJO) Case managers only provide status reports to the senior
case manager when contentious issues arise during adjudication. Clearance
Division senior case managers have access to monthly Excel spreadsheets
that list pending cases. However, the senior case managers do not
periodically conduct status reviews of all pending cases; supervisory
reviews are generally conducted only after the case manager has completed
the review and made an adjudication decision. For example, OS completed
a reinvestigation of an Agency employee in 1,489 days-84 percent of the
time (1,252 days) was spent adjudicating the case. When we discussed this
case with a Clearance Division senior manager, he explained that senior
case managers would meet with case managers on a monthly basis to
discuss the 25 oldest cases assigned to the case manager. In this instance,
the case was not one of the 25 oldest and therefore was not discussed.
(UHAIU0) Establishment of time milestones for cases in adjudication
and regularly scheduled supervisory reviews of case manager workloads
would enable Clearance Division management to more accurately evaluate
the actions taken by the case managers and would better ensure that security
clearance decisions are made in a more timely manner.
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(b)(3)
(C) During our audit, we did not find evidence of specific mi es o e
relating to cases that we reviewed to ensure their prompt and efficient
completion. However, we do consider the indicated actions to improve the
timeliness of the adjudication process to be in accordance with the thrust of
our recommendation.
13
OCC�OrTHY1
Approved for Release: 2016/10/25 C06408119
Approved for Release: 2016/10/25 C06408119
SECRET//X1
Exhibit A
(U) List of Recommendations
(b)(5)
This Document is
Classified (U//AIU0)
SECRE17/X1
Approved for Release: 2016/10/25 C06408119
Approved for Release: 2016/10/25 C06408119
SECRET//X1
Exhibit B
(U) Audit Team Members
(IMAIU0) This audit report was prepared by the
Audit Staff, Office of Inspector General.
This Document is
Classified (UMMUO)
(b)(3)
(b)(3)
(b)(3)
RFCRE17/X1
Approved for Release: 2016/10/25 C06408119