The law is reflects many of the recommendations of the independent
“9/11 Commission,” which proposed a sweeping reorganization
of the U.S. intelligence structure. One of the major changes was
the creation of a national director to oversee intelligence agencies
across the federal government, to propose and oversee a unified
budget and to serve as the principle intelligence adviser to the
president. In addition, this law:
New policies and procedures for granting and re-investigating security
clearances have been long in coming and are critically needed. Although
new procedures were not included in the 9/11 Commission report,
Congress, well aware of the current shortfalls in the security clearance
program, believed this was the appropriate vehicle to include major
revisions to this program.
As reported in the December issue of National Defense, current
security clearance investigations are not only slow—in some
cases up to 18 months—but the entire clearance program lacks
standardization and reciprocity among defense and intelligence agencies.
The new law, as soon as fully implemented, will improve the process
significantly.
Not later than 90 days after enactment (or March 22), the president
is required to select a single department, agency or element of
the executive branch to:
Within 180 days of enactment (in other words, by June 20), the
president must select a single agency of the executive branch to
conduct security clearance investigations for the entire federal
government.
Within 12 months of enactment, the director of the Office of Personnel
Management is required to establish and maintain an integrated,
secure database, which can receive information concerning the granting,
denial or revocation of a security clearance from all authorized
investigative agencies.
The organization selected by the president to coordinate this process
is to develop a plan that, within two years of the law’s signing,
makes determinations on at least 80 percent of all applications
for personnel security clearances within an average of 120 days
after the receipt of a completed application, and within 5 years,
makes a determination on at least 90 percent of all applications
within an average of 60 days.
Once implemented, all of these new procedures will make significant
improvements in a broken and dysfunctional security clearance program.
For the U.S. defense industry to be effective and cost efficient,
timely access to required security clearances are an imperative.
The timelines set out in the legislation appear to be reasonable.
It will be up to the administration to embrace and fund these needed
reforms, and to execute this new program quickly and effectively.