Security Clearances, the Supply and Demand of Them

The Hill reports today that the Pentagon is seeking "repeal of the department’s [seven year old] restriction on granting security clearances to ex-convicts, drug addicts and the mentally incompetent."

Good.

Lest the casual reader think the Pentagon has lost its wits entirely and seeks to share nuclear technology secrets with drug addled criminal psychopaths, the reality here is that lower level security clearances up to and including a "Secret" clearance are required simply to work in any capacity at all in many government installations. The laws of supply and demand, especially given the rapid growth of the Department of Homeland Security and the need for both federal and contractor personnel in other civilian agencies, for which the restrictions do not apply, have created a tremendous backlog of applicants seeking clearances for DoD jobs and artificially high (dare I say windfall profit level?) salary demands from those already possessing high level clearances. (Oh, by the way, did you know that the background checks for security clearances has, for the most part, been contracted out?)

Moreover, classified materials are not left strewn about the Pentagon or elsewhere in DoD facilities like so many FBI records cluttering the halls of the Rose Law Firm. The mere possession of a clearance does not entitle its holder to access to classified materials, one must also have a legitimate need for such access on a case by case basis.

I'll refrain from making the too obvious jokes about mental incompetence and elected officials, and note that the particular crime a felon has been convicted of may be entirely irrelevant to whether he is an acceptable security risk. More important in terms of sheer numbers of applicants, once again our idiotic War on Drugs is providing further evidence of the mental incompetence of its advocates. (Okay, so I couldn't resist.) One can certainly make the case that a prospective employee with an ongoing addiction to drugs or alcohol is not an acceptable risk. The notion that anyone ever convicted of mere possession of marijuana is an unacceptable risk is, by contrast, simply absurd.

The article ends with a bit of ax-grinding about whether repeal of the restrictions would permit recently convicted felon I. Lewis Libby to obtain a security clearance. The better question, I think, is whether the current restrictions would have prevented an even higher level official with a documented history of alcohol abuse to have ever gotten a security clearance in the first place. Of course, that would be an argument in favor of their retention. Never mind.