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Double standard for security clearance must end

According to two Washington insiders, Washington’s double standard regarding security clearance for Congress and staff is unacceptable.  When it comes to getting access to sensitive government information, Congress and other top-ranking political officials are not held to the same standards as employees who seek security clearance.

This security clearance double standard was exemplified by the recent bribery case involving former Representative Randy “Duke” Cunningham.  This Congressman had access to sensitive information while under federal investigation for the crime of bribery.  Had a federal investigation been conducted over a congressional employee’s illegal activity, access to sensitive information would have surely been denied.  According to Keith Ashdown of the Taxpayers for Common Sense, “Lawmakers should absolutely have to go through the same security clearance process as employees do.”

Under the current system of gaining security clearance, congressional staff and other federal employees are subject to scrupulous background checks and an intensive interview process before obtaining access to sensitive information.  If an investigation reveals that a security clearance applicant might pose a threat to national security, they can be denied security clearance.  “Risks” such as associating with people who have a criminal background, a history of alcohol abuse, financial problems, and other issues can be used to justify security clearance denial.

Meanwhile, members of congress are not subject to any type of background check.  They are merely asked to promise not to reveal any of the nation’s secrets.  That’s it.  According to a seasoned professional, Winslow Wheeler, with 31 years experience on Capitol Hill, members of Congress are granted security clearance simply by being elected.  Winslow worked for the Senate Budget Committee for six years as a security official.  He recently published a book about Congress and national security.

Ashdown and Wheeler have a different focus on what this lack of screening means for national security.  Ashdown, for example, points out that a history of alcoholism would preclude congressional staff from gaining security clearance.  He points out that, “there are more alcoholics [in Congress] than anywhere in the country.”  He stresses that Congress needs to be held to the same standards as any other person seeking security clearance.

Wheeler, on the other hand, says that if the system is working, there is no need to fix it.  His biggest concern concentrates on cases like the Cunningham bribery investigation.  Five months went by between the start of federal investigations into Cunningham’s illegal activity and the day he pled guilty to accepting $2.4 million in bribes from defense contractor MZM, Inc.  During these five months, Cunningham had full access to our nation’s sensitive information.  Wheeler argues that investigations should have immediately assessed his ethical violations to determine his fitness for security clearance.

The Cunningham case is just one example of how politics unfairly influence the security clearance process of the United States government.  In so many cases, employees are denied security clearance for ambiguous reasons, while dubious officials proceed without question.

Some experts believe situations like the Cunningham scandal turn the spotlight on a security clearance system that is broken and needs to be fixed.

 PELOSI'S SLAP AT SECURITY

HOUSE Speaker-to-be Nancy Pelosi intends to install Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-Fla.) as chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. But Hastings poses an incredible security risk.

He was removed from office as a federal judge in 1989 for taking a $150,000 bribe to render light sentences and other perks to two mobsters. And his latest disclosure forms list $2 million to $7 million in liabilities (mostly for legal fees).

Were Hastings a regular Joe applying for a security clearance of the lowest kind for a job at the CIA or FBI, he'd be rapidly and roundly denied. His history of public corruption, coupled with his precarious financial situation, makes him ripe to be targeted for espionage.

Most complaints about Hastings' possible installation hinge on the Democrats' hypocrisy - after all, they just won Congress by complaining about the GOP's "culture of corruption." Others note that Rep. Jane Harman, now the committee's top Democrat, is more qualified.

Yet the national-security issues are far more important. Those who know Hastings may protest, and loudly. But people with patterns of financial irresponsibility or corruption such as Hastings have proven to be security risks since time immemorial.

Consider the kind of information that would become immediately available to a Chairman Hastings - the most secret of top-secret information. Intelligence Committee members have access to what's called "top-secret special compartmentalized information" (TS-SCI). This stuff is so sensitive that its aspects are divided into four "compartments" so that anyone privy to one compartment will not have access to the other three. The subject matter includes cryptography, satellite intelligence, data on our intel agencies and details of our nuclear arsenal. Even if Hastings has access to only one of these areas, it would be incredibly risky.

It's hard to believe that such sensitive info could be so easily accessed by a man who once sold his office to two mobsters for $150,000. It's harder to believe that a responsible leader of either party would gladly want Hastings to take the reins of the intel committee.

This is also a slap in the face to everyone who works in our intelligence bureaucracies - earning a pittance compared to a member of Congress, and often waiting months or even years for the necessary background checks to do their jobs. It will be incredibly demoralizing to see a convicted bribe-taker get the chairmanship. One source who has waited over a year for a background check told me that it would be "hypocrisy" for Hastings to be the chair. Indeed, it's insult enough that he already sits on the committee.

There may even be a few who, for whatever reason, have been approached for information, and who now, seeing a corrupt official at the helm in Congress, will think, "Why not?"

Why not get someone else to lead the Intelligence Committee instead?

Rep. Pelosi claims to care to about these issues. She called the Plame scandal - involving the Bush administration's leak of Valerie Plame's status as a covert CIA operative - "an unprecedented and shameful event in American history" that had "damaged U.S. national security, specifically the effectiveness of U.S. intelligence-gathering." Her drive to put Hastings in charge of the Intelligence Committee suggests just the opposite: She's only interested in America's security when it suits her partisan agenda.