On the recordJuly 23, 2013
I wish to engage in a colloquy with the chairman and the gentleman from Indiana on an issue regarding timeliness, accuracy, and the review of security clearance processing. As the chairman is aware, security clearances are necessary to protect our national security and are required for thousands of jobs. However, the length of time it takes to conduct the investigations, the quality of the investigations, and the continuous review of approved security clearances are three areas that could be improved. I believe that there is a solution to all three of these concerns, and it involves the leveraging of automated investigation tools already in existence. The Defense Department has within its subordinate activities the Defense Personnel Security Research Center, known as PERSEREC. It has researched and developed a number of automated toolsets that can reduce the time it takes to adjudicate investigations, to grade the quality of the investigations, to measure human error, and to provide a way to monitor and reaffirm granted clearances based on an analysis of human behavior. These computer programs could dramatically increase the quality of the investigations while at the same time saving money and shortening the time it takes to both approve and reinvestigate security clearances. These tools are already available today, but they have not been leveraged.…
