The federal government is in the midst of the biggest overhaul of the security clearance process in the program’s 50-year history, and COVID-19 is pushing some of those reforms along.
After the breach of Office of Personnel Management databases in 2015, the government began a comprehensive restructuring of the clearance process, including establishing the National Background Investigations Bureau, or NBIB. Last year, that office was officially dissolved and merged within the Pentagon’s Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency—formerly the Defense Security Service.
But the process and administrative changes created a hefty backlog of investigations and put a spotlight on archaic processes, such as requiring all interviews—neighbors, spouses, former colleagues—to be conducted in person.
“What we’re really trying to do is get people to work faster, have more mobility and ensure they’re trusted,” William Evanina, director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, told Nextgov last year ahead of the rollout of the new strategy: Trusted Workforce 2.0.
Under the new framework, a group of senior leaders—including Evanina, Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe, Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security Joseph Kernan and acting Deputy Director for Management at the Office of Management and Budget Mike Rigas, who is also serving concurrently as the acting director of the Office of Personnel Management—is working to remake the adjudication process, automate using technology where possible, and institute a continuous vetting process. This effort is one of the administration’s central Cross Agency Priority, or CAP, goals that underpin the President’s Management Agenda.
