The Foreign Service Journal, March 2009

A s someone who has used com- puters for more than 25 years, I consider myself an expert on those programs I need to do my job. But aside from a vague notion that in- formation is changed into a binary form that corresponds to the opening and closing of circuits, I have no idea how a computer actually works. Until a few years ago, that was anal- ogous to my knowledge of security clearances — something I suspect is true of most Foreign Service person- nel. We know that clearances are based on the results of background in- vestigations into whether we follow the rules. But beyond that, we don’t think much about them. For me, that situation changed in 2003 when the clearance I had held for more than 20 years was suddenly sus- pended. Abruptly, I was brought face to face with an issue that potentially af- fects all of our careers. Over the past six years, I have de- voted my spare time not only to read- ing the applicable laws and regulations, but also to talking to experts. These range from lawyers who specialize in the subject and academics who study it, to people in State, the Central Intel- ligence Agency and the departments of Defense, Justice and Homeland Secu- rity, as well as members of Congress. I am also a founding member of Concerned Foreign Service Officers, an association of current and former employees of the foreign affairs agen- cies working to promote fairness, due process and compliance with govern- mentwide standards for security clear- ance adjudication (www.worldcrafters. com). As a member of its executive committee, I have spoken to dozens of State Department employees whose clearances were at one time suspended or revoked, and have read whatever documents related to their cases those employees were allowed to have. I can now call myself a well-informed ama- teur scholar of the subject. A Unique Process The first thing I learned is that the whole process is poorly understood — not only by most FSOs but also by sen- ior employees of the very entities within the State Department charged with overseeing it, such as the Diplo- matic Security and Human Resources bureaus, the Legal Adviser’s Office and the Office of the Inspector General. Some of those officials are on record as saying things that demonstrate that they view the process through a law- enforcement or disciplinary optic rather than as the unique process it is meant to be. This lack of understand- ing has caused irreparable damage to the careers and lives of many FSOs — and also, arguably, to our national se- curity, when innocent people, experts in their fields, have been removed from service for unjustified reasons. Executive Order 12968 defines a se- curity clearance as a decision that the personal and professional history of an American citizen indicates loyalty to the United States, strength of character, trustworthiness, honesty, reliability, dis- cretion and sound judgment, freedom from conflicting allegiances and poten- tial for coercion, and willingness and ability to abide by regulations governing classified information. There are 13 “adjudicative criteria for review” that must be considered when evaluating a person’s eligibility for a clearance. The evaluation should include “the careful weighing of a number of vari- ables known as the whole person con- cept. Available, reliable information about the person, past and present, fa- vorable and unfavorable, should be considered in reaching a determina- tion.” In a disciplinary or law enforcement case, the focus is on a person’s actions. Has someone broken a rule or a law? The way the Bureau of Diplomatic Security conducts security clearance adjudications raises serious concerns. S PEAKING O UT Twelve Recommendations to Improve the Security Clearance Process B Y D ANIEL M. H IRSCH M A R C H 2 0 0 9 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 13