The Foreign Service Journal, November 2005

N O V E M B E R 2 0 0 5 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 7 Is Something Wrong at DS? I am an analyst for the National Ground Intelligence Center and com- mand a unit of the U.S. Army Reserve. I was disturbed by the recent coverage in the September Foreign Service Journal , the Washington Post and on NPR regarding the Bureau of Diplomatic Security, and want to share my own experience with your readers. Last year, a man I knew as a loyal American and a respected member of the Army Reserve unit I commanded had a promising State Department career derailed following the revoca- tion of his security clearance by Diplomatic Security/Personnel Secur- ity. That action followed a back- ground investigation by the Diplo- matic Security Bureau, during which I was interviewed. As an intelligence and former law- enforcement professional, I have used interviewing techniques I learned at the military police and intelligence schools and the Utah State Police Academy. I have myself been interviewed as part of back- ground investigations on other indi- viduals. By doctrine, these inter- views require the investigator to ask straightforward questions, taking care not to influence or direct the statements of the interviewee. Given the subjective nature of the clearance process, the investigator should faith- fully record the honest sentiments of the interviewee. I was stunned by the comportment of the DS special agent who interviewed me. That agent quickly made it clear that he had formed preconceived ideas prior to my interview, struggling to direct my statements to fit his par- adigm. My experiences with the sub- ject of the investigation had been favorable, but when I conveyed that to the DS agent, he became argu- mentative and aggressive. When I didn’t support his theories, he pres- sured me to agree with him and attempted to distort my own words to match his preconceptions. He used interview techniques more suited to browbeating a confession out of a criminal suspect than to eliciting information for an objective investiga- tion. He found very little of what I said worth recording, and I wonder now whether the interview was recorded faithfully. When it was clear I wouldn’t change my assessment of the employee, he terminated the interview, making it very clear that he held me in disdain. I am not a State Department employee and, thankfully, DS/PSS cannot influence my own TS/SCI clearance. However, had I been a State Department employee, I would have feared for my own clearance and felt very intimidated by the agent's bullying. If my experience is any indi- cation, there might be something very wrong in DS. Ruben G. Toyos Lieutenant Colonel, U.S. Army Reserve Charlottesville, Va. It Could Be You The September issue focusing on diplomatic security raises more ques- tions in my mind than it answers. You have presented articles that view security issues on two very different levels: global and individual. As I recall, measures to keep us safe from terrorist threats were taken as bud- getary resources permitted. As ambassador, in my introduction to our post’s annual planning document, I always underlined that our embassy was a sitting duck for terrorist attack – which it was. Yet in the three years I served at that post, we never received verbal or written acknowledgement of the predicament. I would strongly argue that the DS role is no more “thankless” a job than any other in the Foreign Service. Characterization in that vein not only ignores the important contributions of everyone else on the Foreign Service team, but also begs the question of which parts of our organization are getting generous slices of the resource and personnel pies, and why. Security is essential, but let’s not forget that DS’s primary role is to help the department carry out its mission. I am far more concerned about the way that some DS personnel appar- ently carry out their tasks at the indi- vidual level. The article “Security Clearance Suspension: Know Your Rights” tells me that in suspending a security clearance, DS is likely not to protect an officer’s rights and inter- ests. It suggests that someone merely L ETTERS