DOJ accuses firm that vetted Snowden of faking 665,000 background checks

As Edward Snowden prepares to defend himself in a worldwide webinar Thursday, the Justice Department is accusing the private contractor that vetted him and thousands of other intelligence workers of bilking U.S. taxpayers out of tens of millions of dollars by conducting phony background checks.

USIS, the giant private contractor that conducted the background checks of both Snowden and Washington Navy Yard shooter Aaron Alexis, is accused in a Justice Department lawsuit filed Wednesday night of conducting 665,000 fake background checks between 2008 and 2012.

DOJ accuses firm that vetted Snowden of faking 665,000 background checks

Well, isn't this just the type of thing to give you a warm and fuzzy feeling at night? 665,000 people were cleared for Top Secret or other Security clearances ... who weren't cleared or properly investigated.

So basically, since we're not hearing about mass costs and scandals for RE-investigations, and we aren't hearing about some mass dump for thousands of bad clearances...I'm thinking 665,000 bunk security ratings are still in position and still serving. Snowden himself would likely still be there if he hadn't chosen to turn wild and run. Who knows how many others similarly positioned for worldview and mental state in motivation are still working with the national secrets? (We still have a COUPLE secrets, I think..somewhere)

Snowden himself aside though, this is over a half million people we're talking about. The Government hasn't got SO many people working for it that this number can slide like a minor blip. This is a measurable number of the people currently or recently employed in sensitive positions of varying degree by Uncle Sammy.

.....and we have leaks, incompetence at near unheard of levels to anything from past years with a nation in fast and hard decline from the top down.

Why wonder? We have 665,000 possibilities to start with in looking at where those problems most directly originate from, where the human factor is the main factor for "oops" and "Doh!! Did I do that!?"

Hell of a way to run a nation isn't it?? We don't see Congressional hearings on this tho.. nope.. They're too busy interviewing swindlers and criminals in secret rooms to get dirt on the President. Rome burns ..while the Senate fiddles...and the public just stares dumbstruck at the spectacle.

No one considers finding a damn fire hose to start putting out the fires.

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


665k background checks?


Sad.



Especially when a dumb goy sheep slave like myself can detect your presence within 10 lys away.


Maybe you should be paying me the ridiculous salary of $40 million per month

Nothing good to say ... Better to say nothing at all.

Er, how much does the company charge for a phoney background check............
Do they give a bulk rate for those or are they full price.....
I mean 650K checks at no cost to the company makes a LOT OF PROFIT!

Wrabbit2000
No one considers finding a damn fire hose to start putting out the fires.

I'm not sure what fire you're talking about but the company statement sounds somewhat like an admission of limited guilt and they claim to have already rectified the problem, from the OP link:

USIS, which on its website calls itself "the leader in federal background investigations," said in a statement provided to NBC News that "a small group of individuals" was responsible for the bogus checks and that their conduct was "contrary to our values and commitment to exceptional service."

"Since first learning of these allegations nearly two years ago, we have acted decisively to reinforce our processes and management to ensure the quality of our work and adherence to OPM requirements," it said. "We appointed a new leadership team, enhanced oversight procedures, and improved control protocols. From the outset, we have fully cooperated with the government’s investigation and remain focused on delivering the highest quality service under our OPM contracts.”

A company source, who spoke to NBC News on condition of anonymity, said that some employees involved in the fraud "were terminated" and that all of the individuals cited in the complaint — including top USIS executives — no longer work for the firm. The source also stressed that neither the Snowden nor the Alexis background checks were among those cited as fraudulent in the complaint. (The complaint does not identify any of the allegedly improper checks.)

So we don't know if Snowden's background check was one that had a faked check or not, but it's not surprising someone asked for an investigation of the firm that did his check.

The ethics of some business leaders isn't always so great, especially when there are millions of dollars of bonuses at stake as was the case here. Hopefully the new leadership is more ethical, but how do we know until the next scandal breaks out?

reply to post by stirling

how much does the company charge for a phoney background check

That raises an interesting question... If you or I agreed to perform a service for Uncle and we screwed the 'ol guy while sticking him with a bunch of people he couldn't trust or use? I think you or I would go to jail or federal prison over it.

So...where are the perp walks and indictments? (crickets chirp)

The civil lawsuit was filed by the Justice Department under the False Claims Act. The department adopted claims previously made under seal by Blake Percival, identified as the director of Fieldwork Services at USIS between 2001 and 2011. The suit accuses the company of filing false claims, making false statements and breach of contract.

(Op Link)

I guess when you're a mere mortal citizen, you get criminal charges and your life is destroyed over petty crap. When you're big like that? It's just a civil lawsuit to pay out of company accounts at some point.

Kinda odd how that works, eh? Something isn't quite right here.....

stirling
Er, how much does the company charge for a phoney background check............
Do they give a bulk rate for those or are they full price.....
I mean 650K checks at no cost to the company makes a LOT OF PROFIT!

I can tell you that a Special Background Investigation ran $180K back in 1985. That's a lot of $$$ for a TS clearance.

reply to post by Arbitrageur

I'm not sure what fire you're talking about but the company statement sounds somewhat like an admission of limited guilt and they claim to have already rectified the problem, from the OP link:

(weakly points to the fire consuming half the national structure and world image to remain functional and effective with)

Ummm... THAT fire..? Nothing to see here tho... They have new management at the place vetting the nation's spys and sensitive workers. All is well and nothing more to be concerned with. Indeed.

Next?

Typical incompetence.

Now they tell us.

And of course, it's the DOJ sprinkling the dust on the wet paint.

Gawd only knows who is out there on the loose !!

Somebody must have double-crossed somebody.

You would of thought the FBI and the DOD would do their own work regarding background checks and not leave it to a private contractor. Maybe the cost was a factor in this?

reply to post by Frankinpillow


You would think at least a few things of critical importance would be done in-house by people with a very serious interest, outside profit, of seeing it done right. Wishful thinking I suppose...

Nice Avatar, by the way! That's one I won't forget or miss spotting. lol....

xuenchen
Typical incompetence.

Now they tell us.

From a quote in a post above:

The source also stressed that neither the Snowden nor the Alexis background checks were among those cited as fraudulent in the complaint.

There's your REAL incompetence. They DID everything they were supposed to ... and yet ... Snowmen and Alexis still got past USIS' basic scrutiny. There are certain government business practices which should never be contracted out. Security happens to be one of 'em.

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


From my own investigations during the 1990s the highest clearances was done by the then Office of Federal Investigations, now called the Federal Investigative Services part of the OPM (Office of Personnel Management). www.opm.gov...

They should of done the clearances not some private contractor, who are in it for the money to some degree.

reply to post by Snarl


Yup.

You beat me to it.



They argue their stupidity with their own stupidity

their bulbs are dim

Snarl
There's your REAL incompetence. They DID everything they were supposed to ... and yet ... Snowmen and Alexis still got past USIS' basic scrutiny. There are certain government business practices which should never be contracted out. Security happens to be one of 'em.

To me it seems more a case of greed than incompetence. They knew what they were supposed to do and they just didn't do it, to increase profits. That's greed, not incompetence.

Also in the case of Snowden, I'm not convinced we can say the background check was faulty. Maybe they check to see if the candidate has some moral standards, and Snowden was found to have moral standards. Some people might argue it was his moral standards which compelled him to reveal that the constitution was being illegally violated, where he felt he had a moral obligation to uphold the constitution.

Wrabbit2000
(weakly points to the fire consuming half the national structure and world image to remain functional and effective with)

Ummm... THAT fire..? Nothing to see here tho... They have new management at the place vetting the nation's spys and sensitive workers. All is well and nothing more to be concerned with. Indeed.

As snarl mentioned, there doesn't seem to be much of a correlation between this lawsuit and the Snowden leaks, since he wasn't one of the cases cited to have an incomplete background check.

Indeed there was a whistleblower at the NSA who retired maybe a decade ago who complained about the NSA being headed in an illegal and immoral direction. That is the root cause of the fire. Even now I get the feeling the NSA feels it is above the law and can do whatever it wants and probably only regrets getting caught.

I don't know if some judges can help convince the NSA they are not above the law; a few seem to be trying. The last two white house administrations flouting the same attitude of being above the law doesn't seem to help.

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


I'd suggest this is just pettiness, they got to blame somebody and it definitely won't be themselves. Another distraction away from the fact we've ALL been getting cyber stalked by TPTB? Possibly

reply to post by Arbitrageur


I appreciate the fact you're focused on Snowden, but I'm not. Snowden is in a class all his own and very literally in that way. His employer didn't know ..and if the NSA itself didn't catch on to that former CIA employee being a bad idea to hire? Well... The NSA hired him before the CIA did...so round and round they can go, chasing their tails on that one....

The 3 letter crap spreaders have far more liability on Edward Snowden than some private company who sounds like a Johnny Come Lately in being about the last ones to screen him, after a long line of it apparently failed (I can't look at outcome and say it was a success case of US security screening, to say the very least)


What I'm stuck on isn't Snowden, who is irrelevant to current and ongoing events inside the U.S.. I'm still back there on the 665,000 individuals who, for all we know, are still happily employed to the last person, serving in positions they aren't properly cleared to have and whom we just kinda HOPE were missed in technical issue only and not material fact.

Heck, by the sound of this, our enemies could have signed right up and gone to work from the inside...and we'd still not know it to be certain, to this day. That seems the problem here, in my thinking.

Between March 2008 and September 2012, "USIS released at least 665,000 background investigations" to OPM, certifying them as completed when they actually hadn’t been, the complaint charges. This amounted to 40 percent of all the background checks performed by USIS done during this period., it said. The allegedly fraudulent background checks included employees seeking security clearances at the Department of Defense, Homeland Security, Justice Department and other federal agencies.

(Op Link)

Federal Court Filing Papers (PDF)

A very very ongoing and serious issue, IMO.

Frankinpillow
You would of thought the FBI and the DOD would do their own work regarding background checks and not leave it to a private contractor. Maybe the cost was a factor in this?

You would think, right?
I mean, considering DOD, FBI, NSA and other databases are queried in order to get that clearance, right?

Arbitrageur
To me it seems more a case of greed than incompetence. They knew what they were supposed to do and they just didn't do it, to increase profits. That's greed, not incompetence.

I would say a defined lack of due diligence (not to mince words) over which the USIS facility security clearance should be burned to cinders. Now that would be a lesson the 'industry' would take very seriously.

Arbitrageur
Also in the case of Snowden, I'm not convinced we can say the background check was faulty. Maybe they check to see if the candidate has some moral standards, and Snowden was found to have moral standards. Some people might argue it was his moral standards which compelled him to reveal that the constitution was being illegally violated, where he felt he had a moral obligation to uphold the constitution.

Snowden may have had moral issues with the mission of the NSA. Based on his moral values he committed an act of treason. That's "a given" considering that he ran for his very life. The whistle he was blowing was simply one that benefitted his own lifestyle and choices. How long do you think it would have been before his moral standards caught up with him and he was labeled a security risk? Had he just sat still ... he would have done a great deal more to undermine National Security ... and ... I think that's why he made the statement that he is still performing a valid service (working for) the NSA.

I can almost see the vise starting to turn and squeeeezzze.

Arbitrageur
Indeed there was a whistleblower at the NSA who retired maybe a decade ago who complained about the NSA being headed in an illegal and immoral direction. That is the root cause of the fire. Even now I get the feeling the NSA feels it is above the law and can do whatever it wants and probably only regrets getting caught.

That's one opinion. I worked side-by-side with NSA employees. I will attest that they were breaking ZERO laws at that time. Now ... is what I have to say opinion, or a fact based on first-hand observation?

Arbitrageur
I don't know if some judges can help convince the NSA they are not above the law; a few seem to be trying. The last two white house administrations flouting the same attitude of being above the law doesn't seem to help.

Credit Clapper. He sat right in front of Congress and told the truth. Yes ... I know exactly what it looked like. Yes, I put my face in my palm when he said it ... but ... he didn't lie. That fact that he isn't up on charges is tacit proof ... even if you can't see what is evident to him. Had he been less direct he would have been responsible for digging the hole deeper. The 'buck' stopped with him and I respect him for that.

The NSA is NOT spying on the typical American citizen without a warrant. They are NOT recording and storing our conversations. That WOULD be illegal. If you don't believe me, you can always get a job working for them and find out first-hand. Hell ... if I'm wrong, call me on it and blow another whistle. Russia's a HUGE country.

This whole thing just sounds to me like the government wants revenge for Snowden. If they can't go after him, they're going to go after someone that put him in the position to do what he did in the first place. 665k background checks in 4 years is an insane amount, there's no way that much hiring took place, especially when the claim is that was only 40% of the total.

Wrabbit2000
reply to post by Frankinpillow

 

You would think at least a few things of critical importance would be done in-house by people with a very serious interest, outside profit, of seeing it done right. Wishful thinking I suppose...

Nice Avatar, by the way! That's one I won't forget or miss spotting. lol....

Something to keep in mind the next time you hear a push that the government should be run more like a business. Sometimes inefficiencies in government are a good thing, and they shouldn't be privatized.