Marco Rubio Presses Intelligence Officials On 'Continuous Vetting' And 'Reciprocity' Of Intel Staff

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During a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing prior to the Congressional recess prior, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) spoke about vetting standards between intelligence agencies.  Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:  https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript   Stay Connected Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbes Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbes More From Forbes:  http://forbes.com

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00:00So, this could be to Director Dixon or Secretary Harris or both, the continuous vetting in

00:08the National Background Investigation Service is not mandatory for all the agencies and

00:13departments to use as their system under the Counterintelligence Security Agency.

00:19This directly impacts oversight by ODNI as a security executive agent.

00:26Additionally, contractors have a real tough time being able to plan and train to these

00:32very different systems, and it's not easy to track whom to contact for security clearance

00:36tracking and reciprocity.

00:38So the DCSA and NBIS systems of security clearance do not cover or support DIC.

00:46Why is that, and what is the plan going forward?

00:49In particular, what about reciprocity for employees that are moving, for example, from

00:53DIA to DIA?

00:56I will take that one, sir.

00:58You're absolutely right that DCSA does not cover the intelligence community.

01:02We have a number of agencies within our community, and we essentially allow them to determine

01:07the types of risks that they're willing to take as they're bringing on board their folks.

01:10So they don't do their own.

01:11Many of them do their own investigative service.

01:16They also have enhanced vetting processes that they include to include polygraphs, medical,

01:23some psychological screenings that DCSA does not provide, but those are what they believe

01:28they need to bring on board the kinds of folks that they need for their particular workforce.

01:32To expect DCSA to do that sort of tailoring for different agencies to deliver what they

01:38need is something that we wouldn't put on them.

01:40We believe that the agencies themselves are best positioned to bring their folks on and

01:44know what kinds of vetting they actually need to do.

01:47We are very comfortable with what DCSA does with the rest of the government, but with

01:50respect to the intelligence community, because it is so variable between the agencies, it's

01:54better for them to be able to actually pick their process.

01:58Which agencies don't use NBIS and DCSA's CV program?

02:03Which are the agencies that do not?

02:04We have a, within the CV particular, continuous vetting is done by everyone, it's just done

02:13differently.

02:14We have a continuous evaluation system that we use within the intelligence community,

02:18but it uses many of the same reports and data sources that the CV does, it uses for DCSA.

02:26So there's commonalities there, it is just a different system that we run.

02:30David, do you want to?

02:32Yes, thanks.

02:33I just add from the DCSA perspective, we're managing enrollment and alert resolution for

02:373.8 million Department of Defense military, civilian, and national industrial security

02:41program contractors, but also for 44 non-DOD federal agencies.

02:47So it's a very large population that we're handling outside the IC.

02:51So is not having a sort of a single, or at least as a baseline, a single NBIS-like system

02:57for the federal government, doesn't that hamper efforts at reform and oversight?

03:03Because we're in essence dealing with all these silo-type systems.

03:07Our answer actually would be no, sir, because Trusted Workforce 2.0 is bringing in the standardization

03:12and the guidelines, so that even though we're using different investigative processes, the

03:16underlying principles behind them are the same, and what will happen with a clearance,

03:22the types of security clearances that are being granted, the types of vetting that's

03:26being done is similar across the board.

03:29When it comes to the IC, we just require more than some of the other government agencies,

03:32and so we're handling that more section.

03:35So it's really the baseline and foundation is similar, it's just the extra parts are

03:38different for what our community needs.

03:45Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

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