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> From: Chris Borokowski [mailto:athloi -at- yahoo -dot- com]
> As you see from the text below, I'm talking about the type of problem,
> not the NASA problem specifically. If we're going to have professional
> organizations, and they're going to go to bat for us on
> certain issues,
> this might be one for the future. How much background check is
> necessary, when does it occur, and is there a third party we
> can get to
> vouch for us instead of going through a series of checks each time we
> encounter a security-related agency?
I think that I might need clarification about "professional organizations
[...] going to bat for us."
How much of a background check that is necessary for contractors, I think,
should be the same as what it necessary for other employees and it should
occur before hiring and as security changes are implemented. In the recent
contractor turned killer NASA case, something changed somewhere that
triggered a violent reaction. Things like this are hard to predict, but
certainly, the security measures in place 12 years ago are probably not
sufficient to predict the type of behavior that we have seen in recent
years. This is not the first "good employee gone bad" case, but security
measures these days seems to include more checks to avoid such issues.
National security has also become a very important issue that is included in
security measures.
The "third party [...] to vouch for us," in the case of the NASA shooting
was the contract employer, which was Jacobs. The article that I cannot find
stated that Jacobs was required to pass a background investigation and to
require the same type of investigation for its employees (sub-contractors).
Jacobs, supposedly, did not fulfill this obligation.
NASA is now tightening its requirements on other contractors that include
JPL. It appears that NASA is circumventing the contractors when imposing
security requirements on employees and is implementing its own
investigations.
Receiving government-level security clearance, I thought, would permit
someone with that clearance to bypass a background investigation. I think
that there are also requirements for maintaining that clearance.
Personally, I would want anyone working in a secure government environment
to have some level of security clearance and not just pass a simple
background investigation that is administered by a contract employer.
I guess, government-issued security clearance could take the place of the
third-party that you discuss.
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