A Security Clearance Story

For several weeks, I've been watching this news media hype over Trump's daughter and son-in-laws top secret clearance, for their DC job, and tried to grasp what there is of significance in the story.

Prior to the 1990s, you could have filled out the paperwork (maybe 12 pages), and some security specialist could have wrapped up your clearance in roughly three-to-four  months.  The time-consumer (if there was one).....you had to list three people to 'vouch' for you.  Amusingly enough.....the field agent guy could go to the three listed for 'vouching' or just skip them entirely and find three totally different people who knew you.  Two or three weeks after that guy signed off....the rest of the paperwork finished up, and it was good for five years.

At some point in the early 1990s....some folks determined that the system wasn't working well enough and added more points onto it....basically making this a six-month process.  By the late 1990s, another group got into this, and determined that the new process wasn't through enough, and now it was getting up to an entire year.  Part of the blame for this was simply a lack of field agents, and perception that people were getting into serious financial issues (which should hinder your clearance).  Another item....more spouses coming up into the scene....who weren't US citizens (particularly in the 1990s, with Russian wives now showing up, married to US military guys).

At some point, a guy I worked with....had sat there and counted his submission and the weeks required.....with the final sign-off of a update (not a new clearance), and this had reached 19 months. 

The folks who travel extensively?  Here's the odd thing about doing clearance updates (every five years).  The audit people want a complete list of all foreign travel.  As long as you stayed in the US....you were safe.  The folks who traveled to ten to fifteen foreign locations over that five year period (like a four-day trip to Cancun, or a 7-day trip to Paris)?  It's not a difficult thing, but the audit guy wants your dates for the trip.  So you find yourself going back to calendar and trying to recall ten trips over the past five years and trying to line the dates correctly up.  If you were the daughter of Trump?  I'd take a guess that just on international travel.....she's got a list of forty places that she's been to in the past five years.  For that poor audit guy trying to assess things or look for some type of corruption or spy stuff?  A list of forty international trips is going to freak you out.  That alone....probably would add three months onto the whole process. 

Is it really some five-star news media story?  No.  It's marginally a two-star story at best.