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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsContractors Providing Background Checks For NSA Caught Falsifying Reports, Interviewing The Dead
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130709/11374023748/contractors-providing-background-checks-nsa-caught-falsifying-reports-interviewing-dead.shtmlThese are the people entrusted to help ensure our nation's harvested data remains in safe hands, or at least, less abusive ones. Those defending the NSA claim this data is well-protected and surrounded by safeguards against abuse. Those claims were always a tad hollow, but this information shows them to be complete artifice. The NSA, along with several other government agencies, cannot positively say that they have taken the proper steps vetting their personnel.
USIS, the contractor who vetted Ed Snowden, openly admits there were "shortcomings" in its investigation of the whistleblower. Perhaps Snowden's background check was a little off, but overall, calling the USIS' problems "shortcomings" is an understatement.
Among the 10 background-check workers employed by contractors who have been convicted or pleaded guilty to falsifying records since 2006, eight of them had worked for USIS, according to the inspector general for the U.S. Office of Personnel Management. The personnel agency is responsible for about 90 percent of the governments background checks.
In one case, Kayla M. Smith, a former investigative specialist for USIS, submitted some 1,600 falsified credit reports, according to the inspector generals office.
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Will it get better? USIS is already ceding market share to other contractors but it's impossible to say whether its competitors will be more trustworthy. McFarland says his office doesn't have enough funding to perform thorough probes, which indicates what's been caught so far is just skimming the surface. These agencies harvesting our data (and their defenders) all expect Americans (and others around the world) to simply trust them. Meanwhile, the reasons why we shouldn't continue to mount unabated.
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Contractors Providing Background Checks For NSA Caught Falsifying Reports, Interviewing The Dead (Original Post)
flamingdem
Jul 2013
OP
Pholus
(4,062 posts)1. Makes you wonder how this would have played out if it hadn't come to the surface when it did. nt
flamingdem
(39,313 posts)2. Got to wonder how many Snowden's are out there if they're just
"skimming the surface". Plus, they might be inspired by him. I just wrote in another post that I think Snowden will be getting a big payoff a la Philip Agee who got a million from the Russians for secrets. And it's possible Putin will not return him to the USA because he wants to encourage other "defectors"
Pholus
(4,062 posts)3. As William Binney said the internal NSA saying went...
"When the government wants it bad, it gets it bad."
The rush to do this quickly caused all kinds of problems. The addition of secrecy even about the laws governing the operations made that worse. This is only ONE of the problems that resulted.
malaise
(269,064 posts)4. These people are looting the government
You cannot privatize national security.