S. Hrg. 113–425 

THE NAVY YARD TRAGEDY 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON 

HOMELAND SECURITY AND 

GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS 

UNITED STATES SENATE 

ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

EXAMINING GOVERNMENT CLEARANCES 

AND BACKGROUND CHECKS, 

OCTOBER 31, 2013 

EXAMINING PHYSICAL SECURITY FOR FEDERAL FACILITIES, 

DECEMBER 17, 2013 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.fdsys.gov/ 

Printed for the use of the 

Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs 

( 
THE NAVY YARD TRAGEDY 
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85–500 PDF 2014

S. Hrg. 113–425 

THE NAVY YARD TRAGEDY 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON 

HOMELAND SECURITY AND 

GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS 

UNITED STATES SENATE 

ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

EXAMINING GOVERNMENT CLEARANCES 

AND BACKGROUND CHECKS, 

OCTOBER 31, 2013 

EXAMINING PHYSICAL SECURITY FOR FEDERAL FACILITIES, 

DECEMBER 17, 2013 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.fdsys.gov/ 

Printed for the use of the 

Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs 

( 
(II) 

COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS 

THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware Chairman 

CARL LEVIN, Michigan 

MARK L. PRYOR, Arkansas 

MARY L. LANDRIEU, Louisiana 

CLAIRE MCCASKILL, Missouri 

JON TESTER, Montana 

MARK BEGICH, Alaska 

TAMMY BALDWIN, Wisconsin 

HEIDI HEITKAMP, North Dakota 

TOM COBURN, Oklahoma 

JOHN MCCAIN, Arizona 

RON JOHNSON, Wisconsin 

ROB PORTMAN, Ohio 

RAND PAUL, Kentucky 

MICHAEL B. ENZI, Wyoming 

KELLY AYOTTE, New Hampshire 

RICHARD J. KESSLER, Staff Director 

JOHN P. KILVINGTON, Deputy Staff Director 

TROY H. CRIBB, Chief Counsel for Governmental Affairs 

LAWRENCE B. NOVEY, Chief Counsel for Governmental Affairs 

JASON M. YANUSSI, Senior Professional Staff Member 

NICOLE B. MAINOR, U.S. Secret Service Detailee 

KEITH B. ASHDOWN, Minority Staff Director 

MARK K. HARRIS, Minority U.S. Coast Guard Detailee 

JAMES P. GELFAND, Minority Counsel 

CORY P. WILSON, Minority U.S. Secret Service Detailee 

LAURA W. KILBRIDE, Chief Clerk 

LAUREN M. CORCORAN, Hearing Clerk 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

Opening statements: Page 

Senator Carper.................................................................................................. 1, 141 

Senator Coburn ................................................................................................. 4, 145 

Senator Tester .................................................................................................. 4 

Senator Ayotte .................................................................................................. 26 

Senator Heitkamp ............................................................................................ 30 

Senator McCaskill ............................................................................................ 32 

Senator Portman .............................................................................................. 35 

Prepared statements: 

Senator Carper................................................................................................ 45, 185 

Senator Coburn ................................................................................................. 189 

WITNESSES 

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 31, 2013 

Hon. Joseph G. Jordan, Administrator for Federal Procurement Policy, Office 

of Management and Budget ................................................................................ 7 

Hon. Elaine D. Kaplan, Acting Director, Office of Personnel Management ....... 9 

Brian A. Prioletti, Assistant Director, Special Security Directorate, National 

Counterintelligence Executive, Office of the Director of National Intelligence ................................................................................................................... 11 

Stephen F. Lewis, Deputy Director for Personnel, Industrial and Physical 

Security Policy, Directorate of Security Policy & Oversight, Office of Under 

Secretary of Defense for Intelligence, U.S. Department of Defense ................ 13 

Brenda S. Farrell, Director, Defense Capabilities and Management, U.S. Government Accountability Office ............................................................................. 15 

ALPHABETICAL LIST OF WITNESSES

Farrell Brenda S.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 15 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 72 

Jordan, Hon. Joseph G.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 7 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 48 

Kaplan, Hon. Elaine D.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 9 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 55 

Lewis, Stephen F.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 13 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 68 

Prioletti, Brian A.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 11 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 61 

APPENDIX 

Statement from the Professional Services Council ............................................... 95 

Letter from Ms. Kaplan to Senator Coburn .......................................................... 101 

OPM Whitepaper ..................................................................................................... 102 

Responses for post-hearing questions for the Record from: 

Mr. Jordan ........................................................................................................ 112 

Ms. Kaplan ........................................................................................................ 116 

Mr. Prioletti ...................................................................................................... 123 

Mr. Lewis .......................................................................................................... 129 
Page

IV 

Responses for post-hearing questions for the Record from—Continued 

Ms. Farrell ........................................................................................................ 134 

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 17, 2013 

Caitlin A. Durkovich, Assistant Secretary for Infrastructure Protection, National Protection and Programs Directorate, U.S. Department of Homeland 

Security ................................................................................................................. 146 

Leonard Eric Patterson, Director, Federal Protective Service, National Protection and Programs Directorate, U.S. Department of Homeland Security ....... 148 

Stephen F. Lewis, Deputy Director for Personnel, Industrial and Physical 

Security Policy, Directorate of Security Policy and Oversight, Office of 

Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence, U.S. Department of Defense ..... 150 

Mark L. Goldstein, Director, Physical Infrastructure Issues, U.S. Government 

Accountability Office ............................................................................................ 172 

Stephen D. Amitay, Executive Director, National Association of Security Companies .................................................................................................................... 173 

David L. Wright, President, Federal Protective Service Union, American Federation of Government Employees ...................................................................... 175 

ALPHABETICAL LIST OF WITNESSES

Amitay, Stephen D.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 173 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 221 

Durkovich, Caitlin A.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 146 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 192 

Goldstein, Mark L.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 172 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 210 

Lewis, Stephen F.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 150 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 205 

Patterson, Leonard Eric: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 148 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 198 

Wright, David L.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 175 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 239 

APPENDIX 

DHS Active Shooter updated submitted by Senator Coburn ............................... 254 

Responses for post-hearing questions for the Record from: 

Ms. Durkovich and Mr. Patterson ................................................................... 256 

Mr. Lewis .......................................................................................................... 316 

Mr. Goldstein .................................................................................................... 326 

Mr. Amitay ........................................................................................................ 330 

Mr. Wright ........................................................................................................ 335 
(1) 

THE NAVY YARD TRAGEDY: EXAMINING 

GOVERNMENT CLEARANCES AND 

BACKGROUND CHECKS 

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 31, 2013 

U.S. SENATE,

COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY

AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS, 

Washington, DC. 

The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:01 a.m., in room 

SD–342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Thomas R. Carper, 

Chairman of the Committee, presiding. 

Present: Senators Carper, Landrieu, McCaskill, Tester, 

Heitkamp, Coburn, Portman, and Ayotte. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN CARPER 

Chairman CARPER. Well, good morning, everyone. The hearing 

will come to order. Welcome, one and all. 

On Monday, September 16, a horrible tragedy unfolded at the 

Navy Yard in Washington D.C. A very troubled individual took 12 

lives in a senseless act of violence. The circumstances that led to 

this tragedy are multidimensional. 

Many of the issues raised by this tragedy—such as the adequacy 

of our gun laws and the quality of mental health care—are outside 

the purview of this Committee. But as we have learned more about 

Aaron Alexis, a number of my colleagues and I have been asking 

each other why such a troubled, unstable individual possessed a security clearance from the U.S. Government. 

Why was he originally granted a security clearance when he did 

not disclose his arrest record on his application? Why did the investigator responsible for looking into that arrest write up that Alexis 

had ‘‘retaliated by deflating’’ someone’s tires instead of disclosing 

that Alexis had shot those tires? And we also wonder how such violence could have taken place at the Navy Yard, which is more secure than just about any workplace in our country. 

The Navy Yard tragedy is not the only reason that Members of 

Congress are questioning the quality of the background checks. The 

Edward Snowden case, of course, raises many of the same questions. So have the Wikileaks disclosures by Private Bradley Manning. 

Just yesterday, we learned that the Department of Justice (DOJ) 

has joined a lawsuit against a company called United States Investigations Services (USIS). This is the company that performs about 
2 

45 percent of the background investigations that are contracted out 

by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM). 

According to this lawsuit, USIS engaged in a practice that company insiders referred to as ‘‘dumping.’’ Some refer to it as ‘‘flushing.’’ Under this alleged scam, USIS would send investigations 

back to the Office of Personnel Management even though they had 

not gone through the full review process. Through this dumping, 

USIS maximized its profits. 

Many national security experts have long argued that the security clearance process is antiquated and in need of modernization, 

and given recent events, I think we have to ask whether the system is fundamentally flawed. But we should also be mindful that, 

for many years, both Congress and Federal agencies were concerned about the backlog of security clearance applications, which 

grew larger after September 11, 2001. We need to make sure that 

investigators do not feel pressured to sacrifice quality for speed. 

Many have heard me say that almost everything I do, I know I 

can do better. The same is true, I think, for all of us and most Federal programs. It is in that spirit Dr. Coburn and I have convened 

today’s hearing. Our primary purpose is to learn what we are doing 

right in the security clearance process, do more of that, while also 

learning how we can improve it. 

We have many questions to ask, and here are some of them: 

Are we looking at the right risk factors in attempting to identify 

people who should not be trusted with a clearance, or who could 

do serious harm to our government and our country? 

What important information do background checks miss in the 

current system, which relies heavily on self-reporting by the individuals applying for a clearance? 

Once a clearance is granted, what events should trigger a reexamination of an individual’s suitability to retain that clearance? 

What problems are created by the heavy reliance by the Office 

of Personnel Management on contractors to perform the background checks? 

What are the advantages of that reliance? 

And what is the relationship between background checks for security clearances and background checks for other types of privileges, such as access to governmental facilities? 

We also need to ask what impacts sequestration and years of 

strained budgets have had on the clearance process. Under the current system, periodic reinvestigations of individuals holding clearances are supposed to be done every 5 years for people with Top 

Secret clearances, and every 10 years for people with Secret clearances. 

However, because of funding shortfalls, employees sometimes 

continue to work in positions that allow access to classified information, even if the initial period of clearance has lapsed. For example, this summer, for 10 weeks the Department of Defense (DOD) 

suspended the periodic reviews of some contractor employees due 

to funding shortfalls. 

I would like to hear from our witnesses today about how often 

suspensions like that are happening across the Federal Government. I would also like to hear about what agencies are doing to 
3 

manage risks to our security when clearances are not reexamined 

on schedule through the periodic review process. 

Today, we have been joined by officials from the four agencies responsible for the policies and procedures used to determine who is 

eligible to obtain security clearances and access to government facilities and computers. They are the Office of Management and 

Budget (OMB), the Office of Personnel Management, the Office of 

the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), and the Department 

of Defense. 

We want these officials to talk with us this morning about the 

critical security related policies and procedures and also about the 

coordinated reviews of these processes now underway throughout 

the government in the aftermath of the Navy Yard tragedy and 

other recent incidents. We also will hear from an expert at the 

Government Accountability Office (GAO), which has produced a 

wide body of work on the security clearance process. Welcome. 

This hearing builds on the ongoing good work of our Subcommittees, which held a hearing on security clearances just this past 

June under the able leadership of Senators Tester, Portman, 

McCaskill, and Johnson. That hearing exposed the urgent need for 

additional resources for the Inspector General (IG) at the Office of 

Personnel Management to enable that IG to conduct important 

oversight of background investigations. 

In July, our Committee approved a portion of a bill sponsored by 

Senator Tester and cosponsored by Dr. Coburn, Senator McCaskill, 

Senator Portman, Senator Begich, Senator Johnson, Senator Nelson, and Senator Baucus to allow the Inspector General to tap into 

OPM’s revolving fund for the purposes of performing that much 

needed oversight, and we commend Senator Tester and our colleagues, for their good work. The legislation passed the Senate earlier this month, and my hope is it will be signed into law by the 

President soon. 

In closing, I want to say that the vast majority of individuals 

who hold security clearances are honorable and trustworthy people. 

Many of them felt called into service after September 11, 2001, to 

help protect our country, and they deserve our thanks. Having said 

that, though, we still must have a system that does a better job of 

rooting out those with nefarious purposes and those who become 

deeply troubled and unstable. That system must identify those 

whose behavior signals an unacceptable risk to be entrusted with 

classified information or access to sensitive Federal facilities. I 

hope that our hearing today will help point us to a number of sensible solutions that—taken together—will truly improve our national security. 

Finally, I think it is important to note that our Committee continues to look at other aspects of the Navy Yard tragedy, including 

the physical security of Federal buildings, as well as preparedness, 

emergency response, and communications issues. So, we have much 

work to do to learn as much as we can from this tragedy and try 

to prevent similar ones from occurring in the future. 

With that, let me welcome Dr. Coburn and say that I look forward to his opening comments, and then we will turn to our witnesses. Dr. Coburn, welcome. 
4 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR COBURN 

Senator COBURN. Well, thank you, Chairman Carper, and welcome to our witnesses. 

First, let me extend my deepest condolences to the families, coworkers, and friends of those that were lost on September 16. To 

me this is not a political issue. This is an issue of us failing to do 

our job in a proper way when it comes to security clearances. 

Today GAO is releasing a report that shows some 8,400 people 

received security clearances while they had tax debts, which is a 

vulnerability. And the vast majority of those were Top Secret security clearances. So our process is obviously broken, not complete, 

and not adequate. 

Until this year, OPM did not even have the means of debarring 

persons or companies that falsified background checks for clearances. Worse, OPM’s IG recommended debarment of 22 individuals, 

have received no answer on 14 of the cases, and have been informed that the other 8 would not be debarred. Something is very 

wrong. 

It is unlikely that a stricter clearance process would have prevented a deranged individual from committing murder, but this 

event should be a catalyst for Congress to try to fix the way this 

country categorizes, handles, and grants access to sensitive data. 

Two problems. One, there is way too much stuff that is classified 

that does not need to be classified. And, two, there are way too 

many security clearances approved. So if you markedly increase the 

amount of material that does not need to be classified, you have 

to increase the number of people that need to have access to it. 

So we need to address both problems. I look forward to going 

through the comments today and with our panel of witnesses and 

get closer to the real answers, and, Chairman Carper, I thank you 

again for holding this hearing, and I appreciate the work of Senator Tester. 

Chairman CARPER. Thank you, Dr. Coburn. 

I am going to ask Senator Tester, before we turn to the witnesses, to make some comments as well and, again, to commend—— 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR TESTER 

Senator TESTER. Yes, I would like to. Thank you, Chairman Carper, and I want to thank Dr. Coburn for his leadership on this 

issue as well. 

It was 4 months ago when we had the hearing after the Snowden 

leaks, Senator Portman and I had. In fact, Stephen Lewis and 

Brenda Farrell were part of that panel, and I want to thank you 

for being here today as well as last time. 

In my opening remarks, I said that, given the fiscal and security 

stakes involved, we had to get it right and there was no margin 

for error. The fact was, as we knew then, as we know today, we 

need to make immediate reform of the process. There needs to be 

more transparency. There needs to be more oversight. 

The outcome of that hearing was a bill that the Chairman talked 

about introduced by myself as well as Senators Portman, 

McCaskill, Johnson, and Coburn. A provision of that legislation, 

known as the ‘‘SCORE Act,’’ subsequently passed the Senate. When 
5 

signed into law, it is going to bring better oversight to the background investigations conducted by OPM and its contractors. 

But there are two other provisions that are also very important 

that we need to get across the finish line that dealt with the issues 

that Senator Coburn talked about with the number of security 

clearances given and, quite frankly, another issue that deals with 

what do we do when we have a company that screws up and screws 

up with some regularity. It is too important. And we saw that with 

the attacks on September 16 when 12 good men and women left 

for home, as they did most every other Monday morning. Within 

a couple of hours, no warning, no motive, they were killed by a 

man with a history of mental illness, a pattern of violent behavior, 

and a criminal record—a man who was cleared by our government 

through a contractor as someone who should have access to this 

Nation’s most secure facilities and sensitive information. 

Look, there are real-life consequences for failures within our government, and we need answers, we need solutions, we need action, 

because, quite frankly, the men and women who rely on that action 

deserve no less. 

I would just say thank you, Mr. Chairman, for having this hearing. It would seem to me that it is critically important that we act 

as efficiently and as thoughtfully as possible to get this problem 

solved because it is obviously a problem and a big one. 

Chairman CARPER. Thank you, and thanks for your leadership 

and your good work and that of Senator Portman and others who 

joined you in it. 

Let me now turn to our panel and introduce each of our distinguished witnesses. 

The first witness is the Hon. Joseph Jordan, Administrator of the 

Office of Federal Procurement Policy at the Office of Management 

and Budget. Who do you report to? 

Mr. JORDAN. I report to Beth Cobert, the newly confirmed Deputy Director. 

Chairman CARPER. We have heard of her. 

Mr. JORDAN. Thank you for your—— 

Chairman CARPER. We got her through very quickly. I want to 

thank Dr. Coburn and others, Senator Johnson and others, and actually John Cornyn was very helpful in trying to expedite that, and 

we are delighted that we got her through almost in record time. 

Mr. JORDAN. We sincerely appreciate it. 

Chairman CARPER. I think Sylvia Burwell has a top-flight leadership team there. We expect a balanced budget in about 2 years. 

Our first witness is Joe Jordan from OMB. Welcome. Mr. Jordan 

was confirmed as the Administrator for Federal Procurement Policy 

(FPP) in May 2012. He is responsible for developing and implementing government contracting policies and as the senior leader 

and formal adviser to the OMB Director, he will speak to OMB’s 

role in the security clearance process. Again, we thank you for your 

testimony and for your service. 

Our next witness is Elaine Kaplan, the Acting Director of the Office of Personnel Management, a position she has held since April 

2013. I understand she has been confirmed for a new job. Is that 

true? Do you want to tell us what it is? 
6 

Ms. KAPLAN. Yes. I have been confirmed to be a judge on the 

United States Court of Federal Claims. 

Chairman CARPER. Did any of us vote for you? 

Ms. KAPLAN. Some of you did. The others were clearly mistaken. 

[Laughter.] 

Chairman CARPER. Congratulations, and thank you for doing 

double duty here in the last 6 months and taking this on. And to 

our colleagues who were good enough to find their way to supporting a confirmed Director, Ms. Archuleta, thank you for your 

support. 

As the Acting Director, Ms. Kaplan oversees the Office of Federal 

Investigative Services (FIS). This office is responsible for ensuring 

that the Federal Government has a workforce that is worthy of the 

public trust by investigating and reviewing applications for security 

clearances and by performing background checks to determine 

whether a person is suitable for employment by the Federal Government or Federal contractor. 

Acting Director Kaplan, thank you for your testimony, for your 

leadership all these months, and good luck in what lies ahead. 

Our next witness is Brian Prioletti, an Assistant Director in the 

Special Security Directorate at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Mr. Prioletti has served in this position since 

May 2013 after serving at the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) 

from 1981 to 2013. As the Assistant Director of the Special Security Directorate, Mr. Prioletti is responsible for leading the oversight and reform efforts of the security clearance process on behalf 

of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI). 

We thank you for that, and we thank you for all your service to 

our country and for joining us today. 

Our next witness is Stephen Lewis, the Deputy Director for Personnel, Industrial and Physical Security Policy in the Office of the 

Under Secretary for Intelligence at the Department of Defense. The 

Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence (USDI) is responsible 

for DOD’s policies, programs, and guidance related to, among other 

things, personnel and facility security. 

Mr. Lewis, we thank you for your testimony today, and we are 

delighted to note—I mentioned to Dr. Coburn that in the audience 

today is your daughter, Sara, who for a number of years was my 

scheduler. She told me where to go every day, with relish, and I 

usually went there—not always on time. But we welcome both you 

and Sara. 

The Under Secretary for Defense Intelligence is responsible for 

DOD policies, programs, and guidance related to, among other 

things, personnel and facility security. You have that whole broad 

realm? 

Mr. LEWIS. Yes, we do. 

Chairman CARPER. All right. And how long have you been doing 

this? 

Mr. LEWIS. Six years now. 

Chairman CARPER. All right. Thank you. 

Our final witness is Brenda Farrell, the Director of Defense Capabilities and Management at the Government Accountability Office. In April 2007, Ms. Farrell was appointed to serve as Director 

in GAO’s Defense Capabilities and Management team where she is 
7 

1The prepared statement of Mr. Jordan appears in the Appendix on page 48. 

responsible for military and civilian personnel issues, including 

personnel security clearance process issues. Ms. Farrell has authored several GAO reports critiquing governmental efforts to reform the security clearance process. We thank you for your testimony today and earlier before Senator Tester’s Committee. 

Before turning it over to Mr. Jordan for his remarks, we had a 

short scrum before the hearing began in the anteroom. Ms. Farrell 

was not, I do not think, present in the anteroom, but what I said 

to our witnesses, colleagues, and guests, I said part of what we are 

trying to do here is figure out what is the role of government. I 

quoted Abraham Lincoln, who used to say, ‘‘The role of government 

is to do for the people what they cannot do for themselves.’’ And 

David Osborne more recently said in a book called ‘‘Reinventing 

Government,’’ that the role of government is to steer the boat, not 

to row the boat. And here today we hopefully are going to figure 

out better what is the role of government, what kind of steering do 

we need to do, and who should be doing the rowing, and how do 

we make sure that we are steering better; but whoever is doing the 

rowing, whether it is the public sector, the Federal Government, or 

the private sector, they are doing a much better job than they have 

done here of late. 

Mr. Jordan, you have roughly 5 minutes to give us your statement. If you go way beyond that, we will rein you in, but stick to 

that and we will be just fine. Thanks so much. 

TESTIMONY OF THE HON. JOSEPH G. JORDAN,1 ADMINISTRATOR FOR FEDERAL PROCUREMENT POLICY, OFFICE OF 

MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET 

Mr. JORDAN. Thank you. 

Chairman Carper, Ranking Member Coburn, and Members of the 

Committee, I appreciate the opportunity to appear before you today 

to discuss the government’s practices and procedures regarding security clearances, facility access, and suitability determinations. 

Before I begin my testimony, I wanted to first say a few words 

about the tragic events that occurred at the Washington Navy Yard 

on September 16. On behalf of the Administration and my colleagues here today, I want to extend our deepest condolences to all 

those affected by this tragedy. While nothing can bring back the 

loved ones who died that day, it is clear that collectively we need 

to do a better job of securing our military facilities and deciding 

who gets access to them. 

I and my fellow witnesses take this responsibility incredibly seriously and are deeply and personally committed to this effort. 

I also wanted to note that, to assist with addressing the full spectrum—— 

Chairman CARPER. Mr. Jordan, sorry to interrupt. I said 5 minutes. You have seven. I think you were told you have 7 minutes, 

so take seven. 

Mr. JORDAN. OK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman CARPER. You can take less. [Laughter.] 

Try not to take any more. 
8 

Mr. JORDAN. I shall. I also wanted to note that, to assist with 

addressing the full spectrum of needs of all individuals affected by 

the tragedy, we have established the Washington Navy Yard Recovery Task Force, led by the Assistant Secretary of the Navy for 

Energy, Installations, and the Environment. 

As government officials, our highest duty is to protect the national security, including the confidentiality of classified information. Simultaneously, we have a critically important obligation to 

protect individuals performing work on behalf of Federal agencies 

from workplace violence. In recent years, with Congress’ help, we 

have taken a number of important actions to strengthen protections of both national security information and the physical security of Federal facilities, such as improving the effectiveness and efficiency of background investigations and strengthening the processes by which agencies make national security and suitability determinations. We must ensure those processes for granting or revoking access to facilities and information systems fully mitigate 

risks. 

We have a multisector workforce, comprised of military, civilian, 

and contractor personnel. We have worked to ensure that robust 

vetting policies and processes are applied to all individuals with access to Federal facilities, networks, or classified information in a 

consistent manner. This approach reflects two important principles: 

First, the need to protect our national security is no less critical 

when the work is performed by contractors than when it is performed by Federal employees; second, the men and women who 

make up the contractor workforce are no less patriotic than their 

government counterparts, and in fact, many have had meaningful 

careers as Federal employees or in the Armed Forces. 

While we have made significant progress in the area of fitness 

and suitability, security clearance, and credentialing process reform, we need to do more. 

In 2004, Congress passed the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism 

Prevention Act (IRTPA), which required all agencies to complete 90 

percent of their security clearances in an average of 60 days. 

As a result of actions the executive branch has taken to meet the 

goals and objectives of that act, by December 2009 compliance was 

achieved. We have consistently met these goals every quarter since, 

while maintaining the standards expected of the clearance process, 

and the backlog of initial investigations has been eliminated. 

Importantly, executive branch reform efforts have also extended 

beyond just meeting timeliness goals. In order to align suitability 

and national security policies and practices and to establish enterprise information technology standards to improve efficiency and 

reciprocity, we established the Suitability and Security Clearance 

Performance Accountability Council (PAC). It is chaired by OMB’s 

Deputy Director for Management and accountable to the President 

for reform goals. 

As a marker of the significant progress made, in 2011 GAO removed DOD’s Personnel Security Clearance Program from its highrisk list. However, we recognize the serious nature of recent events 

and will continue to intensify our efforts to strengthen and improve 

our existing policies and processes. To that end, the President directed OMB to lead a 120-day interagency review of suitability and 
9 

1The prepared statement of Ms. Kaplan appears in the Appendix on page 55. 

security processes. For suitability and fitness, the review will focus 

on whether the processes in place adequately identify applicants 

who, based upon their character and past conduct, may be disruptive to operations or even dangerous to the workplace. The focus 

on national security risk will center on determining eligibility and 

granting access that could lead to loss of classified information and 

damage to national security. Additionally, we will evaluate the 

means to collect, share, process, and store information that supports these decisions, while emphasizing transactions among and 

equities shared across agencies. 

As part of these efforts, we will also be considering opportunities 

to improve the application of these standards and procedures to 

contracting, which may include, as just one example, improved information sharing between agencies suspending and debarring officials and the offices responsible for making determinations for fitness and security clearances. 

Our first interagency meeting is scheduled for next week and will 

serve to launch our review process. Additional meetings will occur 

over the coming weeks, and we fully anticipate this review to be 

completed within the 120-day timeframe. 

Once again, thank you for the opportunity to testify. As I noted 

in the beginning of my testimony, there is nothing more important 

than the two goals of protecting our people and protecting our sensitive information. We have steadfastly worked in a collaborative 

manner to improve our processes and procedures to ensure the 

safety of both. As recent tragic events have highlighted, however, 

we must maintain a strong focus on continuous improvements, and 

we will heed the President’s call to conduct a comprehensive review 

and address any potential gaps in the most effective and quickest 

manner possible. We look forward to working with this Committee 

and Congress as we undertake this important work. 

Chairman CARPER. Mr. Jordan, thank you so much. 

Ms. Kaplan, please. 

TESTIMONY OF THE HON. ELAINE D. KAPLAN,1 ACTING 

DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT 

Mr. KAPLAN. Chairman Carper, Ranking Member Coburn, and 

Members of the Committee, thank you for asking me to be here 

today. The events that occurred last month at the Navy Yard were 

horrifying and heartbreaking. Twelve civilian employees, among 

them both civil servants and members of our contract workforce, 

were ruthlessly gunned down. All of these individuals were doing 

what millions of their colleagues in the Federal workforce across 

the country do every day: coming to work to serve the American 

people, put food on their tables, and provide for their families. 

As the Acting Director of the Office of Personnel Management 

and the Federal Government’s Chief Personnel Officer, I share your 

commitment and that of our President to identifying and addressing the root causes of this terrible tragedy. I also share your commitment and that of my colleagues seated at this table to perfecting, to the greatest extent humanly possible, our processes and 

procedures for determining who shall be allowed access to our Na-
10 

tion’s secrets, granted the privilege of serving in a position of public 

trust, or given permission to enter Federal buildings and facilities 

like the Navy Yard. 

To those ends, since 2008 OPM, OMB, DOD, and ODNI have 

worked diligently together on a reform effort to ensure that there 

is an efficient, aligned, high-quality, and cost-effective system for 

conducting background investigations and making determinations 

regarding security clearances, employee suitability, and contractor 

fitness. We have made great progress, as is reflected in the written 

testimony of the witnesses at this table. So as Mr. Jordan just 

mentioned, we have eliminated the backlog of security clearance investigations that in and of themselves posed a risk to our national 

security. We have dramatically reduced the time it takes to complete such investigations to meet the deadlines that Congress has 

established. We have imposed reciprocity requirements for greater 

efficiency, issued new investigative standards that we are now preparing to implement. We have enhanced and professionalized the 

training of investigators and adjudicators, and we have worked together to implement GAO’s very helpful recommendations by designing and imminently deploying a new set of agreed upon metrics 

that we can use to measure and drive up the quality of our investigative products. 

At OPM we have implemented our own new quality control 

measures and have an aggressive program to hold investigators to 

the highest standards of integrity and to ensure that their work 

product is something on which Federal agencies should be able to 

rely with confidence. 

We have overhauled and improved our processes for reviewing 

the work of our investigators, increased our oversight staff, and are 

retooling our audit process. We do not tolerate fraud or falsification. We actively look for it, and in those few cases where we find 

it, we take immediate administrative action and then work, as we 

have, with our IG and the Department of Justice to pursue criminal sanctions against those who betray the trust that has been bestowed upon them. 

Of course, much more remains to be done. Even the highest quality and most comprehensive background investigation is just a 

snapshot in time. The evolution of the security clearance process 

has to include the ability to obtain and easily share relevant information on a more frequent or real-time basis. 

We also need to improve our capacity to receive information in 

machine-readable form and to share information across the Federal 

Government and with State and local law enforcement. 

At the President’s direction and under the leadership of the Director of OMB, OPM has been and will continue to work with its 

colleagues on the Performance Accountability Council to conduct 

the 120-day review of the oversight, the nature and implementation of national security, credentialing and fitness standards for individuals working at Federal facilities. Our review will focus on 

steps that can be taken to strengthen these processes and the implementation of solutions. 

The tragic events at the Navy Yard as well as recent high-profile 

security breaches highlight the need to be ever vigilant in ensuring 

that individuals entrusted with access to classified information, 
11 

1The prepared statement of Mr. Prioletti appears in the Appendix on page 61. 

and, more generally, individuals with physical access to Federal facilities and information do not present a risk of harm to the national security or to the safety of our employees in our workplaces, 

and to the end of improving our processes and procedures. 

I thank you for the opportunity to testify regarding all of these 

issues, and I will be happy to answer any questions that you might 

have. Thank you. 

Chairman CARPER. Ms. Kaplan, thank you for that, and for those 

encouraging words. 

Mr. Prioletti, please proceed. Again, thanks for joining us. 

TESTIMONY OF BRIAN A. PRIOLETTI,1 ASSISTANT DIRECTOR, 

SPECIAL SECURITY DIRECTORATE, NATIONAL COUNTERINTELLIGENCE EXECUTIVE, OFFICE OF THE DIRECTOR OF 

NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE 

Mr. PRIOLETTI. Good morning, Chairman Carper, Ranking Member Coburn, and distinguished Members of the Committee. Thank 

you for the invitation to provide information on the government’s 

practices and procedures regarding security clearances and background investigations. My statement will address the role of the 

Director of National Intelligence, as Security Executive Agent, has 

authority and responsibility for oversight of the security clearance 

process across the government, areas in need of attention in the 

current process, and initiatives underway to address those areas. 

Before I followup, I would like to make the comment that we also 

add our deepest condolences to the family members for their loss 

and our commitment to work toward continuing to improve the security processes and access capabilities of the U.S. Government. 

Pursuant to Executive Order (EO) 13467, the DNI, as the Security Executive Agent, is responsible for the development and oversight of effective, efficient, uniform policies and procedures governing the timely conduct of investigations and adjudications for 

eligibility for access to classified information or eligibility to hold 

a sensitive position. The DNI also serves as the final authority to 

designate agencies to conduct background investigations and determine eligibility for access to classified information and ensures reciprocal recognition of investigations and adjudication determinations among those agencies. 

I would like to focus on two essential components of the security 

clearance process: The background investigation and adjudicative 

determination. 

The 1997 Federal Investigative Standards (FIS), as amended in 

2004, are the current standards used to conduct background checks 

or investigations. These checks are required prior to making a determination for eligibility for access to classified information or eligibility to occupy a sensitive position. 

The scope of the background investigation is dependent upon the 

level of the security clearance required. Regardless of the type of 

clearance involved, identified issues must be fully investigated and 

resolved prior to any adjudication. An adjudicative determination is 

based upon Adjudicative Guidelines issued by the White House in 

2005. 
12 

Clearance decisions are made utilizing the whole-person concept, 

which is a careful weighing of available, reliable information about 

the person, both past and present, favorable and unfavorable. 

Recently, two highly publicized and critical events involving individuals with clearances highlighted areas in need of attention in 

the current security clearance process. The ODNI, in collaboration 

with our colleagues here—OMB, OPM, DOD, and other Federal 

partners—has been leading security clearance reform now for several years. Although these efforts are still a work in progress, when 

mature, they will mitigate many of these gaps and enhance the Nation’s security posture. 

Under current policies and practices, an individual’s continued 

eligibility for access to classified information relies heavily on a 

periodic reinvestigation—essentially a background investigation 

and adjudication conducted every 5 years for a Top Secret clearance and every 10 years for a Secret clearance. The time interval 

between periodic reinvestigations leaves the U.S. Government uninformed as to behavior that potentially poses a security or counterintelligence risk. 

Continuous Evaluation (CE), is a tool that will assist in closing 

this information gap. CE allows for ongoing reviews of an individual with access to classified information, or in a sensitive position, to ensure that that individual continues to meet the requirements for eligibility. 

CE, as envisioned in the reformed security clearance process, includes automated record checks of commercial databases, government databases, and other lawfully available information. A number of pilot studies have been initiated to assess the feasibility of 

automated record checks and the utility of publicly available electronic information. More research is required at this time to assess 

resource impacts and determine the most effective practices. 

A robust CE capability will also support and inform the Insider 

Threat Programs. We must build an enterprise-wide CE program 

that will promote the sharing of trustworthiness, eligibility, and 

risk data within and across government agencies to ensure that information is readily available for analysis and action. 

Another area in need of attention is consistency and quality of 

investigations and adjudications. The revised Investigative Standards, when implemented, will provide clear guidance on issue identification and resolution. In addition, the ODNI, OPM, and DOD 

are co-chairing a working group that is developing common standards and metrics to evaluate background investigations for quality 

and comprehensiveness. Furthermore, the ODNI has hosted a 

working group to refine the Adjudicative Guidelines, and recommendations regarding these guidelines are in the policy development phase. 

Another initiative supporting a more robust security clearance 

process was the development of the National Training Standards, 

which were approved in August 2012 by the DNI and the Director 

of OPM for implementation in 2014. These standards create uniform training criteria for background investigators, national security adjudicators, and suitability adjudicators. 

Additionally, OMB, ODNI, and OPM are working to revise 

Standard Form 86, the Questionnaire for National Security Posi-
13 

1The prepared statement of Mr. Lewis appears in the Appendix on page 68. 

tions, to improve the collection of accurate information pertinent to 

today’s security and counterintelligence concerns. 

As a final note, per the President’s direction, OMB is conducting 

a review of the security and suitability processes. As such, the DNI, 

OPM, and DOD will review the policies, processes, and procedures 

related to the initiation, investigation, and adjudication of background investigations for personnel security, suitability for employment, and fitness to perform on a contract. 

In closing, I want to emphasize the DNI’s resolve to lead the initiatives discussed today and continue the collaborative efforts established with OMB, DOD, OPM, and our Federal partners. We 

thank you for the opportunity to update the Committee at this time 

and look forward to working with you on these matters. 

Chairman CARPER. Mr. Prioletti, thank you for that update. 

We now look forward to hearing from Mr. Lewis. 

TESTIMONY OF STEPHEN LEWIS,1 DEPUTY DIRECTOR FOR 

PERSONNEL, INDUSTRIAL AND PHYSICAL SECURITY POLICY, DIRECTORATE OF SECURITY POLICY & OVERSIGHT, OFFICE OF UNDER SECRETARY OF DEFENSE FOR INTELLIGENCE, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE 

Mr. LEWIS. Good morning. 

Chairman Carper, Ranking Member Coburn, and distinguished 

Members of the Committee, I appreciate the opportunity to appear 

before you today to address the practices and procedures in the Department of Defense regarding security clearances, facility access, 

and background investigations. 

The Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence Dr. Michael 

Vickers is the Principal Staff Assistant to the Secretary and Deputy Secretary for security matters. In this capacity, Dr. Vickers exercises his authority as the senior official for DOD’s personnel security program and has primary responsibility for providing and approving guidance, oversight, and development for policy and procedures governing civilian, military, and industrial base personnel security programs within the DOD. 

In order to address the Department’s personnel security policies, 

I believe it is important to first identify the national level policy 

framework. Executive Order 13467 designates the Director of National Intelligence as the Security Executive Agent with the responsibility to develop uniform policies and procedures to ensure 

effective completion of investigations and determinations of eligibility, for access to classified information or to hold National Security Positions, and this includes reciprocal acceptance of those determinations. In addition, the Executive Order designates the Director of the Office of Personnel Management as the Suitability Executive Agent, with responsibility for developing and implementing 

uniform and consistent policies and procedures regarding investigations and adjudications relating to determinations of suitability 

and eligibility for logical and physical access to Federal Government installations and systems. Finally, the Executive Order creates a Performance Accountability Council, chaired by the Deputy 

Director for Management at OMB and including the DNI and the 
14 

Director of OPM, with the responsibility to align suitability, security, and, as appropriate, contractor fitness investigative and adjudicative processes. 

With regard to the oversight roles within the DOD, the heads of 

DOD components are responsible for establishing and overseeing 

implementation of procedures to ensure prompt reporting of significant derogatory information, unfavorable administrative actions, 

and adverse actions related to personnel, and this needs to be provided to appropriate officials within their component and, as applicable, to the DOD Consolidated Adjudication Facility. This responsibility applies to military service members, DOD civilians, and 

contractor personnel. 

Under the National Industrial Security Program (NISP), cleared 

contractors are required to report adverse information coming to 

their attention regarding their cleared employees. In addition, the 

Defense Security Service (DSS) is responsible for conducting oversight of companies cleared to perform on classified contracts for 

DOD and 26 other Federal departments and agencies that use 

DOD industrial security services. 

The Department has worked very hard to create improvements 

that produced greater efficiencies and effectiveness in the phases of 

initiating and adjudicating background investigations. As a result, 

in 2011, the Government Accountability Office removed DOD’s personnel security clearance program from the high-risk list. 

We have used multiple initiatives to review and confirm the 

quality of the investigative products we receive, the quality of our 

adjudications, and the accuracy and the completeness of the documentation of the adjudicative rationale which is the basis for these 

determinations. This helps to support our oversight as well as reciprocity. In addition, we have implemented a certification process 

for DOD personnel security adjudicators, and over 90 percent of 

these adjudicators are certified to rigid standards, and ultimately 

it is a condition of employment that each adjudicator will complete 

this certification process. 

In May 2012, the Deputy Secretary of Defense directed the consolidation of all adjudicative functions and resources, except for 

DOD Intelligence Agencies, at Fort Meade, Maryland, under the direction, command, and control of the Director of Administration 

and Management (DA&M). This decision was made in order to 

maximize the efficiencies realized by the collocation of the Centralized Adjudications Facilities (CAFs) under the 2005 round of Base 

Realignment and Closure (BRAC). And effective October 1, the 

DOD CAF assumed responsibility to adjudicate background investigations which are the basis for the issuance of Common Access 

Cards (CACs) used for physical access to DOD installations and access to DOD information systems. 

Thank you for your time, and I look forward to answering your 

questions. 

Chairman CARPER. Thank you very much. 

Brenda Farrell, It is great to see you. Welcome. Please proceed. 
15 

1The prepared statement of Ms. Farrell appears in the Appendix on page 72 

TESTIMONY OF BRENDA S. FARRELL,1 DIRECTOR, DEFENSE 

CAPABILITIES AND MANAGEMENT, U.S. GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE 

Ms. FARRELL. Thank you very much. Chairman Carper, Ranking 

Member Coburn, Members of the Committee, thank you so much 

for this opportunity to be here today to discuss the Federal Government’s personnel security clearance process. Let me briefly summarize my written statement for the record and to some extent what 

has already been conveyed here today. 

Personnel security clearances allow for access to classified information on a need-to-know basis. Recent events, such as the unauthorized disclosure of classified information, have shown that there 

is much work to be done by Federal agencies, as you noted, Mr. 

Chairman, to help ensure the process functions effectively and efficiently so that only trustworthy individuals hold security clearances. 

Over the years, GAO has conducted a body of work on personnel 

security clearance issues that gives us a unique historical perspective. My remarks today are based on our reports issued from 2008 

through 2013 on DOD’s personnel security clearance program and 

governmentwide reform efforts. My main message today is that 

quality—and, importantly, quality metrics—needs to be built into 

every step of the clearance process. 

My written statement is divided into two parts. 

The first addresses the overall security clearance process. Multiple executive branch agencies are responsible for different steps 

of the multiphased personnel security clearance process that includes: (1), determination of whether a position requires a clearance; (2), application submission; (3), investigation; (4), adjudication; and, (5), possible appeal if a clearance is denied or revoked. 

For example, in 2008, Executive Order 13467 designated the DNI 

as the Security Executive Agent. As such, the DNI is responsible 

for developing policies and procedures to help ensure the effective, 

efficient, and timely completion of background investigations and 

adjudications relating to determinations of eligibility for access to 

classified information. In turn, executive branch agencies, such as 

DOD that accounts for the vast majority of personnel security 

clearances, determine which of their positions—military, civilian, or 

contractors—require access to classified information and, therefore, 

which employees must apply for and undergo a clearance investigation. 

Investigators, often contractors for OPM, conduct these investigations for most of the government. OPM provides the resulting investigative report to the requesting agencies for their internal adjudicators to make the decision as to whether or not the person is 

eligible to hold a clearance. In 2012, we reported that there were 

issues with the first step of the process: Determining which positions require access to classified information. We reported that the 

DNI, as Security Executive Agent, had not provided agencies clearly defined policies and procedures to consistently determine if a position requires a clearance or establish guidance to require agencies 

to review and validate existing Federal civilian positions. 
16 

We recommended that the DNI, in coordination with OPM, issue 

such guidance, and ODNI concurred with our recommendations. I 

am pleased to say that the DNI and OPM have actions underway 

to address our recommendations, and we will continue to monitor 

their actions. 

The second part of my statement addresses the extent to which 

executive branch agencies have metrics to help determine the quality of the security clearance process. For more than a decade, GAO 

has emphasized the need to build and monitor quality throughout 

this personnel security clearance process to promote oversight and 

positive outcomes, such as maximizing the likelihood that individuals who are security risks will be scrutinized more closely. 

For example, GAO reported in 2009 that, with respect to initial 

Top Secret clearances adjudicated in July 2008 for DOD, documentation was incomplete for most OPM investigations. We independently estimated that 87 percent of 3,500 investigative reports 

that DOD adjudicators used to make clearance eligibility decisions 

were missing some required information, such as verification of all 

of the applicant’s employment. We also estimated that about 12 

percent of the 3,500 reports did not contain the required subject 

interview. 

In 2009, we recommended that OPM measure the frequency with 

which its investigative reports met Federal investigative standards 

in order to improve the quality of investigative documentation. As 

of August 2013, OPM had not implemented this recommendation. 

Finally, I would like to note that we initially placed DOD’s clearance program on our high-risk list in 2005 because of delays in 

processing clearances, and we continued that designation until 

2011, when we removed DOD’s program in large part due to the 

significant progress in reducing the amount of time to process a 

clearance and steps DOD had taken to help ensure the quality of 

the adjudication process. 

At that time we noted executive branch efforts underway to develop and implement metrics to measure the completeness of 

OPM’s investigations provided to DOD. Unfortunately, these efforts 

have not been realized. 

The progress that was made with respect to reducing the amount 

of time to process clearances would not have been made possible 

without the committed and sustained oversight by Congress and 

the executive branch agency leadership. Further actions are needed 

now to oversee quality at every step of the process, including background investigations. 

Mr. Chairman, this concludes my remarks. I would be pleased to 

take questions when you are ready. 

Chairman CARPER. Great. Thanks so much for your testimony. 

Thanks for your good work in this area, and to all of you for your 

work in this area. 

After I ask some questions, Dr. Coburn will be recognized, then 

Senator Tester, and then in the following order: Senator Ayotte, 

Senator Heitkamp, Senator Landrieu, Senator McCaskill, and Senator Portman. Some of those folks have slipped out, but they will 

come back. 

I just want to start with you, Ms. Farrell, if I could. We appreciate very much your formal testimony. I want to just have a less 
17 

formal conversation. Of the things that we have heard from each 

of our witnesses, about the changes that are being made, the reforms that are being adopted or have been adopted, what should 

we feel especially good about? 

Ms. FARRELL. I think the collaboration between DNI and OPM 

and the other agencies has improved over the years. I think when 

we started this work back in 2005 looking at timeliness issues, 

there was not a lot of collaboration and communication going on. 

I think that Executive Order 13467 that established the Performance Accountability Council and appointed the Deputy Director for 

Management at OMB as the Chair helped provide a governance 

structure for that collaboration to continue. 

The most notable improvement that we have seen is with the 

processing of initial personnel security clearances at the top secret 

level. There are no metrics for the processing times for other aspects, such as the periodic reinvestigations, and, again, our concern 

has been—and we have stated this over the years since 2005—that 

we do not want to see the processing of the clearances expedited 

at the expense of the quality of the investigations. 

Chairman CARPER. All right. Of the work that is in progress, 

some of which we heard discussed today, would you just talk with 

us for a little bit about what are some of the most important aspects of that work that are in progress, and with a thought of how 

we in the legislative branch can be helpful, most helpful in expediting that work that is in progress? 

Ms. FARRELL. Yes, I think the work that the agencies are doing 

to revisit the investigative standards is very important. This gets 

to the heart of what we are saying about quality. By quality, we 

mean for the background investigations in particular, are we obtaining the right information, the best available information from 

the right sources? Is it complete? Is it reliable? 

So I think revisiting the Federal Investigative Standards and 

seeing if there are new techniques or new information that needs 

to be included—and perhaps some needs to be excluded since these 

standards go back decades. But that is, I think, a very good focus: 

First determine if you are collecting the information that you need 

for the background investigations, and then make sure that you 

have metrics for the completeness of that information. 

Chairman CARPER. The second half of my question is advice you 

might have for this oversight Committee to try to make sure that 

the work that is in progress, some of the most important work that 

is in progress, is actually accomplished. Your advice to us? 

Ms. FARRELL. Yes. I think part of the reason that we saw 

progress with the timeliness issue was due to congressional oversight, as I noted in the opening and in my statement. Also at that 

time, the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 

required an annual report to Congress for interim steps to meet the 

final goal of processing clearances within a 60-day period. The good 

thing was it was not something expected to happen overnight. 

Again, there were interim steps for the executive branch to take to 

meet that 60-day goal. 

That annual report reflected information on timeliness to help 

make sure that they were meeting those interim goals, and if they 
18 

were not meeting them, what could they do to make a course correction in order to continue that significant progress? 

There was a sunset clause on that annual reporting, and we have 

not had the same type of oversight for the remainder of the reform 

efforts as we did for timeliness. So I think this may be an area, 

either through reporting or through continued congressional hearings, with interim steps to help meet the goals. 

One of the areas we have concerns is on metrics. In May 2010, 

several of the executive branch leaders signed a memo to some congressional leaders noting metrics under development that they 

were planning to put in place, and this covered not only timeliness 

but the investigations, the adjudications, and reciprocity. A lot of 

these metrics dealt with quality of the process. But those metrics, 

as I have noted, with the exception of timeliness, have not been 

fully developed, and this is something that we would like to understand why not, what is the plan to proceed? 

Chairman CARPER. All right. Thank you. I want to drill down a 

little bit, if I could, on the issue of quality control. Yesterday the 

Department of Justice announced, I believe, that it is joining a lawsuit brought against the United States Investigations Services, a 

company that performs about almost half of all investigations that 

are contracted out by the Office of Personnel Management. The 

case alleges that USIS sent back to OPM investigation reports that 

were not yet complete in order to maximize profits, a practice that 

I previously referred to as ‘‘dumping.’’ 

For Ms. Kaplan, if I could, this lawsuit comes on top of all the 

questions that have been raised about the investigations of Aaron 

Alexis and Edward Snowden. Are we at a crisis point with the 

credibility and integrity of the security clearance process? What 

should give us any faith in the current system? 

Ms. KAPLAN. I appreciate the question, and I certainly understand it based on the reports that have appeared. As you mentioned, Senator, on Tuesday afternoon, a False Claims Act complaint was unsealed, and it contains very serious allegations of contract fraud against USIS arising out of conduct that took place in 

2010 and 2011. We have been aware of these allegations since the 

complaint was filed in July 2011. We have been working closely 

with DOJ and our IG to implement changes that would address the 

contract fraud and ensure that it would not continue. 

Let me explain to you what we understand the allegations to be. 

We understand the allegations to be that—well, the contractors 

have an obligation under the contract to conduct their own quality 

reviews of investigations. Once they finish their quality reviews, 

they send the product to OPM, and we conduct our own quality reviews of the investigation. 

What the allegation is here is that, in order to move cases more 

quickly, USIS did not conduct its own quality reviews. And that is 

a real problem, obviously, if the allegations are substantiated because it is contract fraud, because they were certifying that they 

were completing the quality reviews. It is also a real problem because we rely on their quality reviews in order for us to be able 

to move the investigations along more quickly. We like them to 

catch issues and fix them before they send the reports on to us. 
19 

I will say, maybe it is cold comfort, but the cases that were, to 

use the phrase, ‘‘dumped’’ were cases that also were subject to 

OPM quality review. So it is not that the cases were never reviewed before they were passed on to the agency. 

That being said, we have done a number of things as soon as we 

became aware of the allegations. With respect to OPM, we have 

significantly increased the number of government personnel performing contractor oversight by increasing the number of people, 

the full-time equivalent (FTE) levels, and realigning our internal 

staff. 

We have increased onsite inspections with contractor review, including a comparison of their process to the requirements of the 

contract. 

We have increased the frequency of the audits of cases closed by 

the contractor. 

We have developed a new report to detect instances where quality reviews may not have been performed according to the terms 

of the contract, as is alleged to have occurred here. 

We have sort of conducted inspections on the average number of 

reports being reviewed and released by the contractor’s review staff 

for trend analysis so we can find anomalies. 

We have removed former USIS officials allegedly involved with 

the misconduct from the OPM contract. 

And we are currently in the process of recompensing our support 

services contract, which is also held by USIS, to preclude a concern 

that there might be collusion between the support staff and the 

field investigators. And that was a recommendation of our Inspector General. 

Lots of things have occurred at USIS since this—— 

Chairman CARPER. My time has expired. I want to be respectful 

of my colleagues. 

Ms. KAPLAN. OK. Sure. 

Chairman CARPER. But just sum it up in one more sentence, and 

then I need to recognize Dr. Coburn. But thank you. This is a good 

response. 

Ms. KAPLAN. Understood. Well, a lot of changes have been made 

at USIS. There is a new Chief Executive Officer (CEO) there. There 

is a chief compliance officer. There are new integrity standards. 

There is an internal audit committee. There have been a lot of 

changes made since the events that are revealed in the complaint, 

and that has given us some level of comfort and confidence that we 

can rely on these products, rely, and trust, but verify. 

Chairman CARPER. Trust, but verify. Well said. 

Dr. Coburn, thank you. 

Senator COBURN. Well, thank you. Thank you for your testimony. 

I kind of see this as a multitude of problems. I mentioned in my 

opening statement we overclassify, which is a problem for the 

American people because that means it is not transparent. And sitting on the Intelligence Committee, I get to see what is secret and 

what is top secret, highly classified and compartmentalized. 

One of the other things I see is in five different instances we 

have people who are doing the investigations who are also doing 

the adjudication. So we had an absolute conflict of interest in terms 

of separating of authorities and responsibilities in five areas in the 
20 

clearance process, five separate areas where we have the same person adjudicating or the same firm adjudicating what was cleared, 

what was investigated. 

Third, as we have noted, we have three different instances in our 

very remote history where we have obviously failed in terms of our 

clearances. Whether it is Bradley Manning or what happened here 

at the Navy Yard or what happened at the National Security Agency (NSA), we have a failure. And the other thing we have is now 

we know that we have 8,400 people with clearances that do not follow the law when it comes to paying their taxes, and half of them 

have a Top Secret clearance. The American people ought to be asking what in the world is going on. 

So my question is: We have now seen outlined who is ultimately 

responsible for it. That is the DNI. Correct? 

Mr. PRIOLETTI. Yes, sir. 

Senator COBURN. And we have the Defense Department that is 

making improvements but still has a way to go, and we have failure with contractors in allegedly not doing what they are supposed 

to do. There is also another IG investigation going on along with 

that. So what is the answer? 

One of the answers has to be doing the job that we do better, 

one. No. 2, the other has to be using data that is available. Where 

is that form? This form, for 20 bucks you can get 90 percent of the 

information on the Internet that is in this form. Now, we pay 

$2,400 for Top Secret clearances. Is that right? That is about what 

we pay. It is about $2,400. 

Ms. FARRELL. For Top Secret, it is more than that. It is a little over $4,000. 

Senator COBURN. OK, $4,000. For Secret, what do we pay? 

Ms. FARRELL. About $262. 

Senator COBURN. OK. And for $20, you can find out 90 percent 

of this stuff online right now. And so the question is: Maybe we 

need to step back and say, first of all, we have way too much stuff 

classified, we have way too many people who have to have a clearance. Second, how we are doing it is not utilizing data that is out 

there today that is readily available. Third, we have had a response 

from Director Clapper that they are going to start coordinating 

with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Well, most people would 

say that is kind of a no-brainer. That would be one of the things 

you would want to check. You have a form. It is in the form: Have 

you paid your taxes? But it looks to me like nobody ever cross-referenced that with the IRS. Nobody ever checked to see if that data 

was accurate. And all that is a computer check. 

So I guess my question to you is—and my final point is this: Creating the expectation that your clearance is tentative on the basis 

of you passing some type of renewal and not knowing when that 

is going to be—the CIA used to have random polygraph tests. They 

do not even have random polygraph tests now. You are noticed. I 

can pass any polygraph test with two drugs in me, and you will 

never know it. And so the fact is we need to create an environment 

where, one, we lessen the number of people that need a clearance, 

we do a whole lot better clearing, and then we need to create the 

expectation that you are going to be randomly checked to see if, in 

fact, you still deserve to have that clearance. That is the system. 
21 

And the details are difficult. I am not saying it is not difficult. But 

how we do it and how much it costs and holding contractors accountable for doing the very job we are paying them to do does not 

seem to be happening. 

And my question, I would just like a response from you all: How 

do we solve this? You all have laid out where we are. But how do 

we solve it? We have all these areas. This form, three pages of instructions, seven pages where you live, five pages of names, 17 

pages of employment, four pages of military, 29 pages on relationship, 21 pages on foreign activity, two pages on emotional health, 

seven pages on police records, 11 pages on drug and alcohol, eight 

pages on financial records, five pages on associations, and three 

signature pages. And I know you are reforming the form, but the 

point is what we want to do is go for the gold. And so not all of 

this, first of all, is checked from a quality assurance check, and No. 

2 would be: Can we create a process that gets to the gold and not 

rely on a form as much as we can data that is already out there 

that the government already holds? 

I am amazed—are you all amazed that 8,400 people in this country have a tax debt that makes them vulnerable to divulging secret 

data or top secret data and they have clearances today? Does that 

bother anybody here? That puts us at risk. 

So my question is: Whoever wants to answer my broad commentary or at least educate me in a different direction, I would 

love to have it. 

Ms. KAPLAN. If I could just make one point, and I am sure my 

colleagues will jump in. You had noted—and I think this is a 

misimpression that a lot of folks have—that the contractors are 

doing both the investigations and the adjudications, and that would 

be a really bad system. But, in fact, the adjudication is not done 

by the contractors. It is done by the agency that is granting the 

clearance. So I just wanted to make—— 

Senator COBURN. Can they use a contractor to do it? 

Ms. KAPLAN. No. That is an inherently governmental function. It 

is not something we would entrust to a contractor. I believe I am 

right about that—— 

Senator COBURN. Let me ask you another question. We are using 

contractors for this clearance process. To me it would seem that the 

clearance process in and of itself is an inherently government function, not just the adjudication but the investigation. Any comments 

on that? 

Ms. KAPLAN. Well, I am actually going to turn that over to Mr. 

Jordan. 

Mr. JORDAN. Senator, the collection of information, the analysis 

is not an inherently governmental function. As Director Kaplan 

said, the decision, the adjudication is an inherently governmental 

function. That should only be performed by government employees. 

But the collection of information is not inherently governmental. 

And to your earlier question, this goes to the very nature of what 

we are doing in our coordinated interagency review. How do we get 

the right data in the right people’s hands at the right time to make 

the right decision? So Continuous Evaluation, which Mr. Prioletti 

spoke of, is a very important piece. Automated records checks, to 

the extent that we can build out our capabilities there, very impor-
22 

tant. Building both efficiency and effectiveness, furthering both of 

those in the system. And then making sure that we are constantly 

looking at all of the processes in the end-to-end spectrum, from initiation through the investigation and the adjudication, and then on 

an ongoing basis to make sure that we address any gaps, any 

weaknesses as quickly as possible. 

We have about 5 million people with security clearances, and you 

noted several instances, but they are few. The issue is any single 

point of failure has such monumental negative consequences that 

we need to do everything we can to make sure we do not have a 

single one. 

Senator COBURN. Well, I have not heard anybody say anything— 

I think Senator Tester and I agree. We classify way too much stuff. 

Do you all disagree with that? And what is the answer to that? Because once you create something that is classified, the only people 

that can work on it are people that have a clearance for that classification or above. What is GAO’s response on that? 

Ms. FARRELL. That is a separate issue from the people part, but 

we have done work in the past looking at the potential overclassification of materials, and we do have work that just started looking 

again at the potential overclassification. That, though, does relate 

to the first step of the personnel security clearance process, determining if a position needs to have access to classified information, 

and that is where those types of tradeoffs could be made. 

There is a misperception often that security clearance follows the 

person. It does not. It follows the position, so as we have noted, 

there has been a lack of guidance in that area. We did work at 

DOD and DHS, components within both of those departments. We 

found that some components took initiative to revalidate existing 

positions, and some did it one time and had no plans to do it again. 

Some never did it. 

So from a personnel security clearance process view, that very 

first step is very important to make sure that the position does require access to classified information. That is where those types of 

questions could be asked: What is that classified information? If 

you overclassify, then you overclassify positions, then it starts the 

snowball effect of having 5 million people who have clearances now. 

Senator COBURN. I will wait for the second round. Sorry. 

Chairman CARPER. That is quite all right. 

Just a quick note, if I could. I did a little bit of math. I hope I 

did this right. If there are 8,400 people out of the 4.9 million people 

that have clearances, that is about 0.16 percent that apparently 

owe the government some money. My hope is that most of them are 

on a repayment schedule. We do not know, but hopefully they are. 

Dr. Coburn says 40 percent of those are on repayment schedules, 

so that means that about 0.16 percent owe the government some 

money that are not on a repayment schedule. That is not good. But 

compared to what? Compared to the 99.9 percent who have a clearance who do not owe the Federal Government anything on taxes. 

So—— 

Senator COBURN. Would you yield for a minute? 

Chairman CARPER. Sure. 

Senator COBURN. To me it raises the question. It is not about a 

percentage. It is if you are not following the law in terms of paying 
23 

your taxes, why should you have a security clearance at all, whether you have a payment plan or not? You have not complied with 

what we expect every other American citizen to comply with, and 

you have a security clearance? To me it begs the question, you are 

not up to date on your taxes, you no longer have a clearance, period. I mean, it is creating the right expectations, is my thought. 

Chairman CARPER. OK. Good. The other thing I would say, I 

spent 23 years of my life as an active and reserve duty naval flight 

officer. If I had a dollar for every time I heard me and others of 

my colleagues say, ‘‘We have too much stuff overclassified’’—this is 

an age-old problem. It is still a problem. I would readily acknowledge that. It is the kind of thing we have to go back again and 

again and again in looking at this stuff that we are classifying and 

ask the question: Do we really need to classify this? So that is a 

good question to ask. 

Senator Tester, you have done good work, you and Senator 

Portman there sitting next to you, and Senator McCaskill and others. We thank you for all that, and you are recognized. 

Senator TESTER. Yes, thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I think even 

the bigger issue than the taxes paid is that taxes paid is pretty 

basic, so what else is going on out there that they are allowing— 

that are slipping through the cracks on security clearances? Because taxes, I mean, that is right in front of our face, and we are 

missing that. 

Mr. Chairman, to followup with Senator Coburn’s comments, I 

think that we have pushed through this Committee the revolving 

fund dollars to be allowed for more transparency, more audit, and 

more accountability. The House Committee has passed that, but 

the House has not, and I would encourage you to do what you can 

do with your counterpart over in the House to make sure the full 

House takes that up, because that is critically important. 

Then there are two other pieces of that bill that Senator 

Portman, Senator McCaskill, Senator Johnson, and Senator Coburn 

are all a part of, plus some others, that deals with accountability 

and it deals with a number of clearances that are out there, and 

I think that we should push to try—I know there are negotiations 

going on, but you have to set a level of expectation, and I think 

that is what that does in part. 

I want to followup a little bit on what Chairman Carper talked 

with you, Elaine, on the DOJ suit that was filed in July, 2011, and 

we were told by OPM that there was not any problems with USIS. 

And there is a suit out there that does not look very good to me, 

and now we are finding out that OPM is probably going to get on 

board or may be going to get board or is getting on board. What 

is going on? It looks to me like, quite frankly, there is a real disconnect here between what the contractors are doing and what the 

expectation is for the contractors to do. And people are dying because of it. We are losing critical information because of it. I mean, 

the list goes on and on. 

So what is going on? 

Ms. KAPLAN. Thanks for the question. I am not aware of anyone 

at OPM saying there was no problem with USIS. I do know that 

because of the fact that this complaint was under seal we were unable to talk about the complaint. And now we can talk about the 
24 

complaint, which I think is a good thing. And I think what we have 

tried to do, as I was explaining to Senator Carper before, was—and 

this started before the complaint became public, and it has been 

over the last several years—is to address and to rectify the problems that are revealed in these allegations in this complaint, which 

was under seal. 

And as I mentioned, we have done many things at OPM to prevent this from happening again. This is contract fraud, a failure to 

do quality reviews that they were obligated to do under the contract. And there have been many changes made at USIS as well— 

many changes involving a whole new staff at the top, a compliance 

office, internal audit, all sorts of things that have given us greater 

confidence—— 

Senator TESTER. When were those changes made? 

Ms. KAPLAN. Those changes have been made over the last 2 

years, since the allegations in the complaint, and we have been 

working with our IG on it and with the Justice Department, and 

so we feel that the allegations are certainly very disturbing, and 

what we have tried to do is address the underlying concerns without speaking publicly about them. 

Senator TESTER. I am not an attorney, but they have been 

sealed, but you have known what is in the charges, you just cannot 

talk about it publicly. Is that correct? 

Ms. KAPLAN. I can tell you right now—in fact, you can go online 

probably—— 

Senator TESTER. Yes, I do not care about now. I want to know 

about July 2011. Were you guys aware of what the charges were? 

Ms. KAPLAN. We knew what the allegations were in the complaint. However, working with the Justice Department and our IG, 

we were advised, of course, not to discuss it because it was a matter under seal. 

Senator TESTER. And that is cool. That is fine. I guess the real 

question here is that they—USIS does 60 percent of the background checks, right? 

Ms. KAPLAN. I think it is 50. 

Senator TESTER. 50 percent, which is—— 

Mr. KAPLAN. Yes, close enough. 

Senator TESTER. There are three companies that do the contracting, so they are doing the lion’s share of it. 

Mr. KAPLAN. Yes. 

Senator TESTER. Was there any oversight, additional oversight 

given as of July 1 on the work that they were doing? How often 

was it done? And, by the way, are those kind of metrics used now 

on all of them? Because, quite frankly, when money is involved, obviously there are some folks that do not give a damn about the 

product and they just want to make the money. 

Ms. KAPLAN. Yes, I mean, that is a good question. What we have 

done—and it is not just oversight of USIS, because we have other 

contractors and we have Federal employees, quite frankly, who do 

the work, too. They need to be watched. 

Senator TESTER. So what determines what background checks go 

to USIS and what goes to—these guys do some things particularly 

well and other things not so well? Or do you just dole them out like 

a deck of cards or what? 
25 

Ms. KAPLAN. I do not think it is like a deck of cards, and I actually do not know what the—I will get an answer to you on that 

question. I suspect it is based on the location of the investigation, 

but it is not as though, oh, they do the top secret and the Federal 

staff does—— 

Senator TESTER. I believe it was you that talked about quality 

metrics. It might have been Brenda, too. What determines what 

background checks you guys look at to see if they are done appropriately? 

Ms. KAPLAN. We look at all of them. We look at each background 

investigation. 

Senator TESTER. So you looked at Alexis’ background check? 

Ms. KAPLAN. Yes, we did. Well, would you like me to talk about 

the Alexis—— 

Senator TESTER. Well, I mean, you can, but the information is 

out there. I mean, the naval record alone should have brought up 

some red flags. 

Mr. KAPLAN. Well, what we did—— 

Senator TESTER. And what you are saying is two folks missed it 

now. USIS missed it—well, I do not know if USIS did that one or 

not. But the contractor missed it—they did? 

Senator MCCASKILL. They did. 

Senator TESTER. The contractor missed it and you guys missed 

it. 

Ms. KAPLAN. Well, to be clear, I would have to say that based 

on our own review and I believe also ODNI’s review the Alexis investigation, yes, we all missed something for sure. But we did what 

was required of—— 

Senator TESTER. Multiple somethings. 

Ms. KAPLAN. Well, I want to make sure, because it is really important to get to the root cause of this, that we understand each 

part of this. We did the investigation in 2007, and it was for a Secret clearance, and there are certain protocols and standards that 

apply to a Secret clearance. It is not a Top Secret clearance. We 

conducted the investigation that was required by the Investigative 

Standards, so having gone through quality control both at USIS 

and OPM, we would have passed that investigation because it complied with Investigative Standards. 

Now, what we are looking at right now in the context of the review and what we have been looking at is, well, are the standards 

up to snuff? Should we be required to get police reports, for example? Should we be required to get mental health information even 

from someone who has a Secret as opposed to a Top Secret clearance? All these things need to be looked at. But it was not, in our 

view, a case of malfeasance on the part of the contractor. We believe the contractor did what they were supposed to do. 

Senator TESTER. Senator Coburn obviously knows what you 

looked at because he had the thick file, but if you do not look at 

police reports and you do not look at criminal background—what 

do you look at? 

Ms. KAPLAN. No, we did look at the criminal—I will tell you what 

we looked at. The way it works is when—with this Secret clearance 

is that there is an FBI check done, and we get the FBI database, 

and the FBI reveals arrests, it frequently does not reveal the dis-
26 

position of cases that are handled at the State and local level. And 

so the FBI record revealed that Mr. Alexis had been charged and 

arrested for what was called ‘‘malicious mischief.’’ And under the 

existing standards, our job, or the job of the contractor in this case, 

was to go out and find out what the disposition of that charge was 

and to find out more information about the charge. 

Now, some have questioned now why OPM’s investigators did not 

go get a police report. Well, the reason that a police report was not 

obtained was because , there were like 1,700 different localities, 

law enforcement jurisdictions. They all have different rules about 

what they are going to supply to us. And in this case, we had experience with Seattle. Seattle did not provide police reports. And they 

have their own good reasons, I am sure. 

Senator TESTER. All right. 

Mr. KAPLAN. So what we were referred to by Seattle was this 

State database, the State of Washington, their court records, and 

that is where we went. And that revealed that Mr. Alexis was 

charged with malicious mischief, but the charges were not—— 

Senator TESTER. Can I—and I appreciate I am over time, but can 

I just ask you, when you guys do an oversight look, how many do 

you find a problem with? 

Ms. KAPLAN. I do not have that information, but I can get it for 

you. If there is a problem—and there are all kinds of different 

problems—we try to get the contractor to fix the problem, for example, if it is incomplete. And then if there is a problem, if the adjudicator looks at our investigation and feels like it is inadequate, they 

can come back to us and ask us to do more work. 

Senator TESTER. We could be here all day, and we probably 

should be here all day. It is important. Thank you. 

Chairman CARPER. Thank you, Senator Tester. 

Senator Ayotte, welcome. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR AYOTTE 

Senator AYOTTE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I want to thank 

you for holding this very important hearing. 

Let me just followup as to what Senator Tester said. As I understand it, in the case of Mr. Alexis, OPM did actually go to the Seattle Police Department to get the underlying police report? 

Ms. KAPLAN. No. 

Senator AYOTTE. They did not? 

Ms. KAPLAN. No, we did not because we do a lot of these investigations and our understanding was that Seattle did not make 

that kind of information available. They routinely referred us to 

the State of Washington database, and that is where we went. 

Senator AYOTTE. So we did not try to get the underlying police 

report. The decision of OPM was just that we have dealt with Seattle in the past, they will not give us a report? 

Ms. KAPLAN. Well, our obligation is to try to find out the disposition or if there have been charges, and it was not as though we decided we are not going to make an effort here. We just, based upon 

the fact that in the past—and this occurs with other jurisdictions 

besides Seattle. They will refer us to another database, and, that 

is what they did. And we did not go in this particular case and say, 

‘‘Will you depart from your policy?’’ But, just—this is, again, some-
27 

thing that we need to take a really close look at and we are going 

to be looking at as part of the President’s review, because it is 

problematic, certainly, that, there was this information written on 

a piece of paper somewhere that we did not have access to. 

Senator AYOTTE. Yes, I find it actually incredibly shocking that 

we would not pursue a police report in any of these arrest situations, because the nature of the charge looking at the underlying 

police report, having been a prosecutor, can tell us very different 

information, and a prosecutor may not have the elements to make 

a particular charge, and the disposition may tell us nothing. But, 

seeing prior behavior here with Aaron Alexis getting a police report 

would have flagged a very different set of conduct for anyone looking at that. So I believe we do have to change that, we do have to 

get the underlying reports. And if that requires coming to an understanding with law enforcement across the country, I would be 

shocked, having worked with so many police officers, that they 

would not be willing to have an understanding with the Federal 

Government on this given what is at stake for the country. 

One of the things that concerned me also as I heard the discussion, Judge, between you and Mr. Tester was this issue of the USIS 

lawsuit. In 2011, coming before the Committee, I was not a Member of the Committee then, but the fact that this suit was sealed 

and as a result of consultation with Justice you did not feel because 

of the sealing of the suit that you could share that information. I 

understand you have to go to Justice for advice on these issues, so 

I am not being critical of you on this. But what I would be critical 

of is why wasn’t there—this seems to me a core issue of oversight 

that the Committee would need to know that was the subject of 

this sealed suit that now we are seeing obviously some of the consequences of perhaps part of this being USIS obviously with 

Snowden and with what we are seeing in other cases. And it really 

troubles me to think that this would be sealed. Was there any discussion with Justice about how this is a very important piece of information that the Committee really needs to know? Because I 

have a real problem that Justice would not have gone to the court 

and taken actions, having been a prosecutor myself, to try to 

unseal it, explain that there is a separate duty here that the Congress needs to be aware of information and protect the country. 

And I think this is part of a bigger issue, so I wanted to get your 

thoughts on that. And did you come subsequently and update us 

as soon as you could once this thing was unsealed? 

Ms. KAPLAN. I am here today. It was just unsealed 2 days ago. 

Senator AYOTTE. OK. Fair enough. So, in other words, it was 

sealed for 2 years. 

Ms. KAPLAN. Well, and, I am not an expert in this, and thank 

you for calling me ‘‘Judge,’’ even though I am not a judge yet. I appreciate it. And I am not an expert in this, but this is, a False 

Claims Act case—— 

Senator AYOTTE. Right. 

Ms. KAPLAN. They are—they have a very special treatment because somebody comes forward as a whistleblower, and then the 

government has to keep it under seal because the government 

wants to decide whether to intervene in the case. 

Senator AYOTTE. Right. 
28 

Mr. KAPLAN. And so I think that is the reasoning behind the 

sealing. That is—— 

Senator AYOTTE. So understanding that there obviously are different rules in a False Claims case—but this is an issue because 

we have a separate responsibility, and we have to get to the bottom 

of this so that this Committee is not waiting a couple years later 

while this decisionmaking is ongoing in the Government when 

there is a critical issue with a contractor that needs to be addressed. I believe that this is an important issue that we have to 

get at. 

Senator COBURN. If you would yield, I think the real question is, 

now that you have this problem out there, the response I would say 

is: Why weren’t we monitoring quality assurance on our contractors 

to begin with? And what have we done since then to monitor quality assurance on the three contractors that are out there doing it? 

Ms. KAPLAN. That is a fair question. With respect to what were 

we doing before, I have been told that actually we were sort of hot 

on the heels of this around the time that the complaint was filed, 

because we were starting to notice that the quality reviews were 

being done either too much by one person or too quickly, and so 

we had already made inquiry with USIS. But obviously we did not 

catch it quickly enough, because it occurred. And so what we have 

done since then is we have focused more, as I had said before, on 

those reports to enable us to find anomalies before the problem was 

occurring more quickly, and we have beefed up the staff, the Federal staff that is working on those matters. And at the same time, 

USIS has made many, many significant changes in the way that 

they operate, and so there have been a lot of changes made. 

And with respect to the question about not being able to talk 

about it, in some ways it was very frustrating to us as well, because you are looking at—— 

Senator AYOTTE. I can imagine. 

Ms. KAPLAN [continuing]. Things in the newspaper and you are 

unable to—but I think that you would have to ask the Justice Department more about it, but I think that they believe that this is 

required by law. 

Senator AYOTTE. Thank you. And I think obviously that is something we need to work through so we are not in this situation in 

the future. 

I also wanted to ask about—I believe, Mr. Prioletti, you raised 

the issue of Continuous Evaluation, and yesterday Senator Collins, 

along with Senator McCaskill, myself, and Senator Heitkamp, introduced a bill that would provide—one of the issues I see in all 

of this is an issue that we rely too much on self-reporting, particularly after we have granted a clearance. And our bill is fairly 

straightforward in that there would be two random audits conducted. 

As I understand your testimony, you have talked about this idea 

in your testimony of automated record checks, yet you say there is 

more research required. I do not understand how, if we do not have 

some random checks and we are relying totally on self-reporting— 

frankly, people’s lives change dramatically and can change in 5 

years’ time—that we will have a system that really verifies that 
29 

people should maintain their clearance status. So I wanted to get 

your thoughts on that. 

Mr. PRIOLETTI. Thank you, Senator. What I was referring to is 

we do automated record checks at this time or electronic record 

checks. All the government agencies do that at times. For example, 

when Director Kaplan referred to the police checks, going to the 

electronic record checks to get that information, there are ongoing 

processes such as that going on right now. 

What I was referring to with Continuous Evaluation is an expansion of that into more areas that include internal government databases as well as external, both government and commercial databases. Some of the specificity I cannot get into in today’s current 

environment in this proceeding here. But what we are talking 

about is building the enterprise-wise—in other words, have an 

automated records check ability, a Continuous Evaluation, whether 

it be several times over a 5-year period or whether it be more frequently than that, that can serve both the United States military 

units, can serve the intelligence community as well as serving the 

non-Title 50’s. 

What we have done is we launched a CE, if I may use the term, 

Continuous Evaluation Working Group that was made up of Intelligence Community (IC) members, OMB had representation, OPM 

had representation, and DOD had representation. And we created 

a concept of operations that is now ready for testing that takes a 

level of checks that are high enough to satisfy the requirements of 

Top Secret Sensitive Compartmented Information (SCI) organizations such as the IC, but also reasonable for the expectations of an 

non-Title 50 organization or some of the other organizations. That 

is a very touchy balancing act to make sure that we have enough 

checks, but it is an expansion on what is currently done. 

Director Kaplan mentioned that there are national agency 

checks, police checks, and financial checks for the Secret level 

clearances. We have expanded those to cover other areas, some 

databases which include classified information and some that do 

not, as well as the commercial databases. 

The area that I think you are most concerned about is the social 

media or publicly available electronic information, and that is 

where the research is being done, Senator. We have to find that 

balance between the civil liberties and privacies of a U.S. citizen 

versus national security interests. That is where we are doing it. 

I do not have, as a representative of the ODNI, the luxury of going 

into a social media or publicly available database, pull information 

out of there, and submit it as being the truth. The government has 

a responsibility, an obligation to every one of its citizens to ensure 

that the information is true and accurate before we use it in the 

adjudicative process. 

Senator AYOTTE. Well, I know my time is up, but I can tell you 

that obviously when our teenagers go online and get important information on social media and yet we are not going to use it to find 

out that someone is involved in something, I think that is a little 

hard to believe. We need to take a commonsense approach to this. 

So my time is up. I also think we need to have random checks 

on people instead of just relying on their own self-reporting. 

Thanks. 
30 

Chairman CARPER. Senator Ayotte, thank you. Senator 

Heitkamp. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR HEITKAMP 

Senator HEITKAMP. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman, and 

thank you, Ranking Member. I think this is such a critically important response and quick response to this horrible tragedy, and I 

hope that the family members take some comfort that we, too, 

share their concerns. 

I have read this report, and I can tell you honestly, as somebody 

who used to do background checks for people involved in gambling 

in North Dakota, if you were going to get paid minimum wage to 

deal Blackjack, he would not have passed that background check. 

He could not have dealt Blackjack in North Dakota, but yet he had 

a clearance that allowed him to come on to a Navy base and do serious human damage. And so it is really frustrating; we are all 

frustrated here with this process. 

And I completely appreciate your privacy rules, but when you 

apply for this clearance, you waive your right to privacy. And every 

parent on this panel who deals with social media knows if you 

want to know what your kid is doing, go out on social media. You 

may think that does not have the veracity of a court record, but 

I can tell you, as somebody who has looked at court records repeatedly doing background checks, it certainly does. A picture is worth 

a thousand words, and it is heartbreaking. 

And so we take this one example, and I always fear that one example does not prove the case, but we have multiple examples now 

of where we failed in the clearance system to actually ferret out 

people who would do damage to co-workers, murder co-workers, but 

also damage to our national security. And so this is a very broad 

issue and a very important issue. 

I want to talk about self-reporting, and I want to talk about the 

consequences of not self-reporting. I was, quite honestly, shocked— 

because I am new to this Committee and new to looking at government security clearances—the huge number of people in this country who have these clearances. I mean, this is a big group to manage. Right? We would all agree with that. So obviously random 

checks are a critical and important part of this, and you see that 

from the bill that we introduced. But we need to make the self-reporting more effective as well. 

So I want to know, of all those millions of people who have these 

clearances, how many have ever been discharged from the government for failure to self-report. 

Mr. JORDAN. We can get you that information. We do not have 

it with us. 

Senator HEITKAMP. In your database, how would you know that 

information? 

Ms. KAPLAN. Well, if, for example, someone fails to report—do 

you mean on their form they are deceptive and they—— 

Senator HEITKAMP. No. Either lying on their application or failure to report after a serious event that occurs after the clearance. 

Ms. KAPLAN. We will have to get you that information, but the 

latter is certainly grounds for revoking a security clearance, and 

failing to report or being dishonest when you fill out your form is 
31 

something that the adjudicator would take into consideration in deciding whether to grant a clearance in the first instance. 

Senator HEITKAMP. Right, but if you are—with all due respect, 

if you are not checking local police records, you have no guarantee 

that when somebody checks the box and says they have never been 

arrested, they are telling the truth. 

Ms. KAPLAN. No, and with respect to that, there is never a guarantee, but we do not just take their word for whether they have 

been arrested. I mean, we do an FBI check, and the FBI database, 

which receives reports from the States—— 

Senator HEITKAMP. I am familiar with it. 

Ms. KAPLAN. Yes, probably more familiar than I am, frankly. It 

will spit out whether someone has been arrested, and then we do 

the followup, and it often requires work on a State-by-State basis 

or local jurisdiction to find out what the disposition was. 

Now, let us remember, we are talking in his case about a Secret 

clearance. If it was a Top Secret clearance, there would have been 

a more extensive investigation done, which perhaps would have uncovered the gun part of this and maybe other things. That is speculation, but this is a Secret clearance. 

Senator HEITKAMP. If I can just take it one step further, we are 

talking about revoking the clearance. What about requiring that 

employment be terminated? Is that one of the things that you are 

considering and looking at going forward, that this person obviously—for contractors that is a tough call. But certainly for government employment, to me it is not enough to just revoke their clearance. I think that it should be prima facie a case that you now lose 

your job. 

There has to be serious consequences for not reporting. There 

has to be serious consequences for lying. And we have to look at 

the number of people who are out there who are not currently selfreporting, because even random checks cannot solve this problem. 

There has to be true consequences. And so I am interested, anyone 

on the panel, about how we are going to amp up the penalties for 

employees not self-reporting. 

Mr. JORDAN. That is absolutely what we are looking at as part 

of our 120-day interagency review, both the piece that you were 

talking about where, are there any gaps in the self-reporting portion versus an active reinvestigation period would address that in 

scope. What is the information that we collect and measured 

against the 13 adjudicative standards, and does it all flow right? 

That is all part of it and then the accountability. There are currently significant penalties for lying or not reporting adverse information. Yes, it includes revocation of your clearance. You mentioned contractors. An agency can suspend or debar the contracting 

firm. If they think it is just a problem with an individual, they can 

direct that that individual not work on that contract, or you could 

suspend or debar the individual. And we are looking at all of the 

accountability measures for both Federal employees and contractors to make sure that only the people who should have access to 

our facilities and our sensitive information do at any given time, 

not just when they are cleared. 

Senator HEITKAMP. Yes, I mean, just human nature being what 

it is, if simply saying, well, there might be a consequence or—the 
32 

point that I am getting at is a mandated: this is going to happen 

if you do not self-report. And, Mr. Contractor, we do not know this; 

it is your job to help us enforce, it is your job to report back to us. 

And if you do not, black mark on you, you will not be a government 

contractor very long. 

And so that is the level at which I have passion for this issue, 

that we should not be letting—when we give them the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval, which is what this security clearance is, 

that ought to mean something. And if they breach it, that ought 

to be something that we consider very serious with very serious 

consequences. 

And so I applaud your work. I would like to know how many 

have actually been discharged or disciplined for either lying on applications—obviously they would not get the clearance, but not reporting after the fact. 

Mr. Chairman, again, thank you for the time. 

Chairman CARPER. Thanks for those tough questions. Senator 

McCaskill. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR MCCASKILL 

Senator MCCASKILL. I think one of the most revealing things this 

morning is the realization that while an arrest report may be part 

of a background check, there is not a requirement that the underlying police report be obtained. And I will tell you why this is a 

shocking revelation. Like Senator Ayotte, I am a former prosecutor, 

and the vast majority of cases that would reveal a mental disturbance will not have a disposition. 

The criminal justice system does a very bad job of adjudicating 

the mentally ill because with the mentally ill really, from a prosecutor’s standpoint, if they have not hurt anyone, putting them in 

prison sometimes creates more problems than it solves. So most 

prosecutors, when they are confronted with a mental illness issue, 

like someone who says they have heard voices, someone where the 

police have been called to a motel room on a disturbance where 

someone says there are microwaves coming through the vents and, 

‘‘People are here to get me,’’ they will do a police report, and most 

of the time the police department will not even try to file charges. 

That is a disturbance call that is related to someone that, in their 

minds, they do this all the time. 

Now, that is not something that—especially in a city as large as 

Seattle, Kansas City, or a city as large as St. Louis, that kind of 

disturbance call, where someone is making a racket because they 

are mentally disturbed, most police departments will not even take 

it to the prosecutor for disposition. In fact, we are horrific in this 

country with even getting that person to mental health services. 

And the vast majority of these shootings are not going to be around 

the issue of whether or not someone has shown violent tendencies 

but whether or not they have shown tendencies of having a mental 

issue. 

So the notion that we are saying, well, if a police department will 

not give us the report, we have checked the box, and I think if we 

do a gut check on this issue, we will realize that a lot of the work 

that we have been doing around this has been checking boxes. 
33 

Now, I get it that we cannot go out and do one-on-one and pull 

every thread on every application for clearance, although if we did 

that, we would probably make them so expensive, we would be 

much more disciplined about deciding who gets them. But the notion that you are calling what you are doing quality control, Ms. 

Kaplan, is probably, I think, offensive, because I think there is just 

a lot of checking boxes going on. Was this report obtained? Yes. 

What I do not have confidence of is that there is, even on a random basis, a more thorough examination. And I am glad to hear 

you have a working group, and what I would like to see us do as 

a Committee is ask for some specific recommendations on who is 

getting clearances and are they all necessary. And all of this is 

risky. I mean, we can say that we are doing too many, and then 

we could have a bad thing happen. And then we would be back 

here saying, ‘‘Well, why didn’t they have a security clearance?’’ 

On the other hand, what we are doing now is the worst of all situations because we are giving the impression that all these millions of people who have security clearances, we have checked them 

out. We are confident that they are mentally stable, they are not 

criminals, and they obey the law. We have no idea if that is true. 

We are clueless as to whether or not that is true, because this process has become in a way a pro forma kind of process with contractors. And the reason the contractors were off the reservation is because they bid an amount and that contractor wanted to make 

money, so that was time to cut corners. You wanted to make your 

number? You wanted to make money? Well, then, you did not have 

to do the whole thing. You just turned it in and pretended like you 

did. 

So I agree with the Chair and the Ranking Member that this is 

time for all of us to really quit nibbling around the edges on this 

thing and let us get to the meat of the matter. Saying that Seattle 

does not give a police report, that dog does not hunt in this context. 

That just does not work. 

And, Mr. Lewis, I have a specific question for you. My Subcommittee has learned that we have had a bunch of felons on Navy 

installations. We have learned that the Navy was giving these contractors 28 temporary passes at the get-go without any checks on 

anybody. Is that true? 

Mr. LEWIS. This was a subject of a DOD IG report, and the Navy 

has looked into these specific circumstances. I believe there were 

about 50 people identified who were convicted felons who were 

given access without the proper checks, and the Navy has taken 

corrective action, removing individuals who do not warrant access 

from the installation. 

In other instances given the date that—some of the felony convictions were quite old, the Navy made a decision to allow them to 

continue to have access. 

But the fundamental issue is there was a failure to conduct the 

required checks for installation access, and the Navy has taken corrective action on that. 

Senator MCCASKILL. And so no more temporary passes? 

Mr. LEWIS. The passes would have to be based on the required 

checks, the National Criminal Investigative Check as well as the 

terrorism database check. 
34 

Senator MCCASKILL. OK. 

Mr. LEWIS. So that would bring up a felony conviction. 

Senator MCCASKILL. OK. So is there a different status for a certain kind of pass than for a permanent pass now? Are you saying 

that they are doing something before they do a temporary pass? Or 

are they getting the full complement of checks? 

Mr. LEWIS. For installation access, there are two basic criteria. 

One is someone who is going to be on the installation on a temporary basis. Those individuals require a degree of vetting, a criminal records check and the terrorism database check. For individuals who are going to have ongoing access, there is a requirement 

for a national agency check with written inquiries and other 

checks, which is the minimum standard for that CAC issuance. 

Senator MCCASKILL. So we have corrected the problem that 

someone was getting temporary passes without any check. 

Mr. LEWIS. Yes. 

Senator MCCASKILL. And is this going on in other branches, temporary passes with no checks? 

Mr. LEWIS. We are not aware of that, but we are certainly engaged with the components on this particular issue. 

Senator MCCASKILL. OK. Well, I would like a report back that 

this is not going on in any of the other branches. 

Mr. LEWIS. Yes, ma’am. We will do that. 

Senator MCCASKILL. Thank you. My time has expired. Thank 

you, Mr. Chairman. 

Senator COBURN. Just one followup, just for information. Who 

ever made the decision to allow that to happen, to go around? Were 

there any consequences to that individual that actually made the 

decision? 

Mr. LEWIS. There is an ongoing Navy review of what occurred at 

the Navy Yard that day, to include all of the aspects that went into 

that, and that is an ongoing review. 

Senator COBURN. Could we hear back from you to this Committee when the review is completed as far as the consequences to 

the person who made that decision? 

Mr. LEWIS. The Navy review, the overall DOD reviews, and other 

reviews that are being conducted will be brought together in an 

OMB final review of our overarching security practices, and I expect that to be part of the review. 

Senator COBURN. Well, my specific question is a report back to 

the Committee on it; somebody was held accountable for going outside the curve. That is a real problem, is accountability in Federal 

Government. It is accountability. And all I want to know is what 

are the results of holding some—did we hold whoever made that 

decision accountable? 

Chairman CARPER. I would appreciate it if you could just close 

the loop at the end of the day for us, if you would please. 

Mr. LEWIS. Yes, we will do that. 

Chairman CARPER. Thank you. 

All right. Senator Portman, please. Welcome. 
35 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR PORTMAN 

Senator PORTMAN. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate your 

holding the hearing, and I think it has been constructive because 

we have raised obviously a lot of troubling issues and had the opportunity to hear from some Senators who have a lot of interest 

and background in this. 

At the Federal Workforce Subcommittee, as you know, we have 

held some hearings, and in June we held one regarding background 

investigations, and specifically the inability of the OPM Inspector 

General to effectively audit the revolving fund and really the background investigation process. And that is why the SCORE Act was 

developed—Senator McCaskill is still here, Senator Tester, and the 

Chair and Ranking Member and others. And I am pleased that we 

were able to get that done. Just a couple weeks ago we got it off 

the Senate floor. It is a small step, but it does fix that IG issue. 

And I know, Brenda, you worked with us on that, and we want to 

continue to follow that and make sure we get that cleaned up. 

We have another hearing in a few weeks to continue looking at 

this issue and others, and Senator Tester, who again was here earlier, we are going to stay on this at the Subcommittee level. 

I am going to focus on something that I think is critical if we are 

really going to get at this issue, and I guess the tragic example recently at the Navy Yard is unfortunately a perfect example of it. 

But it is not a new issue. It is this whole issue of continuous evaluation, and, whether it is the 5-year cycle or the 10-year cycle, this 

is to me the critical issue that we are missing. And we saw it not 

just with regard to the Navy Yard, but also with this Ricky Elder 

case. This is the specialist, Ricky Elder, who, in 2012, shot and 

killed his commanding officer at Fort Bragg and then turned the 

weapon on himself. His clearance timeline was actually reminiscent 

of Aaron Alexis’. His background investigation was done in 2006. 

Over the next 5 years after 2006, he was charged twice with assault, once for DUI hit-and-run, once for felony aggravated assault—by the way, none of which were reported in his personnel 

security chain. 

Aaron Alexis, similar: After receiving a security clearance, he received nonjudicial punishment for unauthorized absence while in 

jail for disorderly conduct; another nonjudicial punishment for 

being drunk and disorderly; an arrest for firearm discharge; multiple law enforcement interactions, both military and civilian, a 

month prior to the incident that would have highlighted his mental 

health problems. And none of these triggered a reevaluation of his 

access to classified material, classified facilities, none of those. 

I think this is—I mean, every issue that was raised here today 

is important, but if we do not get at this, this interim period between a clearance and—again, whether it is a 5-or 10-year cycle— 

the next clearance, I think we are going to continue to have these 

tragic incidents. 

In 2005, interestingly, a year before Ricky Elder enlisted in the 

Army, 2 years before Aaron Alexis enlisted in the Navy, and 7 

years to the day before Ricky Elder’s deadly attack, the Department of Defense testified to this Committee—and this was in June 

2005—about the Automated Continuous Evaluation System, 

(ACES). And you all said that you were going to continuously 
36 

evaluate the background and suitability of security clearances. Mr. 

Prioletti, in your opening—in your written statement—I did not 

hear you say it in your statement, but in your written statement 

you noted that 3 years earlier, in 2008—3 years later from the 

2005 testimony you gave before this Committee, in 2008 President 

Bush directed by his Executive Order that an individual who has 

been determined to be eligible for or currently has access to classified information shall be subject to Continuous Evaluation. That 

was an Executive Order back in 2008. 

I know we have heard today, ‘‘We are working on this.’’ I heard 

in response to an earlier question, ‘‘We have an interagency working group. We are developing a concept of operations.’’ I wrote this 

down. ‘‘We are doing research.’’ Again, this has been going on now 

for a decade. If you testified in 2005 it was going on in 2004, it may 

be more than a decade. 

So here we are. It is 5 years after the Executive Order, 8 years 

after this Committee heard about the plans, and we are dealing 

with the tragedy at the Navy Yard. 

So I do not know who would like to talk about it. Mr. Lewis, 

maybe you can talk about DOD. And, by the way, you are also talking about putting something in place but not for another 3 years. 

And then it would be DOD only. 

So I guess I would like to hear what is happening, and, Mr. 

Lewis, again, since DOD is taking the lead on trying to get this in 

place, I see from the technical report on the project that there have 

been some pilot projects. You have 3,600 personnel records that 

have been searched. And it is working. Sixty-five of those 3,600 

ended up having clearances suspended or revoked due to derogatory discoveries. Your search algorithms have found problems. But 

3,600 people is a drop in the bucket when we have over 5 million 

people with security clearances. 

So, again, it has been 10 years since we were told, this Committee was told, and I quote: ‘‘Beta testing results and lessons 

learned are being incorporated into an initial operating capability 

basis to be in place by the end of 2005.’’ And here we are in 2013. 

So taxpayers have paid $11.6 million for this just in the 2 years 

between 2012 and 2014. I do not know what the development costs 

are—we are trying to find out—or the costs after 2014 to fully demonstrate its capability at DOD. 

So can you explain the reasons why this capability will take over 

a decade to field? Can you give us some sense of the total cost for 

this and what it is going to cost to field it over at the Department 

of Defense? 

Mr. LEWIS. I cannot speak to the total cost. I would have to come 

back with that information. But I can give you a current status of 

how the Automated Continuous Evaluation System is being used. 

It does provide on-demand queries of a large number of government and commercial data sources, as well as an analytical capability to flag issues of concern. So that is an existing capability. 

As you mentioned, it was used in an Army project, and out of 

3,300-odd individuals, a total of 100 personnel actions were taken 

as a result of information identified during those queries. 

In addition, the Defense Security Enterprise is developing a Continuous Evaluation concept demonstration which would take this a 
37 

step further. So ACES, does a one-time snapshot-in-time query. 

This concept demonstration would have real-time updates so that 

as information became available, it would be pushed into the system. And the concept demonstration is currently scheduled to run 

from April to October 2014. The anticipated population would be 

100,000 cleared military, civilian, and contractor personnel. And so 

we are anxiously looking forward to completing that concept demonstration. 

In the interim we are using ACES for Continuous Evaluation 

checks, again, testing the concept, getting more validation, looking 

at things like privileged users and some other groups of contractor 

employees. 

So this is an ongoing effort. We get results on a regular basis. 

And we are looking to take that to the next level in terms of a true 

Continuous Evaluation, which would give feedback to the system 

as it is developed so that if an individual gets arrested tomorrow, 

the system would push that back to DOD instead of waiting for 

DOD to make that query. 

Senator PORTMAN. You were not here in this job 9 years ago 

when we heard that it was going to be in place by 2005. But you 

are here now, and so, one question I could ask you is: Why has it 

taken so long? And you might say, ‘‘I do not know. I was not in 

charge.’’ But you are in charge now, and you are saying that you 

are going to have this fully operational in 3 years. Is that correct? 

Mr. LEWIS. For the Automated Continuous Evaluation System as 

it currently stands, it is an operational system. It is still in a research and development mode, but it is an operational system. The 

limits right now—— 

Senator PORTMAN. I mean, when I say ‘‘operational,’’ I mean it 

actually would cover more than a small percentage of the people 

who are in between their clearances. You are talking about taking 

it from 3,600 up to 100,000. How many security clearances do you 

have at DOD? 

Mr. LEWIS. We have about 2.5 million people who are eligible 

and in access for classified information. 

Senator PORTMAN. So when are we going to cover these people? 

Mr. LEWIS. One of the things we are examining is can we expand 

the capability of the system to handle that larger volume, and that 

is a work in progress and something that we could report back to 

you on. 

Senator PORTMAN. Do you think it is important? 

Mr. LEWIS. Yes, we do. We need to address what happens between investigations, and—— 

Senator PORTMAN. So what are you looking for in order to get 

this done? You are going to get back to us as to what the costs are. 

Mr. LEWIS. Yes. 

Senator PORTMAN. Have you sought additional funding? Is that 

what you are thinking is the problem? 

Mr. LEWIS. It is a question of having the right criteria in place 

to conduct the evaluations and then what we do with the data once 

it is generated from the system, how you evaluate that and how 

you take action based on that information. 

Senator PORTMAN. My time is up, and I apologize, Mr. Chairman. 

I just think we have to have some answers on this because if we 
38 

do not fix this problem—the initial clearances is incredibly important. We have talked a lot about the need to have arrest records 

and so on. But if you have this interim period where you are not 

keeping up with what is happening, and in the case of Aaron Alexis, I mean, it was clear as day, and yet there was no system to incorporate that data. And so to Mr. Prioletti on the intel side, I 

want to hear what you are doing, too, but we do not have time to 

get into it right now with this question, but I hope you will get 

back to us in writing as to what you are doing because we were 

just talking about DOD here. 

And then, finally, I hope that GAO can help us on this to establish some metrics, let us come up with a timeline that makes sense. 

If you are looking for additional resources or something, let us 

know. But, if it is going to take another 10 years because we are 

doing more pilots and more research and so on, that is unacceptable. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman CARPER. Thank you, Senator. 

Senator Coburn, and then I will wrap it up. 

Senator COBURN. Mr. Jordan, can you explain to me the difference in the field work contract and the supply services contract 

you have with USIS, one? 

And, No. 2, are contractors completing background investigations, then other contractors validating the completeness of those 

investigations? And are these contractors from the same company? 

Mr. JORDAN. So I can answer the second part, but OPM is better 

suited to answer the first part since they have that contract. And, 

yes, contractors perform background investigations, and, yes, contractors can perform quality reviews on those investigations. But 

only government employees make a determination as to whether to 

grant a security clearance to someone. 

Senator COBURN. But my question is: Is it the same company 

that is validating the work of their colleagues doing the investigations? Is that correct? 

Mr. JORDAN. I would have to defer to OPM. 

Ms. KAPLAN. No. The companies that are doing the investigations 

have an obligation under the contract to also do a quality review. 

But then we do another quality review, and the purpose of their 

quality review is we would like them to catch errors before the file 

gets to us, but we do a quality review as well. 

Senator COBURN. So OPM is the final validator of the completeness of the investigation? 

Ms. KAPLAN. To some extent. I mean, I think another thing that 

validates the completeness of the investigation, it gets sent to an 

adjudicator. An adjudicator may want more information. And so ultimately it is a collaborative effort. They may send something back 

to us. But we are the arbiter of whether we have provided an adequate investigative product, a quality investigative product. 

Senator COBURN. Is every investigation validated by you? 

Ms. KAPLAN. Every investigation is reviewed for quality, yes. 

Senator COBURN. By OPM? 

Ms. KAPLAN. By OPM. 

Senator COBURN. All right. I have one other question, and then 

I will submit the rest of my questions. There is a revolving fund 
39 

where you charge agencies for this. It has $2 billion in it. Has it 

ever been audited? 

Ms. KAPLAN. I am told it has not by the Office of Inspector General (OIG) because they have told us they do not have the resources, which is why we are supporting, the administration is supporting their request to be able to draw from the revolving fund in 

order to give them the resources they need to do that. 

Senator COBURN. OK. Thank you. I will have questions for the 

record. 

Chairman CARPER. OK. I suspect you will have a number of 

questions for the record. We thank you for your verbal answers 

today. 

I want to telegraph my pitch. Right now at 12 o’clock in the Senate, we have a new Senator being sworn in. Cory Booker is taking 

the oath of office, and we will start voting and have the first of several votes beginning about 10 after 12, so we will wrap up here 

probably about 12:20. 

The last question I will ask each of you is this, so you will have 

a chance to think about it. Sometimes I say when you see something awful that has happened and you hope that some good will 

come of it, sometimes it does and sometimes it does not. Few things 

could be much worse than losing a loved one, and 12 families lost 

loved ones in the Navy Yard, not far from here. They would like 

to know that something good is going to come out of something that 

was awful for them, and I think the American people feel that way 

as well. 

One of the last things I will ask you to do is just to reflect on 

what you said, what you have heard here today, what you have 

been asked here today, and see if you can give those families some 

assurance that out of the tragedy they have suffered through, some 

good is going to come and what that might be. So just know that 

question is coming, OK? 

Senator COBURN. I have one more question. 

Chairman CARPER. Dr. Coburn. 

Senator COBURN. I just wanted to followup. I am not clear. When 

you say OPM validates, do you use a contractor to validate? 

Ms. KAPLAN. The Federal employees who validate—— 

Senator COBURN. It is all Federal—— 

Mr. KAPLAN. When you say ‘‘validate,’’ we do a quality review. 

It is all Federal employees. They do a quality review, too, but then 

we do one as well. 

Senator COBURN. OK. So it is all Federal employees that do a 

validation on the background information on everything that comes 

in. 

Ms. KAPLAN. Yes. 

Senator COBURN. OK. Thank you. 

Chairman CARPER. I want to come back, Mr. Prioletti, to—I 

think a question was maybe asked by Senator Ayotte and I think 

by Senator Heitkamp, and I want to give you a chance to respond 

to it. I think it dealt with using social media in the Continuous 

Evaluation program. Could you just give us some thoughts on that 

briefly, please? 

Mr. PRIOLETTI. Yes, Senator, I can. What I was referring to there 

is we are seeking to provide as much of the comprehensive capabili-
40 

ties as possible in the overall background investigation on the individual. The more information we can gain, the more enlightened 

the decision can be on whether or not to grant the access to classified or access to a sensitive position. 

One of the obvious sources, potential sources of information, is 

social media or publicly available electronic information. What I referred to in terms of the research was the idea that we need to look 

at both what possible sources of information are out there, which 

ones would be of most benefit to provide adjudicatively relevant information for the access to classified information, and how do we 

do that in the best way that protects both the personal rights of 

the individual as well as the veracity and the coverage of the U.S. 

Government. 

Chairman CARPER. OK. Thank you. I have a couple of questions, 

a series of questions, Ms. Farrell, if I could, for you. And before I 

ask the questions, let me just make a short statement. But when 

an investigator fails to discover or disclose crucial information during a background investigation, it is an obvious failure. What could 

be more troubling is GAO’s report that efforts by agencies to measure and improve the quality of investigations have fallen short. The 

Office of Personnel Management is supposed to review the investigative file and make sure it meets minimum standards. The agency responsible for granting the security clearance also has the responsibility to review the file. 

Yet when GAO looked into what OPM and other Federal agencies were doing in 2008 to review the quality of background investigations, it found almost 90 percent of the investigation reports 

that DOD was using to evaluate an applicant for a security clearance were missing required documentation. Three questions: 

First, how often were agencies making a security clearance decision without having all of the required information? And what motive did agencies have for doing this? That is the first question. 

Ms. FARRELL. The answer is we do not know because GAO performed this analysis of the complete documentation for DOD in 

2006 and 2009. So we do not know outside of DOD the information 

that you are asking for, and this is the type of oversight that we 

are saying is needed. 

Chairman CARPER. All right. Second question: What type of information is missing? Could you give us some idea? 

Mr. FARRELL. Employment verification and discussions with the 

employers; social references, especially the number of social references in order to determine someone’s character; completeness of 

the application, which should be the very first step, as we have 

noted before, that should be done before OPM even moves forward. 

Chairman CARPER. All right. Thank you. And the third question: 

Has GAO had an opportunity to take another look at this issue 

since 2008? And if you have, has there been any noted improvement? 

Ms. FARRELL. We have continued to monitor OPM’s actions to 

implement the recommendation that we made at that time. As I 

noted, in 2010 we were very encouraged that there was agreement 

among OMB, OPM, DOD, and the DNI regarding metrics for quality of investigations as well as adjudications and other aspects of 

the process. There was somewhat of a plan to move forward beyond 
41 

that. We have continued to monitor, but at this time all we know 

is that that plan has fallen apart. 

Chairman CARPER. OK. Thank you. 

My next question would be for Mr. Prioletti and I think for Mr. 

Lewis. According to some news reports, the company that hired 

Alexis—it is, I think, a company called ‘‘The Experts’’—had phoned 

his hotel room in Rhode Island, I believe in August, saying that he 

was unstable and that the company was bringing him home. 

According to other news reports, the human resources director of 

The Experts talked to the mother of Aaron Alexis on August 9, and 

she informed the company of her son’s past paranoid behavior and 

stated that he probably needed therapy. And I would just ask, first 

of all, for Mr. Prioletti, if the company that had hired Alexis had 

become aware of the increasingly troubled behavior, do you think 

that the contractor should have a duty to report the behavior to the 

Department of Defense? And did they report it? 

Mr. PRIOLETTI. Senator, in this particular case that you have just 

described, in terms of a national security perspective, it behooves 

everyone to report any unusual activity that they see, whether it 

be a colleague, a co-worker, or a subordinate that works for you. 

Chairman CARPER. And the second half of my question was: Did 

they report it? 

Mr. PRIOLETTI. To the best of my knowledge, sir, it was just reported to the mother, as you described there. I am not positive 

whether or not they reported it to DOD. 

Chairman CARPER. I am going to ask both you and Mr. Lewis to 

answer that question for the record. I will give Mr. Lewis a chance 

to answer it right now. 

Mr. LEWIS. The contractor is required to report any derogatory 

information coming to their attention regarding a cleared employee. The Defense Security Service has done a followup review at 

The Experts, and they have determined that the company was 

aware of the indications of mental instability on Mr. Alexis’ part, 

and that they failed to report that information. 

Chairman CARPER. All right. Thank you. 

Mr. Lewis, stay with us in this area of questioning. What do you 

think should be the role of DOD contractors in monitoring the suitability of their employees to hold a clearance? 

Mr. LEWIS. This is part and parcel of their responsibilities as a 

cleared contractor. As a prerequisite for getting a company cleared, 

they must execute a security agreement, and part of that security 

agreement is the National Industrial Security Program Operating 

Manual (NISPOM). They have been required to do this literally for 

decades. This is an established process, and contractors must execute that responsibility. 

Chairman CARPER. OK. Thank you. 

I would ask you to think about a question. I have given that 

question so you had a little time to think about it. What can we 

say, what can you say to those who lost their loved ones, their husbands, their wives, their moms and dads, a brother or sister, what 

can we say to them that might give them some comfort to know 

that out of the horrible tragedy in their lives, and really our country’s life, what can we say today to make them feel that some good 

is going to come out of this? Mr. Jordan. 
42 

Mr. JORDAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would first say that we 

owe the survivors of this tragedy and the American people a comprehensive and thoughtful review. What information do we look at? 

When do we review people in the suitability and security clearance 

process? How are decisions made and how can we improve upon all 

of these aspects? 

The review that I talked about will be done collaboratively. There 

are the Navy’s reviews that have happened, Department of Defense 

reviews, OPM, and then the overarching review, which all of our 

agencies are involved in. This will not be a siloed effort. And we 

will act on any improvements as quickly as possible. Where there 

are gaps, we will close them. Where there were failures, we correct 

them. 

But if I was one of the families of the victims, I would not just 

want to hear about processes and procedures. I would probably 

have some concerns that there is a blue-ribbon panel type creation 

as opposed to actual improvements, that we will do everything we 

can to prevent this from happening again. So I would just say to 

them that I live near the Navy Yard. On the morning of September 

16, my wife and my 2-year-old son were actually playing in a park 

across the street when they were cleared by police as the tragedy 

was unfolding in the Navy Yard. We lost a husband of a senior 

member of our acquisition community. 

So I would tell them that getting this right is personal to me, 

and we will do everything we can to improve our processes and everything under our power to make sure nothing like this happens 

again. 

Chairman CARPER. Good. Thank you. Ms. Kaplan. 

Ms. KAPLAN. Of course, I would echo what Joe said, and our 

hearts really were broken that day for the families and for the 

folks that we lost, the Federal employees and the contractors. And 

I think in addition to what Joe said, this is getting attention at the 

highest levels. The President is the one that ordered this review. 

And I am sure and I know that he feels very strongly in the same 

way that Joe just articulated that this was an awful loss, and we 

have to do whatever we can to prevent it from happening again. 

Chairman CARPER. All right. Thank you. Mr. Prioletti. 

Mr. PRIOLETTI. I also would like to echo the comments of Director 

Kaplan and Mr. Jordan. There are no real words to describe the 

loss both to this Nation as well as to family members that are sitting behind us. But I can give you a guaranteed commitment from 

not only the DNI but each one of us at this table that we will continue to work to find the solution. This is an evolutionary process. 

As we find gaps in our processes and the way we do our business, 

the techniques, the available information, we will continue to utilize those to come up with the best possible process to improve how 

we do our business on behalf of the U.S. Government as well as 

the U.S. citizens. 

Chairman CARPER. Thank you, sir. Stephen. 

Mr. LEWIS. In addition to what my fellow witnesses have had to 

say, I would just add that we need to make a commitment and effectively ensure that what happens between investigations is something that is tracked. We vet people. We entrust them with our 

classified information and access to our sensitive facilities. And we 
43 

have an obligation to ensure that we are looking at people between 

investigations and taking appropriate corrective action as needed. 

Chairman CARPER. Thank you. Ms. Farrell. 

Mr. FARRELL. I would say it is unfortunate that the tragedies 

that we saw at the Navy Yard focuses attention on this process. 

But we have seen the dedicated leadership from these executive 

branch agencies in the past, and when they make their minds up 

to take on a problem and solve it, they do it. And now is the time 

for actions, not just review groups. 

Chairman CARPER. A lot of folks in the room know that the Government Accountability Office, is regarded as a watchdog and an 

arm of the legislative branch of our government to be a watchdog 

for really the whole expanse of the Federal Government. It is a 

huge job. You have a lot of people that do it, probably not enough, 

I am told by Gene Dodaro, the Comptroller General. But we need 

your continued vigilance to help us do our job, and that is the oversight role. 

I think probably the two most quoted things that Ronald Reagan 

ever said was, one, when he said to Mr. Gorbachev, ‘‘Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall,’’ as he stood at the Berlin Wall, and it 

was torn down. He also used to say, when he was trying to negotiate reductions in nuclear arms with the Soviet Union, he would 

say of his friend Gorbachev, ‘‘Trust, but verify.’’ 

All of us on the Committee, our staffs as well, trust you, and we 

trust the good will of the folks with whom you work who are responsible for carrying through on these reforms and to make sure 

it is not just words but there are actions to back it up. So we are 

trustful, but this Committee is going to be, in concert with GAO 

and you and your colleagues, we are going to be doing some 

verification along the way. 

Ms. Kaplan, as you go off to your next assignment, we wish you 

well. And we again appreciate the preparation time you have given 

to being with us today. Even more we appreciate the commitment 

of those who, in your case, Ms. Kaplan, will follow you and those 

with whom the rest of you serve to make sure that these words are 

words and this promise is a promise that we keep. 

With that having been said, this hearing is adjourned. Thanks so 

much. 

[Whereupon, at 12:17 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.] 

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(141) 

THE NAVY YARD TRAGEDY: EXAMINING PHYSICAL SECURITY FOR FEDERAL FACILITIES 

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 17, 2013 

U.S. SENATE,

COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY

AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS, 

Washington, DC. 

The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:34 a.m., in room 

SD–342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Thomas R. Carper, 

Chairman of the Committee, presiding. 

Present: Senators Carper, Heitkamp, Coburn, and Ayotte. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN CARPER 

Chairman CARPER. Good morning, Senator Heitkamp. The early 

bird. 

Senator HEITKAMP. Good morning, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman CARPER. How are you doing? You sound in good voice 

today. 

Welcome, everyone. Thank you for joining us, and some of you, 

thank you for joining us again and again. It is nice to see you all. 

This is an important hearing. This is actually the second in a series of hearings that will enable us to take a closer look at physical 

security for Federal facilities. 

Three months ago, as we know, Aaron Alexis reported to the 

Washington Navy Yard with intentions to inflict pain and suffering 

on anyone in his path. We do not know now and maybe we never 

will be entirely clear why this tragedy came to pass, but hopefully 

the lessons learned from it will provide a foundation for preventing 

future tragedies like this one. 

Let us take just a moment to recount how Aaron Alexis got the 

access to the Navy Yard that allowed him to successfully enter the 

facility that fateful morning. 

In 2007, Aaron Alexis joined the U.S. Navy. As with other 

servicemembers, a background check was performed and he was 

granted a low-level security clearance. After an honorable discharge from the Navy in 2011, Alexis was hired by a defense contractor who confirmed that he possessed a valid security clearance. 

This marked him as a trustworthy individual. Because of that security clearance and that job, Alexis was provided with an ID card 

that would authorize his access to certain facilities, including 

Building 197 at the Washington Navy Yard. 

Shortly before 8 a.m., on September 16, 2013, Aaron Alexis drove 

to the front gate of the Washington Navy Yard and displayed his 
142 

access card. He was admitted by security, parked his car, and 

walked to Building 197. 

Upon entering that building, Alexis encountered two additional 

security layers: an automated turnstile which required a valid access card and an armed security guard posted near an entrance. 

Unfortunately, these measures were designed primarily to prevent unauthorized access and not to screen for weapons. Officials 

probably thought that the people working there were trustworthy 

because they had security clearances and had been vetted. 

Eight minutes after Alexis cleared security, he began shooting coworkers using a shotgun that he had successfully concealed. 

In the wake of the shooting at the Washington Navy Yard, this 

Committee began a review of security practices and procedures 

highlighted by the attack. 

Our first oversight hearing looked at the security clearance processes that Federal agencies have implemented to determine who 

should have access to sensitive information or to facilities. At that 

hearing we explored ways to improve the process and were reminded that quality cannot be sacrificed for speed. The purpose of 

today’s hearing is to review how we physically secure Federal facilities from attack. 

In many instances, security measures begin long before a person 

approaches the facility. Because Mr. Alexis was able to maintain 

a security clearance, he was trusted as a defense contractor and 

granted access to the Navy Yard complex. Aaron Alexis exploited 

this trust, and he hurt a lot of innocent people. 

In the aftermath, it is only natural that we wonder if all people 

entering a Federal facility—even employees—should be screened in 

some way. Should we, to borrow an often used phrase from Ronald 

Reagan, ‘‘trust, but verify’’? 

Workplace violence and insider threats are just some of the examples of the many undesirable threats facing our Federal facilities. There are many other potential threats that agencies must attempt to detect and deter. In addition to active shooters, agencies 

must develop countermeasures for improved explosive devices, biological weapons, and other types of assaults. 

Today’s hearing will examine Federal agencies’ efforts to develop 

and maintain effective layers of security at their facilities and prevent future attacks against innocent people. 

Facility security is not just about protecting the physical structure of a building; it is about safeguarding the millions of innocent 

people who work and visit these facilities on an almost daily basis. 

Today’s hearing on facility security is also about honoring the 

memory of the 12 men and women who died on September 16, earlier this year by learning from that incident and doing all that we 

can to prevent a similar tragedy from happening in the future. 

People who work with me know that one of my guiding principles 

is, ‘‘If it is not perfect, make it better.’’ And our goal today is to 

figure out how we can do a better job protecting people at our Federal facilities. We can start by asking some fundamental questions. 

First, we need to ask: How do Federal agencies determine what 

the threats are to their specific facilities? 

As we know, not every facility is the same. Large Federal buildings in big cities—for example, the Alfred P. Murrah building in 
143 

Oklahoma City—may be a target for terrorists because of their size 

and what they symbolize. However, the more likely threat is probably to a small Social Security office or maybe an Internal Revenue 

Service (IRS) Taxpayer Assistance Center because of a tired or 

angry citizen reacting badly and out of impulse. 

Second, we should ask: Are Federal agencies properly assessing 

and prioritizing these risks? 

As we all know, the world around us is constantly changing. So 

is the nature of the threats that we face. As a result, methods for 

securing our homeland should always be under observation and 

under assessment because the nature of the threat continues to 

evolve. The methods we use to secure our homeland must continue 

to evolve. 

That leads me to my final question, and that is: How do agencies 

respond to these evolving threats? 

A security measure that may work for one facility may not work 

for another. For example, not every facility might be able to be 

built 50 feet or more away from the nearest public road in order 

to protect against a vehicle-borne threat. 

I also want to know if Federal agencies are sufficiently sharing 

best practices. Is the Department of Defense (DOD) working with 

civilian agencies to share its expertise and its experience? 

For both military and civilian facilities, senior officials at a facility are responsible for determining which security measures should 

be implemented. However, civilian officials sitting on a local Facility Security Committee (FSC) may have little or no training in security matters; whereas, the commanding officer for a military installation may have years of experience and education in security 

matters. 

Most importantly, I want to know what actions different organizations have undertaken since the Navy Yard shooting to improve 

security at Federal facilities. 

Many departments and agencies bear some responsibility for securing Federal facilities. This includes the Department of Defense 

and the General Services Administration (GSA) and even the Department of Energy (DOE). It also includes the Federal Protective 

Service (FPS), a component of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that is responsible for protecting Federal facilities 

owned or leased by the General Services Administration. 

There is no doubt that the Federal Protective Service has a difficult mission. That agency employs only about 1,000 law enforcement officers to protect more than 9,000 civilian Federal facilities. 

Think about that. These facilities are spread out all across the 

country. 

Yet while the Federal Protective Service is responsible for assessing security at each of these facilities, it lacks complete authority 

to implement security measures. It may recommend installing 

metal detectors and X-ray screening equipment at a facility, but it 

is the local Facility Security Committee that decides whether to authorize and pay for those recommended security measures. 

As repeated Government Accountability Office (GAO) reports 

have highlighted, a number of internal management challenges 

have impeded the Federal Protective Service’s ability to protect facilities. For example, the Federal Protective Service must complete 
144 

the facility security assessments in a timely manner so that it can 

share them with the offices it protects. Because the Federal Protective Service has been unable to do that, other agencies have sought 

to complete their own facility security assessments, creating unnecessary duplication and waste. 

The Federal Protective Service must also do a better job of tracking and overseeing training for the 14,000 contract guards that it 

uses to protect facilities. The agency must ensure both its Federal 

law enforcement officers and the armed security guards it uses are 

appropriately trained, equipped, and prepared. 

Ensuring the training, the equipment, and the preparedness of 

Federal law enforcement officers and armed contract security 

guards is central to providing for the security of the facilities safeguarded by the Federal Protective Service. This will require, at a 

minimum, a greater focus on active-shooter scenario training. In 

the wake of the shootings at the Navy Yard and the Wheeling, 

West Virginia, Courthouse, we cannot afford to be ill prepared for 

this type of threat. 

While Director Eric Patterson has worked hard to improve the 

Federal Protective Service’s performance, the agency has not always received the support it needs from Congress. I want to assure 

Director Patterson that I am committed to working with him to 

make the agency more efficient and more effective. We can start by 

focusing on the cost-saving or cost-neutral solutions that are much 

more likely to receive broad bipartisan support from our colleagues 

here in Congress. 

I hope that today’s hearing will help us find better ways to improve security at all Federal facilities. I believe there is much to 

be learned from the Navy Yard tragedy to help us prevent similar 

incidents in the future. 

And I suspect we will be joined here later this morning by Dr. 

Coburn, who I know has a strong interest in these issues. 

Normally I do not turn to the Senator from North Dakota to see 

if she would like to make a comment or two, but you are welcome 

to, if you would like, Heidi. 

Senator HEITKAMP. No. Mr. Chairman, we will go ahead and proceed. 

Chairman CARPER. OK. I am going to just briefly introduce our 

witnesses and reintroduce others. 

I want to introduce as our first witness Caitlin—do you pronounce your name ‘‘Durkovich’’? 

Ms. DURKOVICH. Yes. 

Chairman CARPER. Caitlin Durkovich, Assistant Secretary for Infrastructure Protection for the National Protection and Programs 

Directorate (NPPD) at the Department of Homeland Security, 

where we have a newly confirmed Secretary, Jeh Johnson, who was 

approved I think yesterday by a vote of about 78–16. I just would 

say here publicly how grateful I am to our colleagues, Democrat 

and Republican, for their support, especially to Dr. Coburn, who 

was a strong supporter of Jeh’s nomination. And I think it may 

take a couple of days to process the paperwork so that he can be 

sworn in and be on the payroll, but we need him in place, and he 

needs a team to lead, including an able Deputy Secretary of Home-
145 

1The prepared statement of Senator Coburn appears in the Appendix on page 189. 

land Security. I believe Alejandro Mayorkas, if confirmed, will be 

that person. 

Ms. Durkovich was appointed to her current position in May 

2012. As Assistant Secretary for Infrastructure Protection, Ms. 

Durkovich leads the Department’s efforts to strengthen and build 

resilience in our Nation’s critical infrastructure. As Chair of the 

Interagency Security Committee (ISC), Ms. Durkovich oversees its 

mission to develop security standards and best practices for civilian 

Federal facilities in the United States. 

Our next witness is Retired Brigadier General Eric Patterson— 

great to see you—Director of the Federal Protective Service, a component of the Department of Homeland Security’s National Protection and Programs Directorate. Director Patterson was appointed 

to his position in September 2010. As Director, Mr. Patterson oversees the Service’s mission to protect and deliver integrated law enforcement and security services to over 9,000 civilian Federal facilities and to safeguard their more than 1.4 million daily occupants 

and visitors. 

Now, I understand you served in the Air Force for over 30 years. 

General PATTERSON. Yes, sir. 

Chairman CARPER. Thank you for that service, too. 

Our final witness is Stephen Lewis, Deputy Director for Personnel, Industrial and Physical Security Policy within the Office of 

the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence, United States Department of Defense. The Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence oversees DOD’s policies, programs, and guidance related to, 

among other things, personnel and facility security. Mr. Lewis also 

previously appeared before our Committee just about a month ago 

at our first hearing on the Washington Navy Yard hearing. 

We welcome you all today, and before I ask Ms. Durkovich to 

lead off, I am going to yield to Dr. Coburn. Good morning. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR COBURN 

Senator COBURN. I apologize for being late, both to our witnesses 

and to the Chairman. I will put my opening statement in the 

record.1

Chairman CARPER. Fair enough. Welcome. 

Ms. Durkovich, please proceed. Your entire statement will be 

made part of the record, and you are welcome to summarize as you 

see fit. Try to stick within about 5 minutes, but if you go a little 

beyond that, that is all right. 
146 

1The prepared statement of Mr. Durkovich appears in the Appendix on page 192. 

TESTIMONY OF CAITLIN A. DURKOVICH,1 ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR INFRASTRUCTURE PROTECTION, NATIONAL 

PROTECTION AND PROGRAMS DIRECTORATE, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY 

Ms. DURKOVICH. Thank you very much, Chairman Carper, Ranking Member Coburn, Senator Heitkamp, and other distinguished 

Members of the Committee. I am pleased to appear before you 

today to help honor the memory of the 12 men and women who 

died at the Navy Yard and all of those who have been victims of 

violence in the Federal workplace. 

As Assistant Secretary for Infrastructure Protection (IP), I have 

had the responsibility to lead the overall coordination of the Nation’s critical infrastructure security and resilience efforts. One of 

the most rewarding opportunities I have is to serve as Chair of the 

Interagency Security Committee, and oversee the development of 

standards, reports, guidelines, and best practices for facility security at nearly 400,000 civilian Federal facilities. 

The ISC was created by Executive Order (EO) following the 

bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma 

City on April 19, 1995. The ISC and its 53 member Federal departments and agencies is responsible for the creation and adoption of 

numerous standards, guidelines, and best practices for the protection of these nearly 400,000 non-military Federal facilities across 

the country. 

The work is based on real-world, present-day conditions and 

challenges and allows for cost savings by focusing on specific security needs of the agencies. ISC standards provide the Federal community with strategies for identifying physical security measures 

and facilities, the design and implementation of risk-based security 

policies. 

Recently the ISC issued the Risk Management Process for Federal Facilities Standard, a standard that defines the criteria and 

processes that those responsible for security should use to determine a facility’s security level and provides an integrated, single 

source of facility security countermeasures for all non-military Federal facilities. The standard also provides guidance for 

customization of the countermeasures for Federal facilities and explains that risk may be addressed in various ways, depending on 

agency mission needs, for example, presence of a child-care center 

onsite and historical significance. 

It is most important to note that the ISC is a truly collaborative 

interagency body. Fifty-three Federal departments and agencies 

participate in the ISC and take the lead on bringing ideas to the 

table in drafting standards and best practices. When agencies cannot solve security-related problems on their own, the ISC brings 

chief security officers and senior executives together to solve continuing governmentwide security concerns. 

ISC membership also engages in the development of standards 

and best practices based on evolving real-world threats. Recent 

events have demonstrated the need to identify measures that can 

be taken to reduce the risk of mass casualty shootings and work-
147 

place violence, improve preparedness, and expand and strengthen 

ongoing efforts intended to prevent future incidents. 

The Department of Homeland Security aims to enhance preparedness through a whole-of-community approach by providing resources to a broad range of stakeholders on issues such as activeshooter awareness, countering improvised explosive devices (IEDs), 

incident response, and workplace violence. Working with partners 

in the private sector, DHS has developed training and other awareness materials to assist owners and operators of critical infrastructure to better train their staff and coordinate with local law enforcement for these types of incidents. We have hosted workshops 

and developed an online training tool targeted at preparing those 

who work in the buildings. These efforts and resources have been 

well received and are applicable to Federal facilities as well as commercial spaces and other government buildings. 

Cognizant of this growing threat, the ISC this spring formed a 

Federal Active Shooter Working Group. While a number of Federal 

guidance documents previously existed on active-shooter preparedness and response, this working group was formed to streamline 

the existing ISC policy into a single cohesive document. To date, 

the working group has met five times and has reviewed numerous 

publications and guidance documents including training and materials developed by the Department for commercial facilities. It will 

also leverage lessons learned from real-world incidents, such as the 

Navy Yard shooting. It is our intention that the resulting work will 

serve as a resource for agencies to enhance preparedness for an active-shooter incident in a Federal facility. 

Threats to our critical infrastructure, including Federal facilities, 

are wide-ranging and constantly evolving. Not only are there terrorist threats, like the bombing at the Boston Marathon this past 

spring or the complex shopping mall attack in Nairobi in September, but hazards from weather-related events such as Hurricane Sandy and a cyber infrastructure increasingly under attack 

all have a direct impact on the security of our Federal buildings. 

It is impossible to anticipate every threat, but the Department is 

taking a holistic approach to create a more secure and resilient infrastructure environment to better handle these challenges, and 

the work of the ISC exemplifies these efforts. 

Ensuring our Federal facilities are secure and resilient is a large 

undertaking, but the work of our member departments and agencies ensures that those responsible for Federal facility security 

have the tools and resources to mitigate the threats. 

In closing, I would like to thank you for the opportunity to appear before you and discuss the important work of the ISC and how 

we can learn from real-world events and ensure they do not happen 

again. I look forward to answering any questions you may have. 

Chairman CARPER. Secretary Durkovich, thank you. Thanks for 

being here. Thanks for your testimony and your work. 

General, welcome. 
148 

1The prepared statement of Mr. Patterson appears in the Appendix on page 198. 

TESTIMONY OF LEONARD ERIC PATTERSON,1 DIRECTOR, FEDERAL PROTECTIVE SERVICE, NATIONAL PROTECTION AND 

PROGRAMS DIRECTORATE, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY 

General PATTERSON. Good morning. Thank you, Chairman Carper, Ranking Member Coburn, and Senator Heitkamp. My name is 

Eric Patterson, and I am the Director of the Federal Protective 

Service within the National Protection and Programs Directorate of 

the Department of Homeland Security. I am honored to testify before this Committee today regarding the mission and operations of 

the Federal Protective Service. 

FPS is charged with protecting and delivering integrated law enforcement and security services to over 9,000 facilities owned or 

leased by the General Services Administration and safeguard their 

more than 1.4 million daily occupants and visitors. 

In performing this mission, FPS directly employs over 1,000 law 

enforcement officers , inspectors, and special agents who perform a 

variety of critical functions, including FPS-contracted protective security officer oversight, facility security assessments, and uniformed police response. 

Our inspectors and special agents receive extensive and rigorous 

training at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center (FLETC) 

and in the field. This training ensures that our law enforcement 

personnel are able to effectively respond to tens of thousands of 

calls for service received annually by the FPS and conduct thorough, comprehensive facility security assessments in FPS-protected 

facilities. 

The Facility Security Assessments (FSAs), document security-related risk to a given facility and provide a record of countermeasure recommendations designed to enable tenant agencies to 

meet Interagency Security Committee standards for Federal facility 

security. Throughout the FSA process, FPS works with stakeholders to identify and gather all necessary information for characterizing the risks unique to each facility. FPS then builds a consensus with tenant agencies regarding the type of physical countermeasures and number and type of guard posts staffed by FPS-contracted Protective Security Officers (PSOs) appropriate for each individual facility. 

Approximately 13,000 FPS-contracted PSOs staff guard posts at 

FPS-protected Federal facilities. PSOs are responsible for controlling access to Federal facilities, detecting and reporting criminal 

activities, and responding to emergency situations. PSOs also ensure prohibited items, such as firearms, explosives, knives, and 

other dangerous weapons, do not enter Federal facilities. In fact, 

FPS PSOs stop approximately 700,000 prohibited items from entering Federal facilities every year. 

FPS partners with private sector guard companies to ensure that 

the guards have met the certification, training, and qualification 

requirements specified in the contracts covering subject areas such 

as crime scene protection, actions to take in special situations such 

as building evacuations, safety, and fire prevention, and public relations. 
149 

All PSOs must undergo background investigation checks to determine their fitness to begin work on behalf of the government 

and are rigorously trained. However, it is important to note that 

PSOs are not sworn law enforcement officers. Rather, PSOs are 

employees of private security companies, and FPS does not have 

the authority to deputize PSOs in a law enforcement capacity. An 

individual PSO’s authority to perform protective services are based 

on State-specific laws where the PSO is employed. 

To ensure high performance of our contracted PSO workforce, 

FPS law enforcement personnel conduct PSO post inspections and 

integrated covert test activities to monitor vendor compliance and 

countermeasure effectiveness. Additionally, vendor personnel files 

are audited periodically to validate that PSO certifications and 

training records reflect compliance with contract requirements. In 

fiscal year (FY) 2013 alone, FPS conducted 54,830 PSO post inspections and over 17,000 PSO personnel file audits. 

The Federal Protective Service is committed to providing safety, 

security, and a sense of well-being to thousands of Federal employees who work and conduct business in our facilities each day. 

We continuously strive to further enhance, integrate, and transform our organization to meet the challenges of an evolving threat 

landscape and have recently made significant progress toward closing out outstanding the Government Accountability Office (GAO) 

recommendations pertaining to FPS operations. In fiscal year 2013 

alone, FPS submitted documentation to the GAO for closure and 

consideration pertaining to 13 GAO recommendations including 

FPS strategies to enhance its human capital planning and improve 

tenant communication. Of those presented, six were successfully 

closed as implemented, and seven are pending GAO’s internal review for closure. 

Significant progress has also recently been made toward closing 

longstanding GAO recommendations related to FPS’ handling of 

PSO training and oversight. While challenges undoubtedly remain, 

FPS has successfully closed six outstanding recommendations directly related to this program area and is pending GAO’s internal 

review process for closure consideration for two more. 

We have also made advances toward addressing recommendations relative to our risk-assessment methodology. Specifically, FPS 

designed its FSA process to meet the requirements of the ISC’s 

Risk Management Process for Federal Facilities and, to ensure that 

stakeholders have an understanding of the threats they face, FPS 

has begun to provide a Threat Assessment Report as part of each 

FSA. Going forward, FPS will continue to work with the ISC to explore consequences and impacts in the context of Federal facility 

security assessments and explore the inclusion of consequences into 

the FSA process. 

In closing, I would like to acknowledge and thank the distinguished Members of this Committee for the opportunity to testify 

today, and I would be pleased to answer any questions you may 

have. 

Chairman CARPER. Thank you, General. 

Mr. Lewis, welcome. Good to see you. Please proceed. 
150 

1The prepared statement of Mr. Lewis appears in the Appendix on page 205. 

TESTIMONY OF STEPHEN F. LEWIS,1 DEPUTY DIRECTOR FOR 

PERSONNEL, INDUSTRIAL AND PHYSICAL SECURITY POLICY, DIRECTORATE OF SECURITY POLICY AND OVERSIGHT, 

OFFICE OF UNDER SECRETARY OF DEFENSE FOR INTELLIGENCE, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE 

Mr. LEWIS. Good morning. Thank you, Chairman Carper, Ranking Member Coburn, and Senator Heitkamp. I appreciate the opportunity to be here today to address the practices and procedures 

in the Department of Defense regarding facility security. I am 

Steve Lewis, Deputy Director of the Security Policy and Oversight 

Directorate in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence, and I am here today on behalf of Dr. Michael Vickers, 

the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence, or (USD(I)). 

The USD(I) is the Principal Staff Assistant to the Secretary and 

Deputy Secretary of Defense for security matters and is responsible 

for setting overall DOD physical security policy. In this role, the 

USD(I) provides security policy standards for the protection of DOD 

personnel, installations, facilities, operations, and related assets. 

Within the Department, the USD(I)’s security responsibilities are 

complemented by those of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for 

Homeland Security and Americas’ Security Affairs, who is responsible for the DOD Antiterrorism Program. 

In the wake of the tragic Washington Navy Yard shooting incident, the Secretary of Defense initiated concurrent internal and 

independent reviews to identify and recommend actions that address gaps or deficiencies in DOD programs, policies, and procedures regarding security at DOD installations. The reviews also 

cover the granting and renewing of security clearances for DOD 

employees, military service members, and contractor personnel. 

In order to address the Department’s facility security policies and 

practices, it is first important to describe the requirement for military commanders, or their civilian equivalents, to conduct a comprehensive security evaluation of a facility or activity. The purpose 

of this evaluation is to determine the ability of the installation to 

deter, withstand, and recover from the full range of adversarial capabilities based upon a threat assessment, compliance with established protection standards, and risk management. Based upon the 

results of these evaluations, active and passive measures are tailored to safeguard and prevent unauthorized access to personnel, 

equipment, installations, and information by employing a layered 

security concept known as ‘‘security-in-depth.’’ 

The Department requires the development and maintenance of 

comprehensive plans to address a broad spectrum of natural and 

manmade scenarios. These include the development of joint response plans to adverse or terrorist incidents, such as active shooters and unauthorized access to facilities. Military commanders, or 

their civilian equivalents, using risk management principles, are 

required to conduct an annual local vulnerability assessment and 

are subject every 3 years to a Higher-Headquarters Assessments, 

such as the Joint Staff Integrated Vulnerability Assessment 

(JSIVA). 
151 

The Department has worked very hard to foster improvements 

that produce greater efficiencies and effectiveness in facility security. In its continuing efforts to harmonize its facility security posture with other Federal departments and agencies, military commanders located in DOD-occupied leased facility space—primarily 

those not on a DOD installation, must utilize the Federal Interagency Security Committee’s Risk Management Process for Federal 

Buildings. This effort includes the incorporation of the ISC’s physical security standards in DOD guidance, for example, the Unified 

Facilities Criteria. 

DOD also participates in various interagency fora such as the 

Interagency Security Committee, along with representatives from 

the Department of Homeland Security and many other Federal 

agencies and departments. These fora enable the sharing of best 

practices, physical security standards, and cyber and terrorist 

threat information in support of our collective resolve to enhance 

the quality and effectiveness of physical security of Federal facilities. 

We also have various ongoing initiatives across the Department 

to enhance facility security, such as the development of an Identity 

Management Enterprise Services Architecture (IMESA). IMESA 

will provide an enterprise approach to the sharing of identity and 

physical access control information and complement ongoing continuous evaluation concept demonstration efforts. IMESA will provide real-time vetting of individuals requiring unescorted access to 

DOD facilities, and these will be run against DOD, Federal, State, 

and other authoritative data sources. IMESA users will be able to 

authenticate individuals’ access credentials and fitness to enter the 

facility. We believe that IMESA will vastly enhance the security of 

DOD personnel and facilities worldwide. 

Thank you for your time. I am happy to take your questions. 

Chairman CARPER. Thank you, Mr. Lewis. I am going to call on 

Dr. Coburn for the first questions, and then I will yield to Senator 

Heitkamp and then follow her. Dr. Coburn. 

Senator COBURN. General Patterson, go through again the GAO 

recommendations that you all have now met and when they were 

met, because my understanding was that of the 26 GAO recommendations between 2010 and 2012, prior to the Navy Yard 

shooting, only four of those had been acted on. Is that correct? 

General PATTERSON. No, sir. I can get you a listing of all of the 

specific recommendations. 

Senator COBURN. In your testimony, you listed several. Would 

you do that again for me? 

General PATTERSON. I do not think I listed them specifically, sir. 

Senator COBURN. You said numbers, and that is the numbers I 

want. 

General PATTERSON. Yes, sir, and I can get you the specifics behind the different recommendations. I do not have the recommendations before me right now. But the numbers are accurate. 

Senator COBURN. But there were 26 outstanding GAO recommendations between 2010 and 2012. 

General PATTERSON. I would have to find that, sir. 
152 

Senator COBURN. And four of them had been acted on and accomplished based on their recommendations, and you gave a litany of 

others that you have acted on. 

General PATTERSON. Yes, sir. I was giving you a general oversight of the number that we had been—— 

Senator COBURN. Yes, well, go back to your testimony and give 

that to me again, would you? 

General PATTERSON. Yes, sir, I sure will. 

In 2013, FPS submitted documentation to the GAO for closure 

and consideration pertaining to 13 GAO recommendations including FPS strategies to enhance its human capital planning and improve tenant communication. Of those presented, six were accepted 

and closed as implemented, and seven are pending GAO’s internal 

review for closure. 

Senator COBURN. So that is half of them, of the 26. 

General PATTERSON. Yes, sir. 

Senator COBURN. So my question to Secretary Durkovich: Were 

you aware at the National Protection and Programs Directorate 

that there were 26 outstanding recommendations made by GAO 

and that up until the first of 13, only 4 had been acted on? 

Ms. DURKOVICH. Thank you for the question. Yes, I am aware of 

the various GAO recommendations that are open and that have 

been closed. Just from a more high level standpoint, the Department has initiated an overall effort to make sure that all of the 

open GAO recommendations that the various components and subcomponents work closely with GAO to address those recommendations and to take steps to close them. So—— 

Senator COBURN. When did you all initiate that? 

Ms. DURKOVICH. So as recommendations are provided to us by 

GAO, we begin our work to—— 

Senator COBURN. I understand that, but you just said you initiated a process where they would be addressed. 

Ms. DURKOVICH. That is a standard process within the Department. Again, when we receive a recommendation from the GAO, 

first of all, we have to submit a letter about whether we agree or 

disagree with the recommendation—— 

Senator COBURN. Right. I understand that. 

Ms. DURKOVICH [continuing]. And that begins the process. I do 

not have specific oversight over the FPS recommendations. As the 

Assistant Secretary for the Office of Infrastructure Protection, I 

handle the recommendations that are specific, for example, to my 

programs, including the ISC. So we have five open GAO recommendations, and we work very closely to document what we are 

doing to address those recommendations and provide regular updates to the GAO through letters to, again, document what we are 

doing and the timeline for which we think that we will meet the 

mitigation measures or the measures that we have taken to address the recommendations. 

Senator COBURN. See if I have this right, because I may not. The 

Interagency Security Committee does not monitor agencies for compliance. Is that correct? 

Ms. DURKOVICH. Based on the Executive Order, departments and 

agencies shall comply with the standards that are produced by the 

Interagency—— 
153 

Senator COBURN. I understand that. 

Ms. DURKOVICH [continuing]. Security Committee. 

Senator COBURN. But what I am asking is they do not monitor 

the individual agencies to see if they are in compliance. There is 

an Executive Order—— 

Ms. DURKOVICH. We do not specifically—— 

Senator COBURN [continuing]. That says the agencies are supposed to do it, but ISC does not monitor to see that that happens. 

Is that correct? 

Ms. DURKOVICH. That is correct, yes. 

Senator COBURN. And it is the responsibility of each individual 

agency to make sure they comply with that. 

Ms. DURKOVICH. Yes. Based on the Executive Order, yes, sir. 

Senator COBURN. So let us go back to FPS for a second. How is 

it that your agency is complying with the standard set by the ISC? 

General PATTERSON. Well, sir, we do work with our Federal partners as we go in and do assessments. We will make recommendations as they are outlined by the ISC, and for a variety of reasons, 

a Federal partner may or may not be able to implement. It could 

be because of cost. It could be because of a variety of things that 

they may decide that they cannot meet those specific recommendations. 

However, once we do understand that they are not able to, we 

have tried to work with them to try to mitigate those shortfalls as 

much as we can. So it is not as if we walk away from that. 

Senator COBURN. No. I am not saying that. I am just—for example, active-shooter training, all right? 

General PATTERSON. Yes, sir. 

Senator COBURN. A large proportion of our officers that we either 

contract or have are not trained. 

General PATTERSON. Yes, sir, and if I may explain, there is a reason for that, and the reason is because historically, as I stated in 

my testimony, active-shooter response, not awareness but activeshooter response, has been a function of law enforcement, period. 

Our PSOs are not law enforcement officials. And so to put them in 

a position to where they are responding as a law enforcement officer requires at least our coordination with the State, and there has 

to be some contractual agreement that they will respond in that 

manner. 

Now, because we recognize that in some instances our PSOs will 

be the only folks in a particular position to respond in a prompt 

manner, we are now working with the National Association of Security Companies (NASCO), to look at how we can provide training 

to where they can apply some response. But the bottom line is we 

still want law enforcement folks to respond because that is where 

they are trained. We spend any number of hours with our inspectors and our agents in learning how to respond to an active-shooter 

situation, and we have not done that with our PSOs. So we have 

to find out what the happy medium is here so we do not put our 

PSOs in harm’s way as well. So we need to find out what the right 

level of training would be for them in order for them to respond 

effectively. 

Senator COBURN. So we have security personnel at Federal buildings, but if we have an active shooter, we do not want them to re-
154 

spond; right now they are not trained in a way to handle that situation. 

General PATTERSON. Here is what they are trained in, sir: They 

are trained to protect the people and to keep people from coming 

in the building so that they do not enter harm’s way. They are also 

trained to help people evacuate in a very timely manner. And if, 

in fact, they are approached or come in contact with a shooter, they 

are trained to engage. 

What they are not trained in is to go find the shooter and then 

take action. 

Senator COBURN. So they are trained to engage? 

General PATTERSON. They are trained to engage. Yes, sir. 

Senator COBURN. And all of them are? 

General PATTERSON. Yes, sir. 

Senator COBURN. OK. I am past my time. Thank you. 

Chairman CARPER. Thank you. Senator Heitkamp. 

Senator HEITKAMP. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The first obligation of any employer is safety. I think you will 

find that in a lot of facilities across the country, whether they are 

a manufacturing plant or a processing plant of any type or even in 

a major office. It is not only good employee management, it actually 

saves a lot of money. And I think this Committee is deeply concerned about the safety of public employees in buildings, and certainly the Navy Yard is yet again another example where we do 

not live in a perfect world, but were there things that could have 

been done, that should have been done differently that would have 

either prevented it or limited the deaths once the shooting began? 

I want to go back to a couple kind of critical points here, which 

is even though we have Executive Orders and we have all of the 

GAO reports and all the recommendations, it is kind of like the 

words get written but no one is responsible for followup, no one is 

responsible for implementation, no one is responsible to the public 

employees to say yes, we have done everything that we can, we 

know what the path forward is that will enhance your safety. But 

we just made these recommendations, and we hope that whoever 

manages that building or whoever runs this agency is taking safety 

as seriously as what we do. 

And so I will tell you I am concerned listening to this that there 

does not seem to be a lot of coordination, and even when there is 

coordination, there is not a lot of followup in terms of making sure 

that these things get done. 

I want to go back to maybe what I am not understanding is the 

engagement of an active shooter. I chaired a task force when I was 

Attorney General (AG) on school safety. We made everyone in the 

building have training. Our recommendation, which was carried 

out by many schools across this country, is that we train on what 

happens if there is an active shooter. And the person we found out 

we needed to train, give the clearest training to, was the woman 

who answered the phone or the man who answered the phone at 

the reception desk. And obviously in most Federal buildings the 

first person you are going to encounter will be someone in uniform, 

General, that is under your jurisdiction. And so what recommendations would you make to change what you are currently doing in 

an active-shooter situation? 
155 

General PATTERSON. Yes, ma’am. As an agency we have thought 

long and hard about this. We have been working very diligently 

with our vendors to take a look at where we need to be in helping 

them and helping us to understand: how do we go forward and proceed forward now in the training? What training do we need to provide, what level of training do we need to provide for our PSOs? 

Senator HEITKAMP. Have you considered that maybe someone 

who is law enforcement trained and authorized to engage at a 

much higher level should be on duty, not always to do the scanning 

and the screening and, the kind of day-to-day but have someone 

there who actually has a role in providing protection? 

General PATTERSON. Yes, ma’am, we would love to. I have about 

600 inspectors who are law enforcement officials who are in a number of our buildings on a regular basis. But we have thousands of 

buildings, so I cannot put law enforcement folks in every building. 

We have great relationships, with State and local authorities 

that we can call on very quickly to respond if we have a problem. 

But at this point, ma’am, I do not have the resources that would 

allow us to put a law enforcement individual in these facilities. 

Now, there is a possibility that we could possibly deputize some 

of our contractor personnel. However, that would clearly be more 

costly, and we would have to figure out how we would do that. 

Senator HEITKAMP. It is troubling that there does not seem to be 

a lot of kind of creative thinking on how we can use the resources 

we have more effectively to protect folks. And, Mr. Lewis, obviously 

this is a great tragedy, and I know very many people within your 

sphere are still dealing with the extent of this tragedy. But I would 

suggest that maybe the best way we can deal with this tragedy is 

assure people we have learned the lessons. And so can you tell me 

what lessons your agency has learned from this? I know you are 

undergoing this review, but give us a little peek into what the 

thinking is right now. 

Mr. LEWIS. Well, since we talked a little bit about active-shooter 

awareness and training, within the Department we have incorporated active-shooter awareness into the antiterrorism level one 

training. So that has been introduced throughout the DOD population. 

In addition, we have published Workplace Violence and Active 

Shooter Prevention and Response, and this was in response to the 

Fort Hood incidents. So we have measures in place to not only deal 

at an awareness level but in terms of response within the Department. 

Since the Washington Navy Yard tragedy, we have really focused 

on continuous evaluation of our cleared and vetted personnel, so 

not just people who have security clearances but also people who 

are eligible to have access to DOD installations. And you can do 

the best investigation possible, but things change in people’s lives 

over time. And we have to be constantly aware of what those 

changes are, and we have established a pilot on continuous evaluation, which is going to do queries, automated queries of public and 

DOD records to look for issues of concern. And this is an ongoing 

effort. We are trying to expand it to include individuals who are 

visiting installations on a fairly regular basis. That was the IMESA 

initiative that I mentioned, which would, in an automated fashion, 
156 

allow for sharing of information of concern between DOD facilities 

so that if a visitor to one DOD installation presented a problem 

there for whatever reason, that would be available to other DOD 

installations that that person may be going to visit. 

So that is our focus. How do we become apprised of information 

as it develops and not wait 5 years or 10 years for the next reinvestigation? 

Senator HEITKAMP. If I can just make a comment, I think honestly I would like to see better coordination, and I would like to see 

better followup when GAO has a number of recommendations that 

sit around for a number of years, and we come and we say, ‘‘Well, 

yes, we are working on it.’’ That just is a constant source of frustration on this Committee. ‘‘We are working on it,’’ or, ‘‘Yes, we are 

concerned about it,’’ does not cut it anymore, especially when we 

are talking about safety of public employees and really the integrity of your missions. And so I would like to see maybe followup 

on the GAO recommendations, what the timeline is for actually 

getting those implemented. 

Ms. DURKOVICH. May I take a moment just to address the coordination issue? 

Chairman CARPER. Sure. Go ahead. 

Ms. DURKOVICH. And I just want to go back to the Interagency 

Security Committee and reiterate that for over the last 17 years we 

have had the chief security officers and other senior executives 

from 53 different departments and agencies who participate as part 

of the committee and look at evolving threats and evolving hazards 

and work together to produce standards and best practices, whether it is on occupant emergency plans, whether it is on prohibited 

Federal items in Federal buildings, whether it is on the training 

of Federal Security Committees, and certainly the risk management process that we released this past August. It is a highly collaborative body, and while there is not a formal compliance mechanism, the fact that these 53 chief security officers come together 

and work over months to produce these standards, it then becomes 

incumbent on them to ensure that their facilities adopt them. 

We have some informal soft compliance mechanisms that we are 

looking at. There are tools that are in development to help us better assess how facilities are implementing our standards and best 

practices, but I want to dispel the myth that it is not highly collaborative. 

Certainly coming out of the Navy Yard and other incidents in 

Federal facilities, we have established an Active Shooter Working 

Group, as I mentioned in my opening statement, both designed to 

look at what happened at the Navy Yard but to leverage all of the 

work that we have done over the course of the last 6 years in the 

commercial facility space. We have online training, we do in-person 

training, and part of the goal here is to look at all of the various 

tools, documents, trainings that are available right now, to leverage 

those so we can bring them to the Federal workplace. I think training is a very important aspect of this. It is certainly something that 

Director Patterson does as part of his responsibilities. But there 

are other things, I think, that we can do to augment that, to answer your question, and to ensure that as we look at developing, 

whether it become a best practice or a standard, that we are en-
157 

couraging and recommending that we exercise, that we test the 

training that we do, that we ensure that there are documents, that 

there are marketing materials available to our employees. But I 

think that there is a lot that can be done and that can be leveraged 

from the work that we have already done with the commercial facilities sector, and that is certainly the goal of our Active Shooter 

Working Group. 

Chairman CARPER. Senator Heitkamp, we are blessed on this 

Committee to have several Members of the Committee who have 

served as Attorney General in their own States, and thank you for 

bringing that expertise to bear here. 

Secretary Durkovich, I am going to ask you to help make real for 

me and maybe for some of my colleagues this Interagency Security 

Committee. Just cut through the—not that you are using jargon. 

Just cut through the Federal verbiage and just say where did it 

come from, why did we create it. Just describe its mission or missions. And maybe more importantly, how do you think it is working? How do we measure whether it is working well? How do we 

measure success? Please, just make it real for us. 

Ms. DURKOVICH. Absolutely, and thank you for the opportunity 

to further explain it. So the Interagency Security Committee came 

about after the bombing at the Alfred P. Murrah Building in Oklahoma City in 1995, with the recognition really that we had to do 

a better job protecting our Federal facilities. Again, almost every 

department and agency participates in the Interagency Security 

Committee, and it is often the most senior physical security person 

within that department, the chief security officer. 

We take evolving threats and evolving challenges, and it is the 

chief security officers who look at the particular threat and decide 

how do we, as a Federal family, best address that threat and make 

sure that our facilities are able to mitigate them. So there is a formal risk management process that the committee has produced, 

and it is the standard by which we go about securing all Federal 

civilian facilities with the exception of DOD military installations. 

And it begins with determining what is the facility security level. 

So you look at a particular Federal facility, and based on what its 

function is—is it a headquarters office? Is it a field office? Does it 

have historical significance? For example, is the Declaration of 

Independence or the Bill of Rights contained in it? Are there other 

ancillary functions? Are there child-care facilities and things? That 

is what allows us to determine whether a facility is either a Level 

5, which is the highest level, or a Level 1, which is more of your 

storefront office. 

Then we apply the physical security criteria. So based on the 

level and also what we call the design-basis threat standard, that 

is 31 undesirable events that we have determined are most attractive or most likely to happen to a Federal facility, and it ranges 

from arson to sabotage to active shooters and also weather-related 

events. But based on those scenarios, what are the right security 

measures to put in place at these Federal facilities? 

Now, it is a risk-based process, and as you pointed out in your 

opening statement, it is difficult at times to apply all of these because, as you have noted, not all buildings were built 100 or 150 

years ago with a 15-to an 18-foot setback. We have to think about 
158 

how you mitigate some of these vulnerabilities based on the realworld realities. And so we help provide facilities with options to include bollards, thinking about blast-resistant windows, but really 

working them through this risk management process. The establishment of facility security committees, and ensuring that the individuals that sit on those committees have the training that they 

need to carry out their duties is a core part of, again, what the 

Interagency Security Committee has thought about and how we— 

again, when there are unique functions inside a building, how do 

we ensure that we are also protecting those functions? And, again, 

that is things like child care and other high-priority efforts. 

So that is really the basis for what the Interagency Security 

Committee does, and again, thinking about how we keep those 

standards fresh, how we recognize that we are living in a world 

where our adversaries are highly adaptive. So when we start to see 

emerging threats or new trends, again, we bring the 53 chief security officers together to come up with a standard to ensure that all 

Federal facilities at least are working from a certain baseline, and 

we are doing that with active shooter. We are thinking about as 

we start to see some of these small-scale complex attacks, how are 

we accounting for them? And, again, how do we ensure that we 

have the measures, the training? We have done the preparedness 

so that we can mitigate the threats. 

I do think—— 

Chairman CARPER. Let me just interrupt. Come back—and you 

may have said this and I missed it, but, again, how do you measure 

success? What metric are we using to measure whether or not the 

work of the Interagency Security Committee is successful? 

Second, talk with us about sharing, the sharing of best practices 

across the range of the Members who comprise this committee. Two 

things. 

Ms. DURKOVICH. Absolutely. So I will answer your first question 

by saying I do think that the Interagency Security Committee has 

been a success, and I think that if you—and we have done informal 

surveys, but if you went out and surveyed each of the Federal departments and agencies, you will find that they have implemented 

all of the ISC standards. If there is—— 

Chairman CARPER. And you said those standards continue to be 

updated. Is that right? 

Ms. DURKOVICH. And they continue to be updated. And, again, 

they are the ones who come together to help develop these standards. We do not have a formal mechanism for measuring what has 

been implemented. There is one ISC-approved tool that is in existence. We are working on approving others. But anecdotally I 

would—again, I am confident that all of the member departments 

and agencies have implemented the standards, and when they cannot, they are responsible for coming to us and telling us why they 

cannot and the fact that they are willing to bear that risk. 

Chairman CARPER. Talk with us about sharing best practices 

across departments. 

Ms. DURKOVICH. Absolutely. Again—— 

Chairman CARPER. And how, if at all, this committee facilitates 

that. 
159 

1The letter from Kris Cline appears in the Appendix on page 254. 

Ms. DURKOVICH. One of the benefits of the Interagency Security 

Committee is that you may have a chief security officer who represents a Level 5 facility who can come and talk about some of the 

things that they have done. Take, for example, a headquarters 

building that sits on Constitution Avenue. The things that they 

have put in place to mitigate the fact that they cannot have a setback, the fact that they use bollards, the fact that they use, again, 

blast-resistant windows. So part of, again, the very nature of the 

Interagency Security Committee is the fact that we can bring together and we can convene these senior-level executives to talk 

about best practices. But I think what is unique about what we are 

doing with the ISC is it is not just the sharing of Federal facility 

best practices, but the fact that for over the course of the last 6 

years, we have been working very closely with the commercial facilities sector. These are buildings, these are stadiums, these are 

venues where the public passes through them day in and day out, 

where we have done active-shooter training, where we have 

thought about how do you, again, strengthen and provide layers of 

security that may not always be obvious to the public. How do we 

take those lessons learned, how do we take those best practices and 

bring them to Federal facilities as well? 

And so I think as part of the Active Shooter Working Group that 

we have stood up, you are going to see a mix of both what we are 

doing in the Federal sector but also the lessons learned, the leading 

practices that we have developed in the commercial facilities sector 

as well. 

Chairman CARPER. OK. Thanks. Dr. Coburn. 

Senator COBURN. Just to followup, I want to put in the record a 

letter from the DHS Police Deputy Director of Operations Kris 

Cline1 that was released November 22, which is new Active Shooter Guidelines. 

And I am somewhat confused after reading this, and I do not understand the engagement. If somebody is with a firearm in a Federal building and we have a PSO officer there, nothing here says 

that they will engage them. 

General PATTERSON. Yes, sir. The original objective and mission 

of the PSO was to ensure the safe egress and ingress of people coming into the facility. It was not to pursue an active shooter. That 

has always been the purview of and the ground for trained law enforcement personnel. 

As we have looked at how we might have our PSOs engage, we 

were looking at any legal obstacles that we may have to overcome 

as a result of that, as well as any State requirements that they 

may have to meet as well. So my point in talking about it is if an 

armed individual comes into that facility and they recognize that 

they are armed and they ask that individual to please drop their 

gun or drop their weapon or put the weapon down and they do not, 

then they are authorized to engage. 

If, in fact, they are clearing the building or trying to get people 

out of the building and then they run into that active shooter, they 

will engage. 
160 

What they are not trained to do is go from room to room trying 

to find the individual. 

Senator COBURN. I understand that, but I guess my point I am 

making from this letter, that is not clear in here. This is the new 

requirements for active shooters. 

General PATTERSON. Yes, sir. 

Senator COBURN. That is not a clear part of this statement. 

General PATTERSON. Yes, sir. And since that was dated in November, and in early December, we had a conversation with most 

of our vendors, telephonically, to tell them that we would be coming out with new instructions about how they would engage and to 

be prepared for that. So, yes, sir, it is evolving. 

Senator COBURN. OK. So right now, if an event happened today, 

they would be following this, not what you testified? 

General PATTERSON. No, sir. They would continue to engage. 

Their first priority is the safety of the folks that are in that building. So they are going to keep people from coming in, and they are 

going to help folks to get out. 

Now, if they come into contact with a shooter, they will engage. 

What they will not do today is pursue the active shooter. 

Senator COBURN. I understand that. 

General PATTERSON. Yes, sir. 

Senator COBURN. What I am saying is it is not clear to me in 

terms of reading this letter that says they will engage. 

General PATTERSON. OK. I will have to take a look at that. 

Senator COBURN. Well, this is what you all put out November 22, 

and that is the important thing. 

One other area I want to cover with you, General Patterson. Do 

we direct FPS-contracted security to do joint exercises with local 

law enforcement? In other words, a dry run—much like Senator 

Heitkamp said. 

General PATTERSON. Yes, sir. What we do is when we conduct an 

exercise, we conduct a lot of exercises—in fact, we conduct a number of active-shooter training exercises in Federal—— 

Senator COBURN. You are missing my point. Do we require our 

contractors—— 

General PATTERSON. Yes, sir. I was going to get to that. 

Senator COBURN [continuing]. To do joint training with local law 

enforcement? 

General PATTERSON. Well, they will do it when we do it. 

Senator COBURN. No. But I am saying, is it a requirement of 

their contract to do joint training with local law enforcement so 

that we have dry runs, so that everybody is coordinated, going back 

to what Senator Heitkamp said? 

General PATTERSON. Right. Yes, sir. Their exercise will be part 

of our exercise as we practice with local law enforcement. 

Senator COBURN. OK. But you are not in every one of these 

buildings, and you are not going to have an exercise in every one 

of these buildings. 

General PATTERSON. That is true. 

Senator COBURN. As a matter of fact, that is what the record 

shows. 

General PATTERSON. That is true. 
161 

Senator COBURN. So is it not the fact that you have actually directed these contractors not to do joint training with local law enforcement? 

General PATTERSON. No, I would not say that we have directed 

them not to do joint training. The fact is, Senator, at this point we 

do not have anything specifically that addresses joint training with 

local law enforcement in our contracts. But I will have to get back 

with you on that. I do not have the contract before me, so I would 

have to take a look. 

Senator COBURN. Senator Heitkamp. 

Senator HEITKAMP. I was not intending on following up, but I do 

want to kind of pick up from where Senator Coburn has taken the 

discussion, which is security is—I guess if I can just say it this 

way—best done when it is clear that this is a high priority. And, 

it concerns me that public employees and really the public see 

someone sitting at a desk, and they are usually uniformed, and 

there is an assumption that there is a bevy of powers that comes 

with that and that there is an aura of protection that goes with 

that. And if it does not include engagement, if it does not include 

having folks who are at least capable of some kind of immediate 

intervention, and if those roles are not clear, I think we have left 

the wrong message with a lot of people in the public. 

And so I would like to know—for many of these buildings, there 

was not any kind of electronic screening or X-ray machines at the 

Navy Yard. Correct? 

General PATTERSON. I do not know. 

Senator HEITKAMP. You could just walk—I mean, if you scanned 

in through the turnstile and, kind of waved and signed in and that 

was it, right? 

Mr. LEWIS. Yes. 

Senator HEITKAMP. OK. Now, this is a building that has thousands of public employees. I can understand that if you are looking 

at the building that houses the public employees for the Farm 

Service Agency in Watford City, North Dakota, you might not want 

to put any kind of screening device. But for a building that houses 

and employs—where thousands of employees come, it seems like 

there might be some cost/benefit in safety in looking at electronic 

surveillance. There might be some cost/benefit in providing law enforcement-trained people at the front to engage, that we might look 

at those kinds of procedures. And I do not hear that today. 

I thought I was going to hear that we are looking, doing cost/benefit analysis, and it is not that my folks in Watford City are not 

important. But I do not expect you to hire a law enforcementtrained guard to protect the one person that works there. I do not 

expect that. But I might expect you to think about doing that in 

a building that houses thousands of people in a city that frequently 

is a target symbolically of terrorism or these kinds of attacks. 

I really would ask you guys to just go back and rethink what you 

are saying today about how you can enhance security looking beyond simply kind of continuing the process that you have engaged 

in today. 

General PATTERSON. Ma’am, if I could address your concerns just 

for a minute. We are actually doing due diligence in pursuing this 

matter. We are working aggressively with the vendors, one, to look 
162 

at what authorities the States entitle them to relative to engagement. We are also looking within the Department to look at what 

authorities might be levied where we could render to these folks 

relative to legally from the Federal sector. So we, in fact, are looking at how we might address this moving into the future, because 

we realize it is a concern. 

One of the other things that I spend a lot of time doing is engaging with the Federal executive boards across the country, looking 

at what are some of the challenges that they are having, what are 

the concerns from their people in these facilities, and how can we 

provide better training, more training, additional training to those 

folks in the facility as to how to respond to an active shooter, because that is very important as well. How do we get people out of 

harm’s way when they recognize that there is an event in progress? 

So I would tell you we are looking at this. We are taking it very 

seriously. It may not come across that way in some of the testimony that we are providing, but I can tell you that we are spending a lot of time with our contractors, a lot of time with legal, to 

find out what is that middle ground, what is that ground that we 

can take, because ultimately we have to figure out who is going to 

bear the cost of this. And how can we do this in fundamentally a 

smart way, an effective way, an efficient way, but still provide the 

same result or similar result of protecting the folks in those facilities? 

Senator HEITKAMP. All right. Not to belabor this, but it just 

seems like if I were looking at this and I was sitting in any of your 

shoes, I would say I have 1,000 people that work in a building in 

a city that is a target. We do not have screening devices, and we 

do not have law enforcement-trained guards. Maybe we ought to 

rethink that as a strategy. 

Ms. DURKOVICH. So if I may address that, when we set the facility security level, as part of the recommended security practices, if 

you are a Level 3 or above, for example, we will at a minimum recommend that there are guards onsite at the facility. As you move 

up, so, for example, in any of the headquarters buildings again that 

you see along Constitution Avenue, you will find advanced screening techniques—magnetometers, you have to run your bags 

through—similar to what happened when we walked in the building today. 

To your point, as we go down to those storefronts out in the 

States, that is where you will not see that level of security. But 

based on what your facility security level is, there is a standard 

that goes with that security, and that is part of what the Interagency Security Committee does, is make recommendations. And, 

again—— 

Senator HEITKAMP. Secretary, back to that point, you make recommendations, and there is no mechanism to mandate that those 

recommendations are carried out. Is that what we are hearing 

today? 

Ms. DURKOVICH. We do not have a formal compliance mechanism 

to monitor what has been adopted, yes. 

Senator COBURN. If I may, I just want to clarify. General, what 

I am asking you specifically on the GAO recommendations is the 
163 

dates at which you submitted, the dates that were cleared on just 

the 2010 through 2012 GAO recommendations. 

General PATTERSON. 2010 to 2012. 

Senator COBURN. And then a question for Secretary Durkovich. 

Is it public knowledge what Federal buildings are rated what? Can 

I go on a website somewhere and find that out? 

Ms. DURKOVICH. It is not public knowledge. 

Senator COBURN. So I could not find—— 

Ms. DURKOVICH. We can make that available to you, but it is not 

public, no, because it presents a security risk as well. 

Senator COBURN. Sure. I understand that. That is why I asked 

the question. Thank you. 

Chairman CARPER. I want to stick with the matter of GAO recommendations. GAO does very good work. They have a lot of people, but they have a whole lot of work to do, and they frankly have 

not been getting the kind of resources they need to do all that we 

are asking them to do. 

Just describe for me, one or both of you—we will start maybe 

with General Patterson. Explain to us the process. GAO comes in. 

They are looking at the work that is being done, how it is being 

managed, funded, and so forth. And they make recommendations. 

Just describe the process, the give-and-take before they actually finalize their recommendations, please. 

General PATTERSON. I am sorry. Could you—— 

Chairman CARPER. The process, just describe for us the process 

whereby GAO comes in, examines what is being done. 

General PATTERSON. Right. 

Chairman CARPER. Makes tentative recommendations. You have 

the opportunity, I presume, to respond to that, and then they finalize that. 

General PATTERSON. Yes, sir. 

Chairman CARPER. What we do here, we use the GAO recommendations, especially their high-risk lists that they put out at 

the beginning of every 2 years. We almost use it as a to-do list for 

us as we do our oversight and work in conjunction with them. Just 

describe the back-and-forth that leads to the issuance of a recommendation. I think you said there were 26 of them that you 

mentioned? 

General PATTERSON. Yes, sir. 

Chairman CARPER. And about 13 of them have been responded 

to. 

General PATTERSON. Yes. 

Chairman CARPER. And about half of those 13 have been, if you 

will, accepted. I am just interested in the process. 

General PATTERSON. Yes, sir. Well, the process, when the GAO 

makes a recommendation, one of the first things that we do is we 

sit down with my staff to take a look at what is the genesis and 

what is the challenge here and what is the background on the recommendation. And then we move forward to look at how we are 

going to resolve the challenge that GAO has brought forward. 

What I have recognized is that some things we can handle and 

move forward pretty quickly. Other things not so, only because it 

would require extensive resources and we have to figure out how 

we do that. 
164 

For instance, one of the challenges that we have is that we have 

13,000 PSOs, guards, that we have oversight responsibility for, but 

we do not have the technology right now available to oversee them 

when they come to work, when they check in, and when they leave, 

to make sure that their certifications are up to where they need to 

be and so forth. 

So one of the challenges that I have set forth for my staff and 

for the agency is to come up with a technology-based system that 

will allow us to move forward with that, to figure out when a PSO 

is on post, when he swiped in, when he swiped out, and to ensure 

that he or she has the proper certifications because that is one of 

the challenges that GAO has brought forward, because we only 

have 600 law enforcement folks out there to do this for 13,000 

guards, it presents a bit of a challenge. 

These 13,000 guards probably generate about 170,000 records 

that we must review over a period of time. So what we are looking 

for is an automated process to help with that. So we are engaged 

with DHS Science and Technology to help us begin to look for 

ways, and some off-the-shelf technology possibly, recommendations 

that we can begin to put into place that will allow us to better 

oversee these 13,000 guards. 

So it is challenges like that that keep us from moving forward 

as expeditiously as we would like to. 

Senator COBURN. Let me raise a question about that. You have 

13,000 contracted guards. 

General PATTERSON. Yes, sir. 

Senator COBURN. And you have 600 people working directly for 

you—— 

General PATTERSON. Yes, sir. 

Senator COBURN [continuing]. That are law enforcement officers. 

General PATTERSON. Yes, sir. 

Senator COBURN. That is less than 22 people a person. 

General PATTERSON. Yes, sir. 

Senator COBURN. We need an automated system to do that? 

What about random audits? How about firing a contractor who 

does not perform? 

General PATTERSON. We do random audits, sir. Every one of my 

regions is responsible for doing 10 percent to 20 percent random 

audits per month. Part of the challenge, though, sir, is that because 

there are so many records, we can do an audit today, but tomorrow 

or within the next month, the individual may lose his certification 

based upon expiration of time or having to recertify and so forth. 

So allowing us to automate our records would help us tremendously in better overseeing this process. 

Senator COBURN. Why should you automate it? Why shouldn’t 

you force your contractors to automate it and present it to you? 

General PATTERSON. That is an option, yes, sir. 

Senator COBURN. It is not an option. It is the only common-sense 

thing you would do. If you want to contract with the Federal Government, you will demonstrate that the people that you have there 

are certified and compliant. And then you audit whether or not 

they are telling you the truth rather than spend a whole bunch of 

money, us running all 13,000 people when they are really not our 
165 

1The letter referenced by Senator Coburn appears in the Appendix on page 254. 

employees. They are contract employees for somebody that took a 

contract to guard a building. Again, it goes back to contracting. 

General PATTERSON. Yes, sir. 

Senator COBURN. Putting in the contract what you expect of the 

contractors to supply, which is certified people doing their jobs. 

General PATTERSON. And many of the contractors do have an 

automated process. However, from time to time we do find discrepancies in their recordkeeping. 

Senator COBURN. Good. So then you would fire that contractor, 

and that is what you put in the contract as a reason for you to lose 

the contract, and oh, by the way, we will have somebody else to 

have this contract next time. 

General PATTERSON. Yes, sir. 

Senator COBURN. These are not non-lucrative contracts. They are 

making money off of every hour every guard works. 

Chairman CARPER. I want to—— 

Senator COBURN. I ask unanimous consent that this be made 

part of the record. 

Chairman CARPER. Without objection, this letter1 will be made 

part of the record. 

Chairman CARPER. I want to pivot a little bit here and just say 

as a defense contractor with a valid Department of Defense ID 

card, Aaron Alexis was allowed access to the Washington Navy 

Yard, as we know. And like many employees in other workplaces, 

he was considered a trusted employee, not screened for any weapons. Unfortunately, workplace violence continues to be a threat. 

I just want to start with you, Mr. Lewis, if I could here, but could 

each of you answer really the following two questions? The first 

question is: Do you believe that we should consider screening employees as well as visitors at Federal facilities? 

Second, is there any potential downside to screening employees? 

And I would like for each of you to answer that. Mr. Lewis, if you 

would start first. 

Mr. LEWIS. Current DOD policy does not require that type of 

screening where someone goes through a metal detection device. 

But it does allow for random selection of individuals for that type 

of screening. So there are procedures in place, there is the option 

in place, and again, we rely on the judgment of the installation 

commander to make a determination as to what is appropriate 

under the local circumstances. 

The drawback to screening every employee coming through is the 

negative impact on mission accomplishment, and there are facilities where there are 10,000 employees coming through often in 

roughly the same window, and screening every single employee 

would be disruptive to getting the work done. And that is the balance, factoring in cost and mission accomplishment against screening every employee. 

Chairman CARPER. All right. Thank you. 

Mr. Patterson. 

General PATTERSON. Yes, sir. I think it is something I am sure 

can be considered. We put a lot of trust in the system that we have. 

We put a lot of trust in the fact that we do background investiga-
166 

tions, and once a background investigation is completed, we believe 

that the individual that has received that background investigation 

is trustworthy. 

So if we decide that we do not believe in that background investigation, that may be the time we start looking at a system where 

we screen all of our employees as they come in. It is a way to begin 

to mitigate, some of the risk, but, again, I think it would be something that we would have to think through very carefully. 

I know that in some of our facilities we have both. In the Department of Transportation (DOT), they screen everybody in their 

headquarters building. In other facilities, they only screen the visitors that come through. So to date, in most of our facilities we have 

not had a problem with our employees or with the folks who have 

been screened. 

If we decide that we are going to screen, then it might be a bit 

of a challenge only because it is a new process, and that process 

will require a longer processing time for our folks to get through. 

So we would have to carefully work with GSA and others in how 

we organize that flow because at 8 o’clock in the morning when you 

have literally hundreds of people entering a building and when 

they are accustomed to just moving through and showing their 

badge based upon a security clearance, it could create a challenge. 

Chairman CARPER. All right. Secretary Durkovich, same question, please. 

Ms. DURKOVICH. So as I mentioned, the Interagency Security 

Committee has put some thought through at least how we go about 

screening visitors as they enter into our Federal facilities, and part 

of that is based again on the facility security level. I would agree 

with my colleague Director Patterson in that we have to have trust 

in the system. And at the Department of Homeland Security, in addition to evaluating who has clearances, we also ensure that employees and contractors who are affiliated with the Department 

also undergo a suitability determination. 

I think in order to ensure that there is not a negative impact on 

the mission, and we have to account for the fact that there are resource implications but opportunity costs associated with screening 

employees that, I think the system that we have in place works 

overall. And unfortunately we do have incidents where I think it 

is incumbent on us to look at those incidents and to make sure that 

we are leveraging the lessons learned so we make sure that it does 

not happen again. 

But I think that overall there is a downside to screening employees. As you know, sir, from your oversight of the Department, we 

all have taken on an awful lot of work to ensure the safety and security of the American people and that its way of life can thrive, 

and that any impediment or obstacle to allowing our employees to 

do their important job every day is an impact on the mission. And 

we have processes in place that allow us to ensure that we have 

employees who represent the highest standards and that we should 

continue to trust in that system as opposed to screening everyone. 

Clearly, at certain facilities we do have measures in place, as Director Patterson recognized. When I got to the Nebraska Avenue 

Complex (NAC) every day I have to show—not only swipe my 

badge but show my badge. There is a physical ID. If I am bringing 
167 

a vehicle on to the premises, there are dogs and there are vehicle 

searches that happen. So there are, again, depending on the level 

of facility, different layers of security. But in terms of actually putting people through, no. 

Chairman CARPER. OK. Thanks. 

Before I recognize Senator Ayotte for any questions she might 

like to ask, let me just ask one last quick question, and I will ask 

you to be very brief. 

Some of you have been before us before, and I like to ask so 

much of what you are expected to do and those who work for you 

are expected to do to meet your responsibilities. What can we do 

here, just maybe give me one good idea of what can we do in the 

legislative branch to better ensure that you are able to meet the 

responsibilities that have been placed on you for workplace protection. 

And while you are thinking about that, I will just mention this. 

Today Senator Ayotte and I and our colleagues are debating a 

budget resolution, if you will, a framework for a spending plan for 

the Federal Government for the balance of this fiscal year. It does 

a number of things. I think there are three things we ought to do 

for deficit reduction, at least this makes it really simple: 

No. 1, entitlement reform that saves money, saves the programs, 

does not savage old people or poor people; 

No. 2, tax reform that eliminates a number of our tax expenditures. We have a lot of them, some of which have met their purpose, have long met their purpose, and they need to be retired or 

modified. But use some of the revenues that we generate to reduce 

corporate tax rates and use some of the revenues for deficit reduction; 

No. 3, just look at everything we do and say across the Federal 

Government how do we get better results for less money for everything we do. 

Those are three things that I continue to harp on, but one of the 

things that we do with the budget resolution, if you will, an omnibus appropriations bill, or separate appropriations bills that follow, 

is that we move away a little bit from sequestration, across-theboard cuts, to allow agencies and departments to better say this is 

the way we need to allocate resources. Hopefully that is something 

that will enable us to look at risk, look at areas of risk, put more 

money there, and areas of less risk, because able to put less money 

there. But in terms of what we can do to help you do your work 

better, each of you just give us one good idea, and just be very 

brief. 

Ms. DURKOVICH. I will start, and in some ways, sir, you have answered my question, or you have given my response, and it is recognizing that in this country there are a number of risks that we 

face. It is a large country, and part of the conversation that we 

have to have as both the Department of Homeland Security, as an 

administration, as law makers, and with the American public is we 

cannot mitigate every threat. And so it is our understanding that 

those are going to have the most significant consequences and ensuring that we are having a conversation about how we go about 

mitigating them, that we have the resources, the personnel to go 
168 

about doing that. So having the conversations that we have today 

and over the course of time is I think what is critical. 

You have already taken steps by moving away from sequestration. That will be helpful to us as well. But, again, I think that recognizing that we have to manage risk and that we cannot prevent 

every incident, and as long as we are adapting, that is what is key. 

Chairman CARPER. OK. Thank you. General. 

General PATTERSON. Yes, sir. The Federal Protective Service is 

in—— 

Chairman CARPER. I am going to ask you to be very brief. 

General PATTERSON. Yes, sir FPS is—in a fairly unique position 

in that we have to work and weave our way through both State, 

local, Federal, and civilian contractor environments, and we do that 

with a very small force. Your support in helping us to move 

through and navigate through some of those areas is critical, because we are trying to look out and predict, what is coming down 

the road to keep our people safe, and we really need the support 

of folks like yourself and this Committee to help us work through 

some of these challenges. 

Chairman CARPER. All right. Thank you. 

Mr. Lewis, same question. A very brief response, please. 

Mr. LEWIS. We believe that continuing to evaluate those employees who have access to classified information and to our facilities 

is critical, and we need to have the resources to be able to conduct 

those evaluations, and we need to have access to records that are 

sometimes publicly available, sometimes not publicly available, in 

order to do those evaluations. And general support for that approach to doing business I think is essential. 

Chairman CARPER. All right. Thanks. Thanks so much. 

Senator Ayotte, welcome. Before you arrived, I was saying to 

Senator Heitkamp who was here that we are blessed in this Committee to have not one, not two, not three—we used to have four 

with Jeff Chiesa—Attorney Generals, former State Attorney Generals on this Committee that really add a great deal of expertise 

in this particular area. So welcome. 

Senator AYOTTE. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to 

thank the witnesses for being here. 

I wanted to followup with you, Mr. Lewis, and ask you about how 

other DOD policies might affect the security clearances at facilities 

and then those who can gain access to them, in particular, just a 

thought of whether there are any DOD regulations that need to be 

reviewed or revised, for example, the current discharge regulations 

and how they are implemented. 

As I understand it, in the case of Mr. Alexis, had he been dishonorably discharged, that would have raised a flag, and that obviously would have gone right directly to his fitness to hold the security clearance. 

Could you help me understand, in light of this case, is this something that we need to think about? And one of the things that I 

am wondering about as well is the whole breakdown with the 

reach-out. Obviously that was beyond—but is there anything that 

we need to do on the mental health end here looking back on this? 

And I understand that 20/20—it is always 20/20 when you look 

back at something and you can see things that you did not see at 
169 

the time. But what I am trying to understand, is there anything 

that we need to look at internally on those two issues from the 

DOD perspective or anything we can do—I also serve on the Armed 

Services Committee—working jointly, the committees, that we 

should be doing? 

Mr. LEWIS. I do not believe that there are issues with how the 

discharges occur, and not to get into specifics, but generally based 

on what was known at the time of the discharge, it was not considered to be an unusual determination as to an honorable discharge 

in that particular case. 

But the larger issue is how do we collect—how do we identify 

and collect relevant information that allows us to constantly adjust 

our perspective about cleared individuals and individuals who are 

in trusted positions? And that is really the challenge. 

I hate to keep blowing the same horn, but the continuous evaluation process of not just collecting the information but having the 

staff available to evaluate the information and take action on that 

information, to me that is the real issue here. 

Senator AYOTTE. Well, I appreciate it. Then, of course, Senator 

Collins, Senator McCaskill, Senator Heitkamp, and I also have one 

where there would be random checks that I think is important as 

well, after you receive your security clearance. It is a pretty 

lengthy period right now upon which there is a review unless there 

is a reason that something is flagged. 

I wanted to ask also, General Patterson, what do you see as we 

look at this whole situation now with what is happening at the 

Navy Yard that you are already implementing to make sure that 

we do not find ourselves in the same situation? We can obviously 

legislate, but I know you are reviewing the whole situation and understanding what steps you are already taking in a positive fashion 

that you can talk about here? 

General PATTERSON. Yes, ma’am. Within the Federal Protective 

Service, we are working very closely with our Federal partners to 

look at processes and procedures for folks coming and going into 

Federal buildings. But we are also looking at our communications 

processes as well. One of the challenges during the Navy Yard was 

just the fact that so many agencies responded, just the level of 

communication and how do you do that. And so we are looking aggressively at how we do that, not just in the Washington, DC, area 

but across the United States, because in a crisis situation, communication becomes critical, and as such, good, timely communications 

is essential, hopefully, to a positive result. 

So we are looking in a variety of areas and taking lessons from 

the Navy Yard as to how we improve processes across the spectrum 

within the Federal Protective Service. 

Senator AYOTTE. Thank you very much. 

I also wanted to ask you, General Patterson, is it accurate to say 

that FPS does not use a risk assessment tool consistent with the 

Interagency Security Committee’s standards? I am trying to understand where we are with this, and I know that there was also a 

report from GAO that FPS’ interim facility assessment tool was not 

consistent with the assessment standards because it excludes consequence from assessments. And I want to understand if there is 
170 

a difference, why is it there? Is it something that we should be 

more uniformly putting in place? Or is there a reason for it? 

General PATTERSON. There is a reason, and we have just built 

the Modified Infrastructure Survey Tool (MIST), and that particular tool was developed with the Infrastructure Protection folks, 

within the Department who had developed a tool over a period of 

about 6 or 7 years. And we thought that this was a tool that we 

could modify because it brought what we believe are all of the 

areas of the ISC requirements to bear. 

Now, with our tool we look at specifically vulnerability. That is 

what the tool is structured for, to look at the vulnerability of a facility. Separate from the vulnerability piece, we also do a threat assessment. We connect with the Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF), 

with local law enforcement, with any number of agencies out there 

to get what we believe is a very in-depth, comprehensive perspective on the threat that we also provide to our Federal partners. 

The piece that is not part of the process is the consequence piece, 

and it is not part of that process because we have not figured out 

how to do that yet within a Federal facility. 

Senator AYOTTE. What does that mean? Just so we understand. 

General PATTERSON. Well, that is one of the things we are working with the ISC to help us better define. When you are asking for 

a consequence within the Federal sector, what is it you are looking 

for? 

We know that when we help a Federal partner to begin to pull 

together and understand their emergency occupancy plans, we help 

them to understand and we go through the consequence piece, and 

when they are looking at establishing the facility security level, we 

are also looking at the consequence piece there. We have not figured out yet how to incorporate that in an automatic method that 

will allow us to provide a reasonable and rational meaning to consequence to, let us say, 10 tenants of a leased facility. We are fairly 

certain that folks like the IRS and Social Security and others have 

stepped through the consequences of losing a facility in the event 

something happened to the facility. But we have not figured out yet 

how to incorporate that into a tool, and that is something we are 

working with the ISC to figure that out. 

Senator AYOTTE. OK. I appreciate your answer, and I want to 

thank all of you. We look forward to working with you on this important issue. Thank you. 

Chairman CARPER. Thank you, Senator Ayotte. 

At this point I am going to excuse this first panel of witnesses 

and thank you again for being here. Thanks for the work you are 

doing. 

I would just say as you head back for work from here, just keep 

in mind all those people, the hundreds of families who lost loved 

ones in Oklahoma City in that bombing. Keep in mind those at 

Fort Hood who lost their loved ones. Keep in mind, if you will, the 

families of the 12 men and women who died at the Washington 

Navy Yard. And just think of them as they celebrate Christmas or 

some other holidays, the families sitting around the Christmas 

tree, their dining room table, and there is somebody missing. 

We need to do our dead level best every day to ensure that those 

number of empty chairs, people that are not around because of a 
171 

tragedy like the ones I have just mentioned, keep them in mind, 

keep their families in mind and let that just energize our efforts 

going forward. This is not just about process. This is not just about 

GAO recommendations and complying with those recommendations. This is about saving people’s lives and making sure they 

have a good life and a chance to share that life for a long time with 

their families. Take that with you. Thank you. [Pause.] 

To our second and final panel, welcome. We are glad you could 

join us. Let me just very briefly introduce you, and then we will 

welcome your statements and have a chance to ask some questions. 

Our first witness is Mark Goldstein. Mark is the Director of 

Physical Infrastructure Issues for the U.S. Government Accountability Office, as we mentioned earlier, is the investigative audit 

arm of the U.S. Congress. We are grateful for the work that you 

and your colleagues do. Mr. Goldstein is responsible for GAO’s 

work in the area of government property, critical infrastructure, 

and telecommunications. 

At the request of this Committee and I think other congressional 

committees, GAO has conducted 12 reviews of Federal facility security since the Federal Protective Service became part of the Department of Homeland Security in 2003. GAO reports have focused on 

oversight of contract guards, facility risk assessments, cooperation 

with local law enforcement, planning and budgeting for security, 

and challenges hampering the protection of Federal agencies. 

Our second witness is Stephen Amitay. Is the emphasis on the 

first syllable? 

Mr. AMITAY. Yes. 

Chairman CARPER. Oh, good. Amitay. Stephen Amitay, Executive 

Director and General Counsel for the National Association of Security Companies. Mr. Amitay has led the association’s efforts working with Congress, with Federal agencies, and the Government Accountability Office on programs, on legislation, and other issues related to facility security since 2006. 

Our final witness is David Wright. Mr. Wright is the President 

of the National Protection and Programs Directorate Union, American Federation of Government Employees. Mr. Wright has served 

in his present capacity I believe since 2006, and Mr. Wright is a 

27-year veteran of the Federal Protective Service. His last 12 years 

he served as an Inspector, performed myriad responsibilities necessary to that position, from responding to crimes to overseeing 

contract guards to performing facility security assessments. Mr. 

Wright brings a wealth of field experience before this Committee, 

and he has worked with the agency and Congress to find solutions 

to many of the challenges that face the Federal Protective Service. 

We thank you for all of that. 

We welcome you all. You will each be invited to summarize your 

prepared statement. We would ask you to take about 5 minutes, 

and your entire statement will be made part of the record, as I indicated to the first panel. So thank you for joining us today. 

Well, let me ask a question. Here is the first question: Were you 

all here for the first panel? Raise your hand. Ah, good. OK. That 

is great. Thanks. Thanks for staying for yours. 

All right. You are recognized, Mr. Goldstein. 
172 

1The prepared statement of Mr. Goldstein appears in the Appendix on page 210. 

TESTIMONY OF MARK L. GOLDSTEIN,1 DIRECTOR, PHYSICAL 

INFRASTRUCTURE ISSUES, U.S. GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE 

Mr. GOLDSTEIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Members of the 

Committee. Thank you for the opportunity to testify this morning 

on issues related to the Federal Protective Service and the protection of Federal buildings. 

As part of the Department of Homeland Security, the Federal 

Protective Service is responsible for protecting Federal employees 

and visitors in approximately 9,600 Federal facilities under the 

control and custody of the General Services Administration. Recent 

incidents at Federal facilities demonstrate their continued vulnerability to attacks or other acts of violence. To help accomplish its 

mission, FPS conducts facility security assessments and has approximately 13,500 contract security guards deployed to Federal facilities. 

My testimony this morning discusses challenges that FPS faces 

in, first, ensuring contract guards are deployed to Federal facilities 

and properly trained; and, second, conducting risk assessments at 

Federal facilities. It is based on GAO’s work issued from 2008 

through 2013 on FPS’ contract guard and risk assessment programs and preliminary results of GAO’s ongoing work to determine 

the extent to which FPS and select Federal agency facility risk assessment methodologies align with Federal risk assessment standards. Our findings are as follows: 

First, FPS faces challenges ensuring that contract guards have 

been properly trained and certified before being deployed to Federal facilities around the country. In our September 2013 report, 

we found that providing active-shooter response and screener training is a challenge for FPS. 

For example, according to guard companies, at five guard companies, their contract guards have not received training in how to respond during incidents involving an active shooter. Without ensuring that all guards receive training in how to respond to incidents 

at Federal facilities involving an active shooter, FPS has limited 

assurance that its guards are prepared for this threat. 

Similarly, an official from one of FPS’ contract guard companies 

stated that 133, about 38 percent, of its 350 guards have never received screener training. As a result, guards deployed to Federal facilities may be using X-ray and magnetometer equipment that they 

are not qualified to use, which raises questions about their ability 

to screen access control points at Federal facilities—one of their 

primary responsibilities. 

GAO was unable to determine the extent to which FPS’ guards 

have received active-shooter response and screener training in part 

because FPS lacks a comprehensive and reliable system for guard 

oversight. FPS agreed with GAO’s 2013 recommendation that they 

take steps to identify guards that have not received training and 

provide it to them. 

GAO also found that FPS continues to lack effective management 

controls to ensure its guards have met its training and certification 

requirements. For instance, although FPS agreed with our 2012 
173 

1The prepared statement of Mr. Amitay appears in the Appendix on page 221. 

recommendation that it develop a comprehensive and reliable system for managing information on guards’ training, certifications, 

and qualifications, it does not yet have such a system. 

Second, FPS also continues to face challenges assessing risk at 

Federal facilities. GAO reported in 2012 that FPS is not assessing 

risk at Federal facilities in a manner consistent with Federal 

standards. GAO’s preliminary results from its ongoing work on risk 

assessments at Federal facilities indicates that it still is a challenge for FPS and several other Federal facilities. 

Federal standards, such as the National Infrastructure Protection Plan’s risk management framework and ISC’s risk assessment 

provisions, state that a risk assessment should include threat, vulnerability, and consequence assessments. Risk assessments help 

decisionmakers to identify and evaluate security risks and implement protective measures to mitigate that risk. Instead of conducting risk assessments, FPS is using an interim vulnerability assessment tool, referred to as the Modified Infrastructure Survey 

Tool to assess Federal facilities until it develops a longer-term solution. However, MIST does not assess the consequence—the level, 

duration, and nature of potential loss resulting from an undesirable 

event. Risk assessment experts GAO spoke with generally agreed 

that a tool that does not estimate consequences does not allow an 

agency to fully assess its risks. Thus, FPS has limited knowledge 

of risks faced at about 9,600 Federal facilities around the country. 

FPS officials stated that they did not include consequence information in MIST because it was not part of the original design. GAO 

will continue to monitor this issue and plans to issue a report on 

this issue early next year. 

In response to our recent reports, DHS and FPS have agreed 

with the recommendations in our 2012 and 2013 reports to improve 

FPS contract guard and the risk assessment processes. 

Mr. Chairman, this concludes my opening statement. I will be 

happy to answer questions you may have. Thank you. 

Chairman CARPER. Good. Thanks so much, Mr. Goldstein. 

Mr. Amitay, please. 

TESTIMONY OF STEPHEN D. AMITAY,1 EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, 

NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF SECURITY COMPANIES 

Mr. AMITAY. Chairman Carper, Senator Ayotte, my name is Stephen Amitay, and I am Executive Director for the National Association of Security Companies. NASCO is the Nation’s largest contract security trade association whose member companies employ 

more than 300,000 security officers across the Nation servicing 

commercial and governmental clients, including numerous Federal 

agencies. NASCO works with legislators and officials at every level 

of government to put in place higher standards and requirements 

for security companies and private security officers. 

Of most relevance to today’s hearing, since 2007 NASCO has 

worked with Congress, FPS, and GAO on issues and legislation related to the Federal Protective Service’s Protective Security Officer 

Program. It was formerly called the Contract Guard Program. 

NASCO also worked with the Federal Interagency Security Com-
174 

mittee on its 2013 best practices for armed security officers in Federal facilities. 

Not including the military services, there are approximately 

35,000 contract security officers across the Federal Government, 

and the use of contract security is a proven, effective, and cost-efficient countermeasure to reduce risk and mitigate threats to Federal facilities. 

To further ensure security at Federal facilities, FPS and its security contractors need to work together to address issues and challenges with the PSO program that GAO has identified over the 

past several years. At the same time, improvements need to be 

made to other elements in the risk assessment and threat mitigation process for Federal facilities. These elements are governed by 

ISC standards; however, as GSA has found out and as we learned 

earlier today, often the requirements of the ISC standards are not 

met by Federal facilities. 

One critical element in this process is the decision to implement 

specific security countermeasures for each facility. In GSA-owned 

or—leased buildings, FPS is responsible for conducting the facility 

security assessment and recommending countermeasures. But, Mr. 

Chairman, as you noted in your opening remarks, the decision to 

implement those recommendations or, put another way, the decision to mitigate risk or accept risk is solely up to the Facility Security Committee, which is made up of representatives from facilities’ 

tenant agencies. 

However, again, as GAO has found, ‘‘tenant agency representatives to the FSC generally do not have any security knowledge or 

experience but are expected to make security decisions for their respective agencies.’’ The lack of experienced decisionmakers on FSC 

is something that security contractors have witnessed firsthand, 

and it calls into question whether FSCs are making informed riskbased decisions regarding the mitigation or acceptance of risk. 

Of course, tightened budgets have also put pressure on tenant 

agencies to accept more risk. In the end, though, countermeasures 

deemed necessary for security should not be rejected because of either lack of understanding or an unwillingness to provide funding. 

NASCO supports requiring training for FSC members as well as 

DHS being able to challenge an FSC over noncompliance with ISC 

standards or decision not to implement countermeasures. Both 

these provisions were in legislation that was passed last Congress 

by this Committee. 

As to addressing the issues with FPS’ PSO program that GAO 

has identified, as well as other issues with the program, while FPS’ 

pace may not be as fast as GSA and security contractors would 

like, nonetheless FPS’ commitment to improving the PSO program 

is unquestionable, and there has been substantial progress made. 

Since the appointment of Director Patterson, the degree of dialogue and breadth of cooperation between FPS and security contractors has been unparalleled, and currently FPS and security 

contractors are working on a host of initiatives to improve the PSO 

program. 

To address the lack of FPS personnel resources to provide critical 

PSO X-ray and magnetometer training, FPS is about to launch a 

pilot program developed with NASCO that will train and certify 
175 

1The prepared statement of Mr. Wright appears in the Appendix on page 239. 

contractor instructors so that they can provide this important 

training. FPS is also moving to increase active-shooter training for 

PSOs and, wisely, they are looking at what other Federal agencies 

are doing in this area as well as seeking input from security contractors. 

FPS is working with NASCO to revise and standardize the PSO 

training lesson plans and is planning to require that security contractor instructors be certified for all areas of PSO training. 

FPS is also coming out with a much needed revision of the Security Guard Information Manual (SGIM). The SGIM governs and instructs PSOs on how to act, and not following the SGIM is considered a contract violation. The format of this new version will also 

allow for making revisions as needed. 

One area that needs further review are the instructions related 

to a PSO’s ability and authority to act and potential liability for 

acting in extreme situations such as active shooters. As is provided 

to contract security officers at some other Federal agencies, Congress might want to consider providing DHS with statutory authority to authorize PSOs to make arrests on Federal property. 

FPS is also working to improve PSO post orders and improve its 

management of PSO training and certification data. For this latter 

effort, NASCO strongly recommends that FPS explore commercially 

available technologies. 

In conclusion, much still needs to be done to address the PSO 

program issues raised by GAO. However, FPS has come a long way 

in the past decade with its contract security force. NASCO looks 

forward to continuing to work with FPS and Congress to improve 

the security at Federal facilities. 

Thank you. 

Chairman CARPER. Mr. Amitay, thank you so much. 

Mr. Wright, you are now recognized. 

TESTIMONY OF DAVID L. WRIGHT,1 PRESIDENT, FEDERAL 

PROTECTIVE SERVICE UNION, AMERICAN FEDERATION OF 

GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEES 

Mr. WRIGHT. Chairman Carper, Senator Ayotte, thank you for 

the opportunity to testify at this important hearing. I am David 

Wright, President of American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) Local 918, which represents Federal Protective Service 

officers nationwide. I am also an inspector with the FPS. We are 

committed to the critical homeland security mission of securing our 

Nation’s Federal buildings, but there are important issues that require resolution. 

Federal employees and facilities are extremely vulnerable to attack from both criminal and terrorist threats. I want to assure you 

that my fellow FPS law enforcement officers are trained, equipped, 

and competent at responding to active-shooter attacks, and I am 

appalled that bureaucracy and inefficiency restricted our FPS law 

enforcement officers, whose office is less than 1 mile away from the 

Navy Yard, from assisting with the pursuit of the active shooter. 

Basically it is because the Navy does not pay security fees to the 

FPS. 
176 

Congressional review of physical security at Federal properties 

must be viewed in the context of the leadership required to accomplish the FPS mission, which, to say the least, remains unfocused, 

if not broken, at all levels. Physical security plays a significant role 

in protection of all occupants of Federal buildings, but the frustrating, inefficient, and outright wasteful bureaucratic system of 

implementing physical security countermeasures through a flawed 

facility security assessment process and implementation by facility 

security committees who have to divert their mission funding is eye 

candy and not true security. Security in the Dirksen Senate Office 

Building is not based on an individual Senate office’s ability to pay. 

Why should other major Federal facilities be different? 

The FPS inspector workforce is constantly beleaguered by new 

and/or modified security assessment programs and individual conflicting management demands throughout the assessment process. 

I have lost confidence in the ability of the National Protection Programs Directorate to resolve this wasteful process. 

I understand that the Department’s Science and Technology Directorate has offered to make the integrated rapid visual screening 

tool compliant with the ISC. It was tested by both the General 

Services Administration and officials at the Federal Protective 

Service. I think that would be a good start to remedying our assessment problems. 

Use of private contract security guards at major Federal facilities 

is a risk because they are basically limited to the arrest powers of 

a citizen. The proactive law enforcement patrol and weapons 

screening at this building is accomplished by Federal police officers 

who have the lawful authority to respond to active shooters. How 

can we demand less in Federal buildings with thousands of occupants? 

How well are the 740 or so boots-on-the-ground officers and 

agents doing—providing the critical law enforcement protection of 

Federal buildings overall quite well given the dynamic mission, the 

headquarters staff with very little field experience, and an inadequate field staff? How is FPS management doing? Not so well. 

Can do better? Absolutely. Any organization is in trouble when 

leaders are not held accountable. A recent Office of Special Counsel 

(OSC) public file disclosure reveals that a regional director violated 

rules when he arranged to buy a system from his neighbor on behalf of the government. The punishment of a 3-day suspension is 

the opposite of accountability. I have been told that there are other 

instances of misconduct by equal and even higher-ranking officials. 

After accountability is established, performance across the board 

can improve with focused professional and ethical management 

that builds on best practices in the regions. Give our inspectors and 

police officers adequate staff, tools that work, and direction on priorities, and we will make sure the job is done. 

In conclusion, the Federal employees and the public they serve 

deserve the best and most effective protection we can provide. They 

are not getting it now, and expeditious, sincere action by DHS and 

Congress is required. Once again, I thank you for this opportunity, 

and I am available for questions. 

Chairman CARPER. Great. Mr. Wright, thanks very much for 

coming and for your service. 
177 

I am going to yield to Senator Ayotte for the first questions of 

this panel. Senator Ayotte. 

Senator AYOTTE. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I really 

appreciate that. 

I wanted to ask Mr. Goldstein if—particularly on the GAO reports and what you have found, it really troubles me when we 

think about that there is no comprehensive—I believe you described it as strategy or oversight model, and then the fact that we 

are not sure how many people are receiving—there is certainly a 

category that are not receiving active-shooter training and/or 

screener training. 

From the GAO perspective what is your recommendation in 

terms of from the policy perspective how we can move this as 

quickly as possible to address this problem? 

Mr. GOLDSTEIN. Thank you, Senator. We have been very concerned that, with respect to both active-shooter training and training on magnetometers, FPS has not done a good enough job at ensuring that its contract guard workforce is able to get that training. 

One of the problems with the active-shooter training which I 

think people do not understand here, though, is that it is only a 

very small part of just one part of the training they receive anyhow. They get a kind of special training of 2 hours which covers 

special events of various kinds that might occur in a building. So 

out of the 120 hours of training that they receive overall, only 2 

hours go to special events, and only a fraction of that 2 hours actually covers active-shooter training. 

So I think it is important to recognize that, for all intents and 

purposes, contract guards are not really getting active-shooter 

training for the most part. We are concerned that they do not have 

enough training in this area. 

The same is true for magnetometers. When GAO did its penetration testing of a number of Federal buildings back in 2009 and penetrated all 10 buildings that we tried to get into in a variety of different cities with bomb-making materials, we found at that time 

that guards did not have the requisite training to be at post, and 

we find now several years later that many guards still do not have 

that training. 

Senator AYOTTE. And these are the contract guards, correct? 

Mr. GOLDSTEIN. Yes, ma’am. 

Senator AYOTTE. So let me ask Mr. Wright, with respect to the 

agencies that can pay the fee, how does your training differ? How 

did the training of the individuals that I understand would work— 

and maybe I have this wrong, but would work in the Federal Protective Service Union when we are looking at this training issue, 

do you know how the training differs? 

Mr. WRIGHT. As Federal law enforcement officers, we complete 

our training at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center—— 

Senator AYOTTE. So you would go through the same training as 

any Federal law enforcement officer? 

Mr. WRIGHT. Yes. 

Senator AYOTTE. OK. 

Mr. WRIGHT. And there is a slight difference. We are talking contract guards. They are stationary at their post; whereas, our Federal Protective Service inspectors and police officers are mobile. 
178 

Senator AYOTTE. To the point of your testimony, if you were to 

provide the services, for example, at the Navy Yard that the Federal Protective Service—just so I understand, would you do more 

of a roaming capacity, is what you are saying? You would not do 

the person who stands—because the Capitol Police officers here, 

they actually stand at the magnetometer when we walk through, 

and I am just trying to understand physically what this would look 

like. 

Mr. WRIGHT. Right, and I think that is the model that I would 

look for, is a model that works here at the Capitol and the Capitol 

buildings, that you would have Federal officers begin their career 

at the magnetometer, at the X-rays before they promote up and 

gain seniority and go out into the field. 

Senator AYOTTE. And I want to understand, are there other 

agencies that, with regard to this training issue on the FPS contracting issue, is this something that we are facing beyond the 

Navy Yard? I mean, I assume that this contracting issue in terms 

of the training issue goes well beyond the Navy Yard facility. Is 

that true, Mr. Goldstein? 

Mr. GOLDSTEIN. The work we have done here really focuses on 

FPS, so I cannot comment more broadly. We have not looked at 

contract guard situations and what training they maybe—— 

Senator AYOTTE. So it would really just be focused here on the 

Navy Yard. 

Mr. GOLDSTEIN. Right, but we have found that the kind of training overall that FPS gives its contract guards, is similar to training 

given by DOE, by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), by the Pentagon Force Protection Agency, State, Kennedy Center. So they are in line generally with the kinds of training that you would give to a contract guard at a Federal facility. 

The problem is implementing it. That is where we seem to see the 

fall-off, ensuring that the guards are actually getting that training. 

Senator AYOTTE. So there is basically no accountability. In other 

words, we can check off the training box, but no one is saying this 

person actually has done it, that we are tracking them. I mean, basically in a law enforcement setting, you have to do a certain 

amount of training that you have to complete every year, and that 

is part of being in that position. That is not happening with this? 

Mr. AMITAY. Well, excuse me. As Senator Coburn noted, those 

are contract requirements to have your protective security officers 

have the required training and certifications, and that would be a 

contract violation. So, you know—— 

Senator AYOTTE. So we are actually entering contracts where we 

do not have them required to train on screening and—— 

Mr. AMITAY. The requirements are in the contract. 

Senator AYOTTE [continuing]. Active shooters? 

Mr. AMITAY. With the X-ray and magnetometer training, that— 

of the 132 hours of required training for FPS protective security officers, the contract guards, 16 hours are provided by FPS, 8 of 

which is X-ray/mag screening. And FPS’ inability for their personnel to be able to provide that training is an issue that the GAO 

has noted. But that is not a matter of the security contractors not 

providing the training that they are required to provide. 
179 

Senator AYOTTE. So we are not providing the training for the security contractors, but we should be reviewing these contracts to 

make sure that we are properly prioritizing what type of agreement 

we are brokering in terms of the requirements for background and 

training, shouldn’t we? 

Mr. GOLDSTEIN. Yes, there are a couple of issues. One is, as Mr. 

Amitay says correctly, that the Federal Protective Service is not 

providing in many cases the training that they are obligated to provide under the contract. 

Senator AYOTTE. Right. 

Mr. GOLDSTEIN. On the other hand, FPS is also not gaining the 

assurance that it needs that the contract guard companies themselves are providing the training that they are obligated to provide. 

They are not doing enough checks on the certifications. 

Senator AYOTTE. And who is watching all this? I mean, isn’t 

there supposed to be—— 

Mr. GOLDSTEIN. I guess GAO—— 

Senator AYOTTE. But, I mean, you are watching it, but who within the chain of command, meaning the management of this, is making sure that it gets done? 

Mr. GOLDSTEIN. Each region is supposed to go through a process 

to assure themselves and do checks and do audits. Some regions 

have not done it. Some regions have not done it in a random fashion at all where they could really gain assurance. Some have done 

it. When we have gone in behind them and looked at what they 

have done, not only did we find our own breaches in many cases 

of guards standing post without the proper certifications and qualifications; we also found significant disparities between our review 

and the review that FPS had done as well. 

Mr. AMITAY. I also think some of those disparities are disparities 

in the documentation per se, and I think there are instances where 

the guards have received the required training, they do have the 

required certifications, but there are issues with the documentation. 

For instance, with certain medical requirements, some statements of work require a licensed physician to sign off on those 

medical requirements. On others it could be a nurse practitioner. 

And GAO might come in and looking at what the current requirements are for licensed physicians and see that, oh, this PSO was 

signed off by a nurse practitioner; therefore, that is in violation. 

Senator AYOTTE. Well, I know my time is up, but what we are 

talking about here, though, is the documentation on the training 

for, I assume, the most important focus here, the screening and active-shooter training. 

Mr. GOLDSTEIN. It was a wide variety of issues. We found not 

just the magnetometer and the active-shooter training, but we 

found 23 percent of files we reviewed contained no documentation 

for required training and certification in a variety of areas. This 

could be firearms training, or drug testing, and there was no indication that FPS had monitored firearms qualifications in 68 of the 

files we reviewed. So it is across the spectrum of the kinds of certifications guards need. 

Senator AYOTTE. Well, my time is up, so I will thank you. 

Chairman CARPER. Thank you. Thank you for those questions. 
180 

I am going to ask two questions. The second question I am going 

to ask is when—in some sense, I like to ask when we are in a situation like this—a couple different panels, different points of view, 

a broad range of perspectives from which to testify and answer 

questions. I want you to each pick maybe one—or we will say two— 

go back to what you have heard one another saying in response 

to—well, it could just be your testimony, your response to our questions. Think back to the first panel, some of the things that they 

said, things they said in the testimony or in response to our questions, and just be thinking about takeaways for us on this side of 

the dais that you would just like to put an exclamation point behind, underline, and say as we go out of this room today, this hearing room, for God’s sake, keep these couple of points in mind, these 

are really good takeaways. And that is my second question, so you 

can be thinking about that. 

The first question I have is for Mr. Goldstein, and we have already talked about this to some extent. I am going to come back 

and just revisit it very briefly. But in the past decade or so, you 

have overseen, I think, 12 independent reports of Federal facility 

security. You have looked at the armed guard programs. You have 

collaborated with State and local law enforcement in human capital 

planning. GAO has also conducted covert testing. You have talked 

a little bit about some of what is going on in Federal facilities. In 

other words, you actually tried to penetrate Federal facilities to 

test how secure they are, which is a little bit like what we do in 

the nuclear power plant world. 

Again, for the record, how would you assess Federal facility security today? Over 30,000 feet, how would you assess Federal facility 

security today, realizing this is on a time continuum, where we 

focus more and more on this going back to especially 1995 with the 

bombing in Oklahoma City? But how are we doing today? Is it getting better? Is it getting worse? Have we plateaued? Is it uneven? 

Mr. GOLDSTEIN. I think it is very uneven, Mr. Chairman. I think 

that, yes, there have been improvements since Oklahoma City and 

since the Twin Towers, of course. We have more focus on this area. 

We have more physical protections in many places. We have more 

intelligence as well. But some of the basic issues still remain unresolved, the kinds of issues that you have brought up and that some 

of your witnesses have brought up this morning. There is still inadequate attention to many of the things that are in the forefront of 

what we need to do in terms of getting into a Federal building and 

making sure not only that the people who stand on the front lines 

of Federal buildings are qualified to be there and can do the service 

that they are being paid to do, that taxpayers are paying them for; 

but more broadly that we are wisely using government resources 

in this area. 

Because we have not effectively adapted a risk management 

process to the Federal portfolio, virtually every building that is at 

a Level 3 or a Level 4 security risk is treated in the same fashion, 

and we do not prioritize across that portfolio in an effective way to 

make sure that we are effectively spending government resources. 

So I think we still have a long way to go, sir. 

Chairman CARPER. All right. A followup question. If you maybe 

had to pick the next thing that the Federal Protective Service 
181 

ought to be doing in order to further improve Federal facility security as expeditiously as possible—and I do not know if that is a fair 

question, but take a shot at it. 

Mr. GOLDSTEIN. Sure. I mean, we have talked a lot this morning 

about the two fundamental issues in our last report on risk assessments and on contract guards. And while they are moving slowly, 

I think they are trying to move in the right direction in both of 

those areas. 

I think the area that still bedevils the security community here 

and has come up a couple times is this three-legged stool between 

GSA, the facility Security Committees, and FPS, in trying to figure 

out the best way to get security at Federal buildings. Should there 

really be a very significant role for individual agencies within a 

specific building for people who do not have a lot of security background? Should they really be making decisions about the government’s buildings? 

I do think while the ISC has developed standards to try and improve the level and effectiveness of the Facility Security Committees, that is an area that I think they still need to spend a lot more 

time in trying to figure out—is that really the best way that we can 

protect Federal buildings. 

Chairman CARPER. OK. Good. Thank you very much. 

All right. Mr. Wright, I am going to ask you to respond to my 

first question. Again, a point or two that you would really like to 

say, for God’s sake, if you forget everything else that you heard in 

this hearing, do not forget this. And there is probably more than 

a few things that we ought to keep in mind, and we will, but just 

one or two if you would. 

Mr. WRIGHT. If you will indulge, the focus of this hearing was the 

Navy Yard tragedy, so just very clearly, right off the bat, in regards to active shooter, look at our jurisdiction and authority. Our 

guys responded to the Navy Yard. We were less than 2 minutes 

away, and we had people at the Department of Transportation facility right across the street ready to activate and use their training and equipment, and we were held back. So that is just real, 

low-level stuff. 

I need you to demand accountability. This Committee, as referred 

to by Mr. Goldstein, in 2009 after they penetrated 10 of our buildings, our FPS Director sat here and committed to this Committee 

that he would fix the National Weapons Detection Training Program. To this day, that program is not complete. 

Chairman CARPER. Are we making any progress? 

Mr. WRIGHT. Uneven. It is scattered across the Nation. I think 

one of the big problems with FPS is you finally have a vision or 

at least somewhat of a vision at headquarters, and I guarantee 

you, once that vision leaves headquarters, it goes down to 11 different regions, I think three, four, five different Senior Executive 

Service (SES) officials, and the message gets lost, thereby once 

again reducing any semblance of accountability. We have 11 different regions and 11 different ways of doing business regardless 

of what our headquarters says. 

Chairman CARPER. OK. Thank you. Mr. Amitay. 

Mr. AMITAY. Yes, thank you. Going off what David just said, it 

is true that there is a vision now at headquarters. Part of that vi-
182 

sion is to standardize the training, to increase the training, and the 

lines of communications with the regions do need to be improved. 

And that has always been a problem, though, with FPS, is the fact 

that it has had to deal with 11 different regions. 

I think, though, you will see at FPS—David also mentioned the 

National Weapons Detection Training Program, which is basically 

the X-ray and magnetometer training for PSOs. That is a new program that will require 16 hours of initial training and then 8 hours 

of annual refresher training. Compare that to the current requirement of 8 hours of initial training, and then, essentially 8 hours 

that is combined with 40 hours of refresher training every 3 years. 

That is a positive development. The delivery of this training, 

though, that has been a problem, and it has been slow getting it 

out. And I think FPS realizes that the stretched-thin FPS inspectors really should not be doing training. That should not be their 

mission. And they are starting to turn this over to the—they want 

to turn it over to certified contract security instructors, and we 

think that is a great idea. That will allow for more cost-efficient 

and faster training. 

Also, in active-shooter training, definitely FPS needs to be doing 

more with that. I mean, other agencies are well ahead of FPS in 

terms of training their contract security officers to respond to active-shooter incidents. I have talked with several contractors, and 

they basically say that with those instructions and post orders, 

there really is some confusion for PSOs as to what they can do in 

an active-shooter situation. 

I mean obviously, as the instructions do say, when you are faced 

with an active shooter and the loss of life, you can engage them. 

But, are they able to be more aggressive in terms of maybe detecting an active shooter? If a person comes in, is being really suspicious, can they kind of get into the guy’s face and see what he 

is doing? 

I have been told that at DOE the active-shooter policy for their 

contract security officers is basically do not let the threat continue, 

period. 

But I think FPS is working to improve the training, to bring it 

up to a higher quality. They are working also, as Mark said, to try 

to better monitor their certification and training records, and, 

Mark, stay on them with that, because we do think that there is 

technology out there. I sometimes cringe when they say, well, we 

are working with the Science and Technology Directorate to basically try to come up with a data management system, something 

that, as Mr. Coburn pointed out, the contractors must have and already do have. And so there should be greater integration in terms 

of a comprehensive data management system, so the FPS and contractors can know and GAO can know who exactly does have the 

required training and certifications. 

Chairman CARPER. All right. Thank you. 

Mr. Goldstein, the last word. 

Mr. GOLDSTEIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. One quick clarification for Dr. Coburn’s benefit. Regarding GAO’s recommendations, 

there have been 26 between 2010 and 2013. By our records, only 

four are in process, and have only been in process for about 3 or 

4 weeks when we received them, meaning that there are 22 still 
183 

open. We will provide your staff with the exact information behind 

all those. 

Chairman CARPER. Thank you. That is very interesting. Thank 

you for that clarification. 

Mr. GOLDSTEIN. Yes, sir. 

Just three brief points that have not been brought up too much 

this morning which I think are very relevant. 

The first, as Mr. Amitay has said, I think it is important that 

there be better clarity in terms of contractors’ liabilities. We have 

interviewed dozens and dozens of contract guards over the last decade, all of whom have felt that they do not have clarity on what 

their roles and responsibilities are and when they can use force 

and when they cannot use force. And most have told us over the 

years that their companies have all but said, ‘‘Don’t you ever pull 

out your gun. Don’t you ever do anything with it.’’ So there is a lot 

of lack of clarity in this area. 

The second is the role of the inspector at the Federal Protective 

Service. It would be great if they were able, as Mr. Wright has 

said, to roam around more, to do more things, to be able to assure 

the security of the buildings they are responsible for. But in many 

cases, they are locked at their desks. They are doing other work. 

They are involved in getting contracts out the door. They are often 

still contract officers. The level of things that they are responsible 

for really precludes them in many instances from actually being 

out and about and being the eyes and the ears and taking care of 

the police function that they really have. So that would be the second. 

And then the third, finally, is I do not believe there really is 

much coordination at all based on the work we have done in the 

past with local and State police jurisdictions, so that when tragedy 

does strike that the Federal Protective Service has worked out in 

any kind of detail with local police jurisdictions exactly what kind 

of focus, what kind of approach, what kind of countermeasures they 

can take in the event of a tragedy. So more work needs to be done 

in that area as well. 

Thank you, sir. 

Chairman CARPER. Thank you. Thank you all for being here. 

Thank you for what you do with your lives. Thank you for your 

preparation for this hearing and for your responses to our questions. 

Mr. Goldstein, a special thanks to everyone at GAO for the continued good work that you do. 

Mr. GOLDSTEIN. Thank you, sir. 

Chairman CARPER. I do not have time—the weekly caucus lunch 

has begun, and I am late. So I am going to wrap it up here. If we 

had more time, one of the things I would get into is the issue of 

turnover among these contract officers. I do not think we really 

spent much time on that. I would just say as a closing thought, 

when I was Governor of Delaware, we had a real problem in the 

area of information technology, training folks to work in that area 

for us as a State employee, developing their skills and getting hired 

away by someone who would pay them a lot more money. And the 

Governor who succeeded me was smart enough to realize that we 
184 

ought to pay and change up the way we rewarded and incentivized 

folks to work for the State of Delaware in that arena. 

We have a similar problem actually here in the Federal Government. If you look at the skill sets and the compensation packages 

and the way we attract and retain skilled folks in the cyber world, 

in the Department of Homeland Security as compared, say, to the 

National Security Agency, there is a difference. And Dr. Coburn 

and I and our staffs and our colleagues are working on a way to 

reduce that disparity so that DHS will not just hire people to work 

in cybersecurity and see them trained and then hired away by others. We are going to work on that, and it would be interesting to 

know what we lose. Their training is so important here. That is one 

of the things we keep coming back to—the quality of the training, 

not just original training but refresher training, and the quality of 

that training. 

The thought that is in the back of my mind is what is going on 

with turnover. My guess is there is a fair amount of that in these 

jobs, and so a lot of training that is done might not inure to the 

benefit of the Federal taxpayers, but to those who ultimately these 

contract officers go to work for. 

If I had more time, I would ask each of you to respond to that, 

but if you would just raise your hands, and just by raising your 

hands, is that a problem? Is that a concern that we should have? 

OK. Thanks very much. 

All right. I would just say in closing that the hearing record will 

remain open for the next 17 months—— [Laughter.] 

Chairman CARPER. All right, 17 days, until January 3 at 5 p.m. 

for the submission of statements and questions for the record. I am 

sure you will get some, and we would appreciate your responding 

to those. 

Again, thank you very much for being here with us today. Our 

best wishes to you and your families in this holiday season. Thanks 

very much. 

[Whereupon, at 12:57 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.] 
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Æ