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26–067 PDF 2017

INCORPORATING SOCIAL MEDIA INTO FEDERAL 

BACKGROUND INVESTIGATIONS 

JOINT HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON 

GOVERNMENT OPERATIONS 

AND THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON 

NATIONAL SECURITY 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT 

AND GOVERNMENT REFORM 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

MAY 13, 2016 

Serial No. 114–158 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform 

( 

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

http://www.house.gov/reform 


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COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM 

JASON CHAFFETZ, Utah, Chairman 

JOHN L. MICA, Florida 

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio 

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee 

JIM JORDAN, Ohio 

TIM WALBERG, Michigan 

JUSTIN AMASH, Michigan 

PAUL A. GOSAR, Arizona 

SCOTT DESJARLAIS, Tennessee 

TREY GOWDY, South Carolina 

BLAKE FARENTHOLD, Texas 

CYNTHIA M. LUMMIS, Wyoming 

THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky 

MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina 

RON DESANTIS, Florida 

MICK MULVANEY, South Carolina 

KEN BUCK, Colorado 

MARK WALKER, North Carolina 

ROD BLUM, Iowa 

JODY B. HICE, Georgia 

STEVE RUSSELL, Oklahoma 

EARL L. ‘‘BUDDY’’ CARTER, Georgia 

GLENN GROTHMAN, Wisconsin 

WILL HURD, Texas 

GARY J. PALMER, Alabama 

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland, Ranking 

Minority Member 

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York 

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of 

Columbia 

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri 

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts 

JIM COOPER, Tennessee 

GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia 

MATT CARTWRIGHT, Pennsylvania 

TAMMY DUCKWORTH, Illinois 

ROBIN L. KELLY, Illinois 

BRENDA L. LAWRENCE, Michigan 

TED LIEU, California 

BONNIE WATSON COLEMAN, New Jersey 

STACEY E. PLASKETT, Virgin Islands 

MARK DESAULNIER, California 

BRENDAN F. BOYLE, Pennsylvania 

PETER WELCH, Vermont 

MICHELLE LUJAN GRISHAM, New Mexico 

JENNIFER HEMINGWAY, Staff Director 

JACK THORLIN, Counsel 

WILLIAM MARX, Clerk 

DAVID RAPALLO, Minority Staff Director 


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SUBCOMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT OPERATIONS

MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina, Chairman 

JIM JORDAN, Ohio 

TIM WALBERG, Michigan, Vice Chair 

TREY GOWDY, South Carolina 

THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky 

MICK MULVANEY, South Carolina 

KEN BUCK, Colorado 

EARL L. ‘‘BUDDY’’ CARTER, Georgia 

GLENN GROTHMAN, Wisconsin 

GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia, Ranking 

Minority Member 

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York 

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of 

Columbia 

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri 

STACEY E. PLASKETT, Virgin Islands 

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY

RON DESANTIS, Florida, Chairman 

JOHN L. MICA, Florida 

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee 

JODY B. HICE, Georgia 

STEVE RUSSELL, Oklahoma, Vice Chair 

WILL HURD, Texas 

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts, 

Ranking Minority Member 

ROBIN KELLY, Illinois 

BRENDA L. LAWRENCE, Michigan 

TED LIEU, California 


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C O N T E N T S 

Page 

Hearing held on May 13, 2016 ............................................................................... 1 

WITNESSES 

Mr. William Evanina, Director of National Counterintelligence and Security 

Center, Office of the Director of National Intelligence 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 4 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 7 

Ms. Beth Cobert, Acting Director, U.S. Office of Personnel Management 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 11 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 13 

Mr. Tony Scott, U.S. Chief Information Officer, U.S. Office of Management 

and Budget 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 17 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 18 


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INCORPORATING SOCIAL MEDIA INTO 

FEDERAL BACKGROUND INVESTIGATIONS 

Friday, May 13, 2016 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT OPERATIONS, JOINT

WITH SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY, 

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM, 

Washington, D.C. 

The subcommittees met, pursuant to call, at 9:03 a.m., in Room 

2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Mark Meadows [chairman of the subcommittee] presiding. 

Present: Representatives Meadows, DeSantis, Walberg, Jordan, 

Mica, Hice, Massie, Hurd, Mulvaney, Carter, Grothman, Chaffetz, 

Connolly, Lynch, Maloney, Lieu, and Kelly. 

Mr. MEADOWS. The Subcommittee on Government Operations 

and the Subcommittee on National Security will come to order. And 

without objection, the chair is authorized to declare a recess at any 

time. 

We’re here today to discuss incorporating social media into the 

Federal security clearance and background investigations. Having 

a security clearance means, by definition, you have access to information that would hurt our national security if it got out, and that 

is why we perform background investigations on individuals who 

want a security clearance. The goal of our background investigations must be to find out if an individual is trustworthy. Back in 

the 1950s, that meant talking to neighbors and family. 

Today, with more than a billion individuals on Facebook, what 

a person says and does on social media can often give a better insight on who they really are. Since 2008, various Federal agencies 

have conducted studies on using social media data in investigations, and they all find the same thing, that there is a wealth of 

important information on social media. 

This issue now facing the Federal Government is how to use social media information while respecting the legitimate privacy concerns that are often brought forth. The good news is that using social media checks in security clearance investigation does not have 

to be a binary decision between big brother and an ineffective system. There are several reasonable options available to us to use social media data in a responsible way. 

It is encouraging to see that ODNI announced this morning, in 

advance of today’s hearing, a new policy that will allow Federal 

agencies to review publicly available social media information as 

part of the clearance investigation process. We will continue to 


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work with the agencies to ensure that the social media data of people with security clearances is used in a safe and responsible way. 

Mr. MEADOWS. I would like to thank the witnesses for coming 

here today and I look forward to their testimony. 

And with that, I would recognize the ranking member of the Subcommittee on Government Operations, my good friend, Mr. 

Connolly. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. I thank my friend, the chairman, for holding this 

hearing to examine the usefulness of social media and other crucial 

enhancements to the Federal background investigation process. 

On January 22, the administration announced that the Federal 

Investigative Services, a former entity of OPM, would transfer its 

functions to a new national background investigations bureau. The 

Department of Defense assumed responsibility for designing and 

operating all information technology for the new NBIB. I think it 

makes abundant sense to task our national security experts with 

protecting the sensitive personal information of millions of clearance holders. 

Today, we’re discussing another enhancement, the inclusion of 

social media in the background investigation process. The Army 

has a pilot program which used publicly available data from social 

media sites to enhance information available to investigators during background check processes. Currently, the Department of Defense is also conducting a pilot program that looks at all publicly 

available information online, such as news articles and commercial 

Web sites. I’m interested in learning the major findings and lessons 

learned from these pilot programs. 

While social media is a promising and valuable source, potentially, of information, I remain concerned that the government 

should not retain social media data of third parties who happen to 

engage with the applicant but have not consented to waiving their 

privacy rights. We must not forget to discuss other ways to enhance security clearance processes. 

The Performance Accountability Council is establishing a law enforcement liaison office that will communicate with local governments to expedite the requests for local criminal records. That’s a 

major enhancement. We must remember that on September 16, 

2013, Aaron Alexis, a Federal subcontractor with a secret-level 

clearance, entered the Washington Navy Yard and tragically killed 

12 people and injured 4 others. He had a security clearance. The 

background investigation failed to identify that Mr. Alexis had a 

history of gun violence. The local police record of Mr. Alexis’ 2004 

firearms arrest had not been provided to Federal investigators. Improvements in communication between local law enforcement and 

Federal background investigators could prevent and could perhaps 

have prevented a tragedy like that that occurred in the Washington 

Navy Yard. 

I welcome each of the witnesses back from the full committee’s 

February hearing and look forward to hearing about their progress 

on the administration’s plan to reform the security clearance and 

background investigation process, while preserving privacy rights. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. MEADOWS. I thank the gentleman. 


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The chair now recognizes the chairman of the Subcommittee on 

National Security, Mr. DeSantis, for his opening statement. 

Mr. DESANTIS. Thank you, Chairman Meadows. I just wanted to 

say, I think this is an important issue. And it looks like that we 

just got a directive late last night where this is now going to be 

an implemented policy. So I’m interested in hearing how that’s 

going to be implemented, but I’m sure that’s partly as a result of 

your oversight. So thank you for doing that and I look forward to 

hearing the witness testimony. 

I yield back. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Well, Chairman DeSantis, thank you for your 

leadership on so many of these issues and I look forward to continuing to work with you. 

I now recognize the ranking member of the Subcommittee on National Security, the gentleman from Massachusetts, Mr. Lynch. 

Mr. LYNCH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I would also like to 

thank Chairman DeSantis and my friend, Mr. Connolly, for holding 

this hearing. It’s important for a number of reasons, which you 

both have touched on already. 

When an individual applies to receive an initial or renewed security clearance, the Federal Government conducts a background investigation to determine whether he or she may be eligible to access classified national security information. Every security clearance candidate is required to complete a Standard Form 86. I have 

one right here; rather lengthy. It goes into a number of very personal aspects of each person’s life. This 127-page form already requests a variety of personal applicant information, such as criminal 

history, any history of alcohol use or illegal drug use, any mental 

health counseling. It does not currently request social media information. 

But as Chairman DeSantis noted, last night about 11 o’clock, we 

got copies of this policy. And I want to say thank you. You know, 

I—we have not always had information forthcoming in a timely 

manner. Even 11 o’clock at night, that’s timely around here, you 

know, a few hours before the hearing. But I appreciate you sending 

it. 

I thought it might be a mistake, actually, that you sent the policy 

over. I did have a chance to read it a couple of times last night and 

it raises some questions, but I think it’s a very good first effort. 

And we appreciate it. 

In December of 2015, Congress passed and President Obama 

signed a bipartisan funding legislation that included a robust directive to enhance the security clearance process. The recent Omnibus 

Appropriations Act also requires the director of DNI to direct the 

Federal agencies to use social media and other publicly available 

government and commercial data when conducting periodic reviews 

of their security clearance or clearance holders. The law also provides guidance on the types of information that could be obtained 

from social media and other sources and it may prove relevant to 

a determination of whether an individual should be granted clearance at all. 

Now, this includes information suggesting a change in ideology 

or ill intent or vulnerability to blackmail in allegiance to another 

country. The main impetus, as Mr. Connolly noted, was the terrible 


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situation at the Washington Navy Yard. And also I would add, 

there has been exploitation of Twitter, Facebook, WhatsApp, and 

Telegram by the Islamic State. And also at one point we had everyone who filled out a Standard Form 86 hacked by the Chinese as 

well. So they have a list of everybody who filled out, you know, an 

86 requesting security clearance, which is very troubling. 

There’s a lot that needs to be talked about here. We’re going to 

gather all this information on individuals in one place. In light of 

what has happened with the Chinese hack, I’m concerned about 

putting medical information, all of this about people who apply in 

one place where it might be accessed by hostile or nefarious actors. 

So we’re going to talk a little bit about that this morning. 

As I said, I appreciate the Security Executive Agent Directive 

Number 5 and, you know, I think it’s a very good first effort and 

I appreciate your transparency with us. Thank you. 

I yield back. 

Mr. MEADOWS. I thank the gentleman. And I will hold the record 

open for 5 legislative days for any member who would like to submit a written statement. 

We’ll now recognize our panel of witnesses. I’m pleased to welcome Mr. William Evanina, Director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center in the Office of the Director of National 

Intelligence; Ms. Beth Cobert, Acting Director of the U.S. Office of 

Personnel Management. And I might add, in her new role working 

incredibly well in a bipartisan and very transparent way that is 

recognized by this committee. So thank you so much. Mr. Tony 

Scott, the U.S. Chief Information Officer at the U.S. Office of Management and Budget. 

Welcome to you all. And pursuant to committee rules, all witnesses will be sworn in before they testify. So if you would please 

rise and raise your right hand. 

Do you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony you’re about 

to give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the 

truth? 

Thank you. Please be seated. 

Let the record reflect that all witnesses answered in the affirmative. In order to allow time for discussion, please limit your oral 

testimony to 5 minutes. You’re very familiar with the process. But 

your entire written statement will be made part of the record. 

And so, Mr. Evanina, you are now recognized for 5 minutes. 

WITNESS STATEMENTS 

STATEMENT OF WILLIAM EVANINA 

Mr. EVANINA. Good morning. Good morning, everyone. Chairman 

Meadows, Chairman DeSantis, Ranking Member Connolly, Ranking Member Lynch, and members of the subcommittee, thank you 

for having me here as part of this team to participate in today’s 

hearing. 

As the National Counterintelligence executive and the director of 

the National Counterintelligence Security Center, I’m responsible 

for leading and supporting the counterintelligence and security activities of the United States Government, which includes the entire 

U.S. Government and the private sector throughout the intelligence 


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community. In addition, I’m responsible for providing outreach to 

U.S. private sector entities who are at risk of becoming a target of 

intelligence collection, penetration, or attack by foreign and other 

adversaries. 

I also support the Director of National Intelligence’s responsibilities as a security executive agent, the role under which the social 

media directive was developed. And I work close in partnership 

with the Office of Management and Budget and the Office of Personnel Management, and my colleagues to my left. Department of 

Defense also partners in this effort as well as part of the PAC. 

Agencies across the executive branch are also part of today’s process and the successes we have achieved with this policy. 

When I last appeared before this committee on February 25, we 

discussed the formation of the National Background Investigations 

Bureau and security clearance reforms. Today, I’ve been asked to 

discuss the administration’s policy on the use of social media as 

part of the personnel security background investigation and adjudication process. 

Mr. Chairman, we have been steadfastly at work on a directive 

that addresses the collection and use of publicly available social 

media information during the conduct of personal security, background investigations, and adjudications. I want to acknowledge 

the important contributions to this effort made by our entire executive branch colleagues, particularly at the Office of Management 

and Budget and OPM. And I’m pleased, as you referenced, to announce that the Director of National Intelligence has recently approved this directive which is being publicly released. 

The data gathered via social media will enhance our ability to 

determine initial and continued eligibility for access to classified 

national security information and eligibility for sensitive positions. 

I realize that the Federal Government’s authority to collect and 

review publicly available social media information in the course of 

a personnel security background investigation and adjudication 

raises some important legitimate civil liberties and privacy concerns. Nevertheless, let me be clear. I am strongly of the view that 

being able to collect and review publicly available social media and 

other information available to the public is an important and valuable capability to ensure that those individuals with access to our 

secrets continue to protect them and that the capability can be 

aligned with appropriate civil liberties and privacy protections. 

I would note to the committee that by the term ‘‘publicly available social media information,’’ we mean social media information 

that has been published or broadcast for public consumption, is 

available on request to the public, is accessible online to the public, 

is available to the public by subscription or purchase, or is otherwise lawfully accessible to the public. 

I believe the new directive on social media strikes this important 

balance. Under this new directive, only publicly available social 

media information pertaining to the individual under investigation 

will be intentionally collected. Absent a national security concern 

or criminal reporting requirement, information pertaining to the individuals, other than the individual being investigated, will not be 

investigated or pursued. 


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In addition, the U.S. Government may not request or require individuals subject to the background investigation to provide passwords or login into private accounts or to take any action that 

would disclose nonpublicly available social media information. The 

complexity of these issues has led to a lengthy and thorough review 

by the departments and agencies that would be affected by this policy, as well as coordination with different members of civil liberties 

and privacy offices, privacy act offices, and office of general counsel. 

Mr. Chairman, the new guidelines approved by the Director of 

National Intelligence for the collection and use of publicly available 

social media information and security clearance investigations ensure this valuable avenue investigation can be pursued consistent 

with subjects’ civil liberties and privacy rights. 

The use of social media has become an integral and very public 

part of the fabric of most American’s daily lives. It is critical that 

we use this important source of information to help protect our Nation’s security. 

Mr. Chairman, I welcome any questions that you and your colleagues have regarding this directive. 

[Prepared statement of Mr. Evanina follows:] 


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Mr. MEADOWS. Thank you for your testimony. 

Ms. Cobert, you’re recognized for 5 minutes. 

STATEMENT OF BETH COBERT 

Ms. COBERT. Chairman Meadows, Chairman DeSantis, Ranking 

Members Connolly and Lynch, and members of the subcommittee, 

thank you for the opportunity to testify before you today on the use 

of social media in the Federal background investigation process. 

OPM plays an important role in conducting background investigations for the vast majority of the Federal Government. Currently, OPM’s Federal Investigative Services, FIS, annually conducts approximately 1 million investigations for over 100 Federal 

agencies, approximately 95 percent of the total background investigations governmentwide. These background investigations include 

more than 600,000 national security investigations and 400,000 investigations related to suitability, fitness, or credentialing each 

year. 

As we discussed in February, we are in the process of 

transitioning to the new National Background Investigations Bureau, NBIB, which will absorb FIS and its mission to be the governmentwide service provider for background investigations. The 

Department of Defense, with its unique national security perspective, will design, build, secure, and operate the NBIB’s investigative IT systems in coordination with the NBIB. 

To provide some context for our discussion today, I would like to 

take a few minutes to review how the current security clearance 

process operates in most cases. 

First, an executive branch agency will make a requirements determination as to the sensitivity and risk level of the position. If 

an agency determines that a position requires a clearance, the employee completes an SF–86 and submits fingerprints, both of which 

are sent to OPM, along with an investigation request. OPM, 

through FIS now and NBIB in the future, conducts the investigation by doing all of the checks required by the Federal investigative 

standards. The results of the investigation are then sent to the requesting agency for adjudication. 

The clearance decision is made from the information in the investigative report in conformance with the adjudicative guidelines that 

are the purview of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, ODNI. 

The requesting agency sends their decision back to OPM, who 

maintains the records for reciprocity purposes. The individual will 

also be reinvestigated on a periodic basis. 

As the committee is aware, agencies make security clearance decisions using a whole-person approach, meaning that available, reliable information about the person, past and present, favorable 

and unfavorable, should be considered by adjudicators in reaching 

a determination. 

One component of that approach in the 21st century is the topic 

of today’s hearing, social media. ODNI, in its role as the security 

executive agent, has developed a social media policy that has undergone extensive coordination with relevant departments and 

agency officials. OPM looks forward to implementing the policy as 

part of its ongoing efforts to strengthen its investigative processes. 


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In April, OPM issued a request for information seeking to better 

understand the market and the types of products vendors can provide to meet social media requirements. The RFI is in preparation 

for a pilot that OPM is planning to conduct this year that will incorporate automated searches of publicly available social media 

into the background investigation process. This planned pilot will 

be conducted by OPM in coordination with the ODNI. 

The pilot will obtain the results of searches of publicly available 

electronic information, including public posts on social media from 

a commercial vendor for a population of security clearance investigations using pertinent investigative and adjudicative criteria. 

This pilot is distinct from other pilots in that it will assess the 

practical aspects of incorporating social media searches into the 

operational end-to-end process; the mechanics of adding this type 

of report to a background investigation and the affects on quality, 

costs, and timeliness. 

In addition, the pilot will assess the uniqueness of the information provided through social media checks as compared to information provided through traditional investigative sources. 

Supporting the implementation of the NBIB and aiding its success in all areas will continue to be a core focus for OPM, as well 

as the Performance Accountability Council, the PAC. Our goal is to 

have the NBIB’s initial operating capability officially established 

with a new organizational design and leader in place by October 

2016. The implementation work will remain to be done after that 

date. 

On behalf of OPM, I am proud to be part of this most recent effort by the administration, and I look forward to working with my 

colleagues on this panel and with this committee in a bipartisan 

manner on this important issue. I’m happy to answer any questions 

you may have. 

[Prepared statement of Ms. Cobert follows:] 


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Mr. MEADOWS. Thank you for your testimony. 

Mr. Scott, you’re recognized for 5 minutes. 

STATEMENT OF TONY SCOTT 

Mr. SCOTT. Thank you. 

Chairman Meadows, Chairman DeSantis, Ranking Member 

Connolly, Ranking Member Lynch, and members of the subcommittees, I appreciate the opportunity to appear before you today. 

The administration recognizes the importance of gathering accurate up-to-date and relevant information in its background investigations to determine Federal employment and security clearance 

eligibility. And as a government, we must continue to improve and 

modernize the methods by which we obtain relevant information 

for these background investigations. 

Since 2009, various government agencies have conducted pilots 

and studies of the feasibility, effectiveness, and efficiency of collecting publicly available electronic information as a part of the 

background investigations process. Those pilots have informed the 

development of a new social media policy that has been issued by 

the director of National Intelligence in his role as the security executive agent. And I will defer to ODNI on the further details of this 

policy. 

But as you know, OMB chairs the interagency Security and Suitability Performance Accountability Council, or PAC, to ensure 

interagency coordination. And the new policy will reflect, I believe, 

an appropriate balance of a number of considerations, such as protecting national security; ensuring the privacy of and fairness to individuals seeking security clearances and associates of that individual; the veracity of the information collected from social media; 

and the resources required to process the collection, adjudication, 

and retention of the relevant data collected. 

As the policy is implemented, the administration will continue to 

assess the effectiveness and efficiency of the policy. To do so, the 

government must keep pace with advancements in technology to 

anticipate, detect, and counter external and internal threats to the 

Federal Government’s personnel, property, and information. This 

need must also be considered with the full legal and national security implications in mind. I’m confident that this new policy will 

strike the correct balance between all of these considerations. 

I thank the committee for holding this hearing and for your commitment to improving this process. We look forward to working 

with Congress, and I’m pleased to answer any questions you may 

have. 

[Prepared statement of Mr. Scott follows:] 


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Mr. DESANTIS. [Presiding.] I thank the gentleman. 

The chair now recognizes himself for 5 minutes. 

And this is for each of you. Are your agencies utilizing commercially available software to vet security clearance applicants, monitor security clearance holders, and detect any cybertheft of these 

individuals’ personal information? 

Ms. COBERT. Congressman, in the process of the investigations, 

we do work with commercial vendors of publicly available vetted 

information. That is sort of our core element. We use that and 

other methods to gather the information in the investigative process. I’m not sure if I’ve completely answered your question. 

Mr. DESANTIS. Well, there’s certain off-the-shelf technology that 

the Federal Government will use in other instances, and I just 

wanted to ask if there is any type of prohibition on doing that or 

if you guys just aren’t doing that or you’re actually trying to using 

all the tools that are potentially at your disposal? 

Ms. COBERT. We use a variety of tools to gather information from 

public sources, from both governmental and nongovernmental, so 

there’s a variety of tools we use to do that. Those are used to, you 

know, gather some of the information, whether there’s a national, 

you know, law enforcement database from which we get information. We do, for example, use electronic methods to gather appropriate—appropriately gather information about financial history. 

So we do use some of those tools. I’d be happy to get back to you 

with more of the specifics, if that would be helpful. 

Mr. DESANTIS. Okay. Thank you. 

Mr. EVANINA. Sir, I would concur with my colleague. I think we 

encourage the most robust and effective, efficient tools that are 

processed for ensuring a speedy, effective background investigation. 

That’s going to be different—this process will be different, depending which agency is doing the background investigation, the tools 

that they are capable of, the expense, and the number of—the volume of people that are applying for a clearance. 

Obviously, we would encourage the ODNI, the most effective and 

efficient off-the-shelf capabilities, as long as it’s within the rules, 

regulations, and policies set forth. 

Mr. DESANTIS. Let me ask you this: In the years leading up to 

Edward Snowden’s theft of classified info, he made several posts to 

online forums using a consistent user name complaining about government surveillance. And these posts may have alerted authorities 

that he could be an insider threat. Have any of the social media 

pilot programs evaluated to date been capable of detecting that sort 

of post where the subject is posting under an online identity that 

is not explicitly the individual’s name? 

Mr. EVANINA. Sir, I’m not specific to the exact nature of the 

depth and granularity of those particular pilots. But I can tell you, 

those particular posts from Mr. Snowden that he did would not 

have been caught in the social media because it’s not public facing 

and there was private chats with other individuals beyond the 

password protection. 

Mr. DESANTIS. So if they’re using semi-anonymous names, to the 

extent that there are public forums, would requiring the disclosure 

of any alternative online identities on the FS–86 form be something 

that would be helpful? 


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Mr. EVANINA. Sir, we’re currently not planning on asking anyone 

to provide any other alternative passwords or email accounts or individual reference to their online persona. 

Mr. DESANTIS. So, basically, if—so we’ll look at social media, if 

they’re posting. If John Smith applies for security clearance and 

you’ll look for John Smith, but if he goes by, you know, Jack Scott, 

then you’re just not going to require that. So they can post whatever there and that’s not going to be something that would be considered? 

Mr. EVANINA. Not currently, unless they’re willing to consent to 

provide that information to us. 

Mr. DESANTIS. Okay. What reason could allow extensive questioning of friends—so I mean, the FS–86 is a very intensive investigation. I mean, you’ll call up people’s college roommates. You’ll 

call up people’s neighbors when they’ve lived—even if they’ve lived 

in a place for a short period of time. So there’s a lot of extensive 

investigation. So why would you want to do that? And I’m not saying you shouldn’t do that, but why would you want to do that but 

then not get the whole, I guess, picture of their online identities? 

Mr. EVANINA. Well, I think if the additional information is obtained that an individual has a pseudonym or has—an individual 

has an offline persona that’s different than his name, that can be 

pursued investigatively, but that’s not something we are going to 

ask, or there’s really not a way for us to identify Bob Smith who 

is really Dave Jones online without someone telling us that. 

Mr. DESANTIS. But what would be the reason to just—since 

there’s so much information required in the FS–86, what would be 

the negative of just asking, hey, do you post online under any type 

of pseudonym? 

Mr. EVANINA. I think when you get past the public-facing interface of social media, you get to the, I think, the border of privacy 

and civil liberties in terms of what are your practices beyond what 

you would do in the course of your daily lives. And by this, the 

analogy would be, we don’t look at their emails and we don’t look 

at their telephone conversations as part of the background investigation as well. 

Mr. DESANTIS. Okay. My time is up. 

I now recognize the gentleman from Virginia for 5 minutes. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and welcome. 

Help me understand how this works. Because it’s one thing for 

a private individual to be sort of trolling in Facebook; it’s another 

for the government to be doing it. And so how does this work? I 

mean, I—somebody in government gets on the Internet and looks 

up your Facebook history? You’re subject—you’re Harry Houdini. 

You’ve applied for a security clearance and we’re looking at, you 

know, through social media, anything that you used, Twitter, 

Facebook, YouTube, Hulu, whatever it might be. So we just go online and look at whatever we can find under his, Harry Houdini or 

Shirley Jones’ name. Is that right? 

Mr. EVANINA. Sir, I’ll start—I think—— 

Mr. CONNOLLY. If you could pull the mic closer. Thank you. 

Mr. EVANINA. I’m sorry, sir. 

Congressman, I think when we set forth this policy, we looked 

at it and tried to provide the most flexibility for investigative agenVerDate Nov 24 2008 14:18 Jul 13, 2017 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00027 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 H:\26067.TXT APRIL

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cies and service providers to do what they feel is most practicable 

and most reasonable for their individual agency. So, for instance, 

some of the bigger agencies may provide a data service provider, 

they aggregate this data for multiple people to go out and do the 

search. We are clearly acknowledging that the effort will be exhaustive initially to identify people’s social media footprint that’s 

out there. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Okay. What are the red lights, though, that flag 

for us, got to follow up on this? So, you know, my Facebook posting, 

you know, we’re talking about the block party for July in my culde-sac. You know, talking about maybe a family reunion and interspersed with all of that, oh, by the way, the President needs to die. 

How do we flag the serious from the trivial and how do we make 

sure that if it’s all trivial, that’s the end of it. It’s deleted, it’s not 

retained, because there may be other names in that Facebook. 

There may be pictures of other people who are not the subject of 

an investigation, unless that association is suspect. 

How do we make sure that we don’t just have some enormous 

government depository of personal information of American citizens 

that’s really not at all relevant, or parts of it may be? How do we 

do that? 

Mr. EVANINA. That’s a great question, Congressman. I think, putting this in context, the social media utilization is just one tool of 

many that we currently already use in background investigations. 

And the collection and retention of that data will be parallel to any 

other data we collect on an individual. And to your example of 

Facebook, and the examples you gave, the only relevant information that were there for investigative adjudicative processes would 

be the issue to the President. All the other stuff would not be retained, although we would collect and retain the Presidential, 

if—— 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Let me interrupt, though. 

Mr. EVANINA. Yes, sir. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. God forbid, but should there be such a reference, 

well, the other stuff is not being retained. Actually, I might now 

want to take a fresh look at your associations because maybe 

they’re involved or—I mean, wouldn’t we want to check that out? 

Mr. EVANINA. Sir, so I was going to say—— 

Mr. CONNOLLY. If for no other reason than to talk to the neighbors to say, does Harry Houdini talk this way often? Have you ever 

heard him—you know, right? 

Mr. EVANINA. Right. So the social media application here, like 

many other tools that are at the disposal of investigators, would 

provide an investigative lead. So that particular post on your Web 

site would lead to an investigative lead to be furthered up with 

your colleagues, your family, your friends, your neighbors as just 

another lead; no different than we would find in an anomalous financial disclosure. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Ms. Cobert and Mr. Scott, in the time I have left, 

I’d be derelict on behalf of my constituents if I didn’t return to the 

OPM security breach, and if you can take some time to bring us 

up to date. Weaknesses identified, have they been addressed so 

that there can’t be a recurrence? And how are we coming in trying 


KING-6430 with DISTILLER
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to make people whole again in terms of the compromise of their 

personal information? 

Ms. COBERT. Let me start in the response to that one. In terms 

of improving the security of our systems, we have made significant 

strides in our ongoing effort and we will continue to do so. Working 

closely with DHS, with DOD as part of the NBIB standup, we actually have staff from DOD now on site working with us as well as 

ongoing working sessions. We’ve installed the latest versions of 

EINSTEIN. We’ve got a whole series of improvements that we’ve 

made to our firewalls. We now have the ability to much—— 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Excuse me, EINSTEIN 3 is in place now? 

Ms. COBERT. We are one of the first agencies to put that in place. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Because it wasn’t in place at the time of the 

breach, right? 

Ms. COBERT. No. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Right. Excuse me. 

Ms. COBERT. So we continue to work to try and put in place a 

whole series of tools and we’ve seen real improvements in that, as 

well as strengthening. We have a new chief information security officer. I could go on and on, but we still will continue to work at 

that issue. 

In terms of the individuals whose information was taken, we 

have the identity theft, identity monitoring contracts in place. We 

continue to monitor those in terms of the quality of their customer 

service. We are also actively working to put in place the provisions 

to extend the identity theft insurance to $5 million, as well as 

being in the process of figuring out how to extend those to the 10 

years that was also approved by Congress. So we continue to work 

at these quite closely, including with Tony and the team from 

OMB. 

Mr. SCOTT. And I would just add, I’m seeing almost as much of 

Beth as I did when she was at OMB as we work on this project. 

And Beth and I and the DOD CIO meet regularly to review the 

progress that the teams are making in both the transition, but also 

ensuring the security and integrity of the existing system. So I’m 

pleased with the progress. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Thank you. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. DESANTIS. The chair now recognizes the gentleman from 

Georgia, Mr. Hice, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. HICE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Evanina, let me begin with you. As we all know, in 2008, 

there was a commissioned study in regard to showing the benefits 

of examining certain aspects of social media. Why has it taken 8 

years to implement this thing, to get it started? 

Mr. EVANINA. Congressman, I can’t really answer the 8-year 

issue, but I can tell you that to get to where we are took a lot of 

extensive effort and interagency coordination to be able to strike 

the right balance between what we need to obtain or should be obtained reasonably from social media in the ever-growing Internet 

age and balance that with the civil liberties and privacy of our, not 

only clearance holders, but U.S. citizens. So that process not only 

was exhaustive, but it was the right thing to do. 


KING-6430 with DISTILLER
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Also, I think with the pilots that have started and continue to 

move on, we haven’t really identified the correct value or weighted 

measure for what the efforts of social media collection will be or 

has been. So we’re still efforting the pilot process to identify, is the 

effort resource allocation worthy of collecting other social media 

and using it as part of the background investigation process, number one. And number two, if it is, where do we allocate that within 

the investigative process, the beginning, the middle, the end? Because it will be resource intensive. 

Mr. HICE. Well, it seems like 8 years is an awfully long time to 

try to find a balance between privacy and, you know, that which 

is public information. I mean, this is not highly private information 

that people are publicizing out on social media like this, and I understand that we want to be very careful with that. We all do. 

But—— 

Well, let me ask you this: It seems that the new policy that we 

saw this morning, that within there—and correct me if I’m wrong, 

but it seems like finding information on an individual’s background 

appears to be largely at the discretion of individual agencies. Can 

you tell me why ODNI decided to leave that decision to individual 

agencies rather than opening this up for all departments of our 

Federal Government? 

Mr. EVANINA. That’s a great question, Congressman, but I will 

say that there’s only 22 agencies who have the authority to conduct 

background investigations. So—and they do that on behest of all 

the other Federal organizations or agencies’ departments who require that. So those individuals, the ones who are covered under 

this policy, the policy was purposely made flexible because I will 

proffer that from 2008 till 2 years ago, the social media definition 

has changed dramatically and will continue to change. 

So in order to provide the agencies who conducted the investigations the maximum flexibility to go about utilizing social media as 

part of this process was paramount in this effort. Because I’m pretty sure a year from now, the social media definition may change, 

and we wanted to make sure that each agency had the flexibility, 

from a resource perspective, to identify the best, most efficient way 

to implement this policy. 

Mr. HICE. Do you believe those other 22 agencies will begin utilizing this? 

Mr. EVANINA. I do. 

Mr. HICE. Okay. 

Ms. Cobert, could you explain how OPM plans to implement this 

policy? 

Ms. COBERT. Thank you, Congressman. As I mentioned in my 

testimony, we are working through this pilot process to figure out 

the best way to utilize social media as a standard, consistent part 

of the process. As Mr. Evanina described, we are committed to its 

value. It’s a question of how. 

We need a way to make sure that when we gather information 

on social media, it’s accurate. It’s is not always accurate. What you 

find is not always the reality. We need to find a way to make sure, 

as we do this, that we have the resources to follow up on whatever 

information is revealed. How do we get those resources to follow up 

on those things? 


KING-6430 with DISTILLER
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And so that is the goal of this pilot, is to embed it into the operational process. Are there places where, by using social media or 

other tools, we can replace some steps that exist today, take those 

resources and deploy them to something else? Are there other cases 

where the value of the information will merit adding additional resources? So that is the issue we’re working through. 

And the pilot process that we are starting, we’ll be starting that 

pilot before the end of this fiscal year. We also will continue, 

through the PAC and other forums, working with DOD and other 

agencies as they start to implement this so we all can learn from 

each other. We’ve got to figure out how to do this right and to do 

it at scale, and we want to move expeditiously but cautiously as we 

do that. 

Mr. HICE. Thank you. Could you provide the committee with a 

timeframe for implementation, besides just by the end of the year, 

a more specific timeframe? 

Ms. COBERT. We’ll get back to you. The first piece is the pilot and 

then we will take that learning. But we’re happy to provide you 

some more information on what we’re doing next. 

Mr. HICE. Okay. Thank you very much. 

I yield back. 

Mr. DESANTIS. The gentleman’s time has expired. The chair now 

recognizes Mr. Lynch from Massachusetts for 5 minutes. 

Mr. LYNCH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I want to thank everybody for holding this hearing and thank the witnesses for their 

help. 

You know, every once in a while, my happy talk alarm goes off 

and sometimes I think I’m hearing happy talk and I think I just 

heard some. 

Look, I appreciate the idea that, you know, we got this 8-year 

continuum of improvement and we’re trying to improve our systems and, you know, there’s this cautious progress of protecting 

and balancing, you know, private information, versus, you know, 

doing these background checks. But the reality on this committee 

is 10 months ago, Ms. Cobert, your predecessor, Ms. Archuleta, sat 

there and told me that, 10 months ago, we were not even 

encrypting the Social Security numbers of the 4 million people who 

were hacked at OPM. That’s the reality. Ten months ago we 

weren’t even encrypting Social Security numbers. And she painfully had to admit that, and her legal counsel was with her and 

they confirmed that fact. 

So I’m very concerned about what is happening. And I am very 

encouraged that DOD is going to take over cybersecurity in your 

shop and you’re going to help them with that. How is that going? 

And what steps have you taken—be specific—that should give me 

some level of reassurance that we don’t have another problem like 

that? 

Ms. COBERT. Thank you, Congressman. Let me start with how 

we’re working with DOD in the standup of the NBIB, and then I 

can come back to some things we have underway and that we will 

be doing in that context. 

We are working very closely with DOD, as Mr. Scott described, 

in a process to do two things. 


KING-6430 with DISTILLER
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Mr. LYNCH. Let me just cut you off because I don’t want to go 

into this long diatribe. But have you encrypted the Social Security 

numbers for all of the employees right now at OPM? 

Ms. COBERT. There are still elements of the OPM systems that 

are difficult to encrypt. We have a multilayer defense. 

Mr. LYNCH. And you’ve got all of these different systems and I 

understand that. I’be been at this a while, okay, and we have tried 

to get ahold of this. And I’ve been here for years working on this 

problem and it’s been very difficult. And there’s no shame in admitting how difficult that is. What I don’t want is happy talk that it’s 

all going well. That’s the problem. Because then we’ll have another 

hearing and, you know, there will be a lot of gnashing of teeth and 

criticisms, you know, and there will be somebody else in your spot. 

So what I’m trying to get at is, what are we actually—what are 

we getting done and where are the obstacles? If there are obstacles 

here in terms of what you’re trying to do—and I believe you’re all 

trying to do the right thing. Mr. Scott as well. You can get in on 

this because you’re part of this. 

You know, what are we actually doing to try to protect the information that we do gather? 

Mr. SCOTT. Well, I would say, as Beth was saying, there’s been 

all kinds of work done in this area, penetration testing, new tools 

deployed, multiple examinations, and ongoing help from DOD, 

DHS, and so on. So I think OPM actually is leading Federal agencies right now in terms of, you know, their efforts and the amount 

of progress that they’ve made. They’ve applied tools to the limits 

that they can within the limits of current technology. But as Beth 

said, there’s some things that just can’t be encrypted because the 

technology doesn’t allow it. 

Mr. LYNCH. DOD’s funding in this area is much better than 

OPM’s and some of the other departments. And so are we using 

their personnel now? Have they come over and taken over this? 

Mr. SCOTT. Absolutely. They’ve been in there side by side with 

the team at OPM helping not only review, but look at architecture 

and also build out the plans for the future NBIB technology. So I’m 

pleased with where it’s going. I don’t think there’s anybody who 

would say our job is done or that we’re not, you know, interested 

in pursuing what else we can do. 

Mr. LYNCH. The cost estimate, you know, we’ve had some pilot 

programs that tell us it’s somewhere between, you know, $100 and 

$500 per person for a private vendor to do these screenings, this 

gathering of social media information. Is that pretty close to what 

the—in practice what we’re finding? 

Mr. SCOTT. Yeah, I would say some of the pilots that have run, 

the estimates have been in that range. Clearly, one of the things 

that will have to happen, and I think the pilots will inform this, 

is some greater level of automation. As you can probably appreciate, when you do a search, you get a ton of data that has to be 

sifted through and adjudicated. 

Mr. LYNCH. Right. 

Mr. SCOTT. And I happen to be a person who has a name that’s 

shared with, you know, a professional baseball player, a professional musician, a movie director, and a bunch of other things, and 


KING-6430 with DISTILLER
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just a simple search would turn up a bunch of crazy stuff that 

wouldn’t be relevant. 

Mr. LYNCH. Yeah. 

Mr. SCOTT. So some degree of automation, ultimately, is going to 

have to help bring the cost down of that. 

Mr. LYNCH. All right. I see my time has expired. 

Mr. Chairman, thank you for your indulgence, and I yield back. 

Mr. MEADOWS. [Presiding.] I thank the gentleman. 

The chair recognizes the gentleman from Kentucky, Mr. Massie, 

for 5 minutes. 

Mr. MASSIE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This is a great hearing. 

Thank you for conducting it. 

I have a friend who suggests that the government should 

outsource this background research to the consultants that do opposition research on us, on the politicians, because they seem to 

find anything all the way back to junior high. But on a serious 

note, though, you know, I see Edward Snowden as an example here 

in our notes as somebody who maybe you would have known something about if you had done social media research. That may or 

may not be true. 

But one thing that does stand out is that political contributions 

are available online and they—and I suppose even before social 

media and the online availability of this, they were available. So 

you already have an analog or probably a way of considering 

whether you should consider or not consider political contributions 

when doing background research. 

But now that you have social media available to you, there’s another layer of transparency—or layer of opaqueness that has been 

removed. You can see where somebody supports a political candidate or not. By the way, Edward Snowden and I have similar 

contribution histories so—and my colleague here suggested that 

you should be suspect of anybody that contributes to me as well. 

But my question is this: Do you, Mr. Evanina, do you take into 

account political support when you’re doing background research in 

social media? 

Mr. EVANINA. We do not. I mean, I think it’s important for the 

committee to understand that the investigators who conduct the 

background investigations are very well trained and they follow the 

Federal investigative standards. And there are plenty of policies 

that they put forth in their rigorous background investigation and 

they conduct investigations on information obtained that’s relevant 

to whether or not you’re capable of obtaining and holding a security 

clearance. So a political contribution would not be one of those. 

Mr. MASSIE. So if they encountered somebody who in their social 

media supported a candidate who was strong on the Fourth 

Amendment and believed very strongly in the right to privacy—and 

there are different interpretations of the Fourth Amendment. I’m 

not saying everybody doesn’t believe strongly in the Fourth Amendment—that wouldn’t be a consideration? 

Mr. EVANINA. Absolutely not. Whether you believe in the Fourth 

Amendment would not have any predication on whether you could 

hold or maintain a security clearance. 

Mr. MASSIE. Thank you very much. 

And I will yield back my time. 


KING-6430 with DISTILLER
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Mr. MEADOWS. I thank the gentleman. 

The chair recognizes the gentlewoman from Illinois, Ms. Kelly, 

for 5 minutes. 

Ms. KELLY. Thank you, Mr. Chair. 

Many of us have become so accustomed to using technology in 

our day-to-day lives that it seems second nature to examine the social media accounts of individuals applying for security clearance. 

However, it’s important to note that when incorporating social 

media into the Federal background check process, a number of 

steps must be taken that go far beyond those we view as a friend’s 

Facebook profile. 

Ms. Cobert, OPM conducts approximately 95 percent of background checks governmentwide. That’s in our notes. The initial 

data collection portion of these investigations is completed by Federal contractors, in part, because you must comply with the various 

laws governing what information can be collected, used, and stored 

by the Federal Government. Is that accurate? 

Ms. COBERT. Congresswoman, we work with Federal contractors 

in the investigative process to enhance our capacity to conduct 

background investigations. They have to follow the same Federal 

investigative standards that Mr. Evanina referenced. There, the individuals from those contractors who work on investigations also 

have to undergo thorough training against those standards, and we 

work to ensure that that is the appropriate training. 

Ms. KELLY. Okay. The incorporation of social media data is not 

as simple as it may sound to many people, so I’d like to delve a 

little deeper into how we get from a vendor running query for publicly available information to the point at which we have valuable 

verified information for use in the adjudication process. Again, to 

begin with, contractors must conduct social media checks on clearance applicants based on guidance from you about the kind of information relevant to clearance investigations. Correct? 

Ms. COBERT. We are going to start with the social media thing, 

the social media efforts with the pilot I mentioned. That will help 

us understand what kind of guidance we should be putting in place 

when individuals are conducting social media searches to verify 

that information, to ensure we’re focused on the pieces that are relevant to a security clearance, not the other issues that are not part 

of the process. That’s why we’re going to work this through in a 

pilot so we can create standards and processes that will get us relevant information, reliable information, and protect privacy. 

Ms. KELLY. And then your current contractors will need proper 

training and proper guidance to do all of that. 

Ms. COBERT. They will need training. Yes, they will. 

Ms. KELLY. Once the data has been collected, a human being is 

necessary to make a judgment and verify that it does, in fact, belong to the individual in question. 

Ms. COBERT. We are working to find the processes that will enable us to, in fact, match individuals. As Mr. Scott described, there 

are multiple Tony Scotts. So we are working through the pilots, 

and I think this will be an ongoing process, to see where are the 

places where we need human intervention; where are the places 

where technology can help with that resolution? 


KING-6430 with DISTILLER
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Ms. KELLY. Okay. Mr. Evanina, can you speak to some of the 

challenges associated with verifying identities in social media data? 

Mr. EVANINA. Yes, Congresswoman. I think the challenges cannot be understated in where we’re headed in terms of, number one, 

identity resolution. As my colleagues have mentioned, the ability to 

identify Bob from—or Mr. Scott from Mr. Scott and all that goes 

with it, the resources that it will take to make sure that we are 

firmly in agreement that Mr. Scott is Mr. Scott. Then, what we 

found out on Mr. Scott, is it investigatively and adjudicatively relevant? Does it make sense to put forward? And if it is, then it gets 

put in the same box all other investigative data would be to make 

sure that it follows the policies, procedures, and the investigative 

standards and guidelines. 

I want to reiterate that social media identification of information 

is in the same box of all other tools and techniques investigators 

have. 

Ms. KELLY. And even after we have verified an individual’s account, additional manual processing is needed in order to analyze, 

interpret, and contextualize information, particularly photographs. 

Is there any way to fully automate the analysis of photographs? 

Mr. EVANINA. Well, I want to refer back to my colleague, Ms. 

Cobert, in terms of the ability to maximize any type of automation 

we can to facilitate not only the effectiveness of this tool, but at the 

end of the game. But I want to inform the committee that at the 

end of the day, no matter what we identify, the adjudicator is a 

fundamentally government role. So the adjudicator will make the 

ultimate decision if the individual is Mr. Scott, the information pertaining to him is investigatively relevant, and it should be a valueadd to whether or not he gets a clearance or not. 

Ms. KELLY. Okay. Thank you. 

I yield back the balance of my time. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Thank you. 

The chair recognizes the gentleman from South Carolina, Mr. 

Mulvaney, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. MULVANEY. I thank the chairman for the opportunity. Thank 

you all for coming. I’ve just got a couple sort of random questions. 

Mr. Evanina, you said something during your opening statement 

I want to go back to, which is you—and a couple of you used the 

same terminology and maybe I just don’t understand the issue. 

And full disclosure. Mr. Massie and I are sort of in the libertarianleaning wing of the party, so we take civil liberties very seriously. 

And you mentioned that there were civil liberties concerns, I think, 

in doing this research in the first place. I don’t get that. 

What civil liberty of mine could be at risk from you doing research on me? 

Mr. EVANINA. Well, I—correct. I don’t think in terms of the previous pilots and this particular policy—— 

Mr. MULVANEY. Right. 

Mr. EVANINA. —in order to get to where we were, we had to negotiate strongly to ensure that each individual who applies for a security clearance, we are going to protect their privacy and civil liberties, at the same time collect the information that we deem necessary to ensure they can get a clearance. 


KING-6430 with DISTILLER
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Mr. MULVANEY. And, again, I’m not trying to split hairs with 

you, but if I’m coming to you—and we’ve had this—a very similar 

discussion, Mr. Chairman, when it comes to folks who want to 

come into the country on various visas. The lady who shot the people in San Bernardino came on a fiance visa, and we didn’t do any 

social media on her. And one of the arguments we got from customs enforcement was that it would violate her civil liberties to go 

and do that. Okay? 

If I come to you and I’m asking for a job, or I’m asking in my 

current job to get a security clearance, can’t you just get my permission to go look at everything? 

Mr. EVANINA. Yes, sir. As a matter of fact, when you apply on 

an SF–86, the very first thing you get to do is consent to the government searching you, not only with regard to social media, but 

all your other financial, medical records, you consent to do that on 

the SF–86. 

Mr. MULVANEY. Okay. So there’s no privacy concerns. Because I 

have the right to waive that and I do. Right? 

Mr. EVANINA. That’s correct. 

Mr. MULVANEY. So there’s absolutely no privacy issue on the 

front end when you’re doing your background research on me, correct? 

Mr. EVANINA. As long you consent to it—— 

Mr. MULVANEY. Right. 

Mr. EVANINA. —on your SF–86. 

Mr. MULVANEY. Okay. Good. Good. Then we’re all on the same 

page. Because then the real privacy concerns comes with what Mr. 

Lynch mentioned, which is what do you do with the information on 

me after you have it? Because while I consent to let you go and get 

it, I certainly don’t consent with you giving it to other people. 

So I think that’s why the focus, I think, for many of us who are 

interested in our civil liberties there is what are you doing after 

you have it. And I want to go a little bit deeper than just the Social 

Security numbers, because I think Mr. Lynch properly pointed out, 

what are you doing with Mr. Massie’s medical records when you’re 

doing the research on him? How are we—— 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Massie. 

Mr. MULVANEY. Yeah, especially on Massie, right? And his mental health records. No. 

Mr. CONNOLLY. Actually, I’ve got it right here. Page 17 is kind 

of interesting. 

Mr. MULVANEY. So tell me about that. Because, again, we all 

know about the risks. Everyone in the country now has gotten a 

hard wire to sort of think, well, my Social Security thing is really 

important. I hope they’re protecting that. But what about the stuff 

that doesn’t, on its face, look like it could be damaging to us? 

You know, maybe Mr. Scott went to marriage counseling. Okay. 

Not illegal. And I don’t even know if that’s true, and I am not even 

suggesting it is. I am using it as an example. It’s not illegal. It’s 

certainly not the type of thing, though, that you want to have public. What are you doing to protect that kind of information? Not 

just the number data, not just the Social Security numbers, but the 

detail, the meat of the stuff that you might find on anybody that 

you’re looking at. 


KING-6430 with DISTILLER
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Mr. EVANINA. I’ll start and pass to my colleague, but I want to 

ensure that the only collection and retention of data will be what 

is investigatively relevant to completing and authorizing a background investigation. If it’s not relevant to you obtaining a clearance, it won’t be retained. 

Mr. MULVANEY. Okay. Let’s focus on that one word then, because 

again, that’s an open-ended questions that I’ve asked. Let’s narrow 

it down. 

Nothing is not retained anymore. Okay. Once you have it, it’s 

some place. Even if you hit erase on your hard drive, it’s some 

place. So what are you doing to make sure the stuff that you don’t 

retain really isn’t retained? 

Ms. COBERT. Congressman, when we get the records of your 

background investigation, we have a set of rules and guidelines 

that govern those, that govern the sharing of those. So it is used 

for the investigative decision, but there are very specific guidelines 

about how that information is used. We have specific guidelines 

about records retention consistent with NARA and their policies. 

And a core element in the cybersecurity design of our systems, 

particularly as we’re thinking about as we go forward, is how do 

we make sure we’ve got the appropriate protections in place for all 

of that information, not just Social Security numbers? 

But there are very explicit policies around records retention, 

around records sharing, both externally within the government. 

Right. This information was gathered for a specific purpose. That’s 

what it was used for, and there are guidelines around that in place. 

Mr. MULVANEY. Just a quick question, and I honestly don’t know 

the answer. But when the data was hacked that Mr. Lynch mentioned before, was it just Social Security numbers that were lost or 

was it other information as well? 

Ms. COBERT. The information that was lost was data in people’s 

backgrounds investigation, so it included a range of information, 

not exclusively Social Security numbers. 

Mr. MULVANEY. Thank you. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. MEADOWS. I thank the gentleman. 

The chair recognizes the gentleman from California, Mr. Lieu, for 

5 minutes. 

Mr. LIEU. Thank you, Mr. Chair. 

My questions are for Mr. Evanina. First of all, thank you for 

your service, and I support incorporating social media into Federal 

background investigations. 

I have a broader concern which is whether race or ethnicity play 

a role in security clearance denial or granting. And let me give you 

some context for this. Recently, four American citizens were arrested and indicted for espionage, and then all charges were 

dropped. These were in different cases, and it turned out that the 

government just got it wrong. And the one fact that was the same 

among all these cases is the defendants looked like me. They happened to be Asian Americans. The cases of Sherry Chen, Xiaoxing 

Xi, Guoqing Cao, and Shuyu Li. Their lives were turned upside 

down because of what our government did. The New York Times 

has asked our government to apologize. 


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I wrote a letter signed by over 40 Members of Congress asking 

the Department of Justice to investigate. Since I wrote that letter, 

our office has been contacted by Federal employees who happen to 

be Asian American alleging that their security clearance was denied because of their race or ethnicity. And so my question to you 

is, does race or ethnicity play a role in Federal background investigations? 

Mr. EVANINA. Sir, absolutely not, and it’s unequivocally not. I 

don’t think there has ever been a situation where an investigator 

has used race or ethnicity for any determination of a clearance for 

a U.S. citizen, number one. 

Number two, the situation you referenced, I could say that with 

19 years in the FBI, I could assure you that the FBI does not conduct investigations relevant to whether your race or ethnicity 

comes to play. 

Mr. LIEU. Thank you. Let me ask you a question about how this 

policy would be implemented in terms of social media. Let’s say a 

Japanese American Federal employee has a Facebook page, and 

friends of this Federal employee living in Japan or relatives post 

on that Facebook page. Does this Federal employee become more 

suspicious because of that? 

Mr. EVANINA. Absolutely not. And the only issue would be if on 

that public facing Facebook page there is derogatory or negative information that’s relevant to an adjudication of investigation, will 

result in a followup lead. But otherwise, it would not. 

Mr. LIEU. Thank you. The U.S. Government, under the Obama 

administration, runs something called the insider threat program, 

where Federal employees are asked to report on other Federal employees who may be suspicious. Is race or ethnicity allowed to be 

taken into account under that program? 

Mr. EVANINA. Sir, first of all, the National Insider Threat Task 

Force is housed within my shop, National Counterintelligence Security Center. And, again, unequivocally, race or ethnicity has no 

part in the insider threat process or the criticality that we have 

across the government. 

Mr. LIEU. Are Federal employees, when they’re given training on 

the insider threat program and how to report, are they given that 

training about race and ethnicity playing no part? 

Mr. EVANINA. Well, I think the race—any fundamental training 

regarding race and ethnicity crosses all boundaries, not just investigative. That’s part of the Federal workforce and our fabric as 

Americans, number one. 

But in terms of the Insider Threat Task Force, race, ethnicity, 

or any other type of genre of covered classes is never a part of the 

Insider Threat Task Force. We are—our number one mission is to 

identify potential insiders, spies, espionage matters, or those who 

seek to do harm to others. 

Mr. LIEU. Could you provide my office with guidance in how you 

train Federal employees? 

Mr. EVANINA. Absolutely, sir. 

Mr. LIEU. Great. Thank you. 

I’ve gone to a number of national security events and briefings, 

and I think it’s not a secret that our national security establishment looks very nondiverse. And there’s been articles about the 


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State Department having trouble recruiting people who are minorities. And I’m wondering if that has anything to do with security 

clearances and the inability of some folks, who are minorities, who 

might not be able to get them. Could you provide my office with 

some data or statistics on who gets security clearances based on 

race and ethnicity? 

Mr. EVANINA. I’m sure we can, sir. 

Mr. LIEU. Great. Thank you. 

And with that, I yield back. 

Mr. MEADOWS. I thank the gentleman. 

The chair recognizes himself for a series of questions, and I’ll be 

very brief. 

Let me follow up on a couple of clarifying things. You have obviously put out this new policy, and we applaud that. We thank you 

for that. 

Is there any particular legal reason or practical reason why we 

would not be asking them for their online identities? 

Mr. EVANINA. Well, sir, I think as part of the SF–86 application, 

and when you write your name, Bill Evanina, it’s asked, do I have 

any other names or aliases that I go by. So that’s the first—— 

Mr. MEADOWS. Yeah, but I’m talking about online identity. So, 

I mean, you know, Twitter, Facebook, you know. Because I’m not 

going to give it in a public forum, but I have actually Twitter accounts that don’t actually have my name associated with them, and 

yet I would tweet out things based on that. So is there any reason 

why we wouldn’t ask for those types of things, practical or legal? 

Mr. EVANINA. I don’t believe it’s a legal issue. I think it’s a policy 

issue, and I think we have to have some clear differentiation between what is investigatively relevant. And we can get to those 

areas of—— 

Mr. MEADOWS. But if we’re talking about social media, that 

would be relevant. I mean, there’s no expectation of privacy, other 

than—well, you know, you could perhaps make the case if I’m 

wanting to be private about it, I’m not putting my name. But if you 

just ask for those online identities, would the online identities be 

synonymous with an alias? 

Mr. EVANINA. They could be, sir. There absolutely could be, but 

we—— 

Mr. MEADOWS. So I guess if there’s no legal or practical reason 

why we wouldn’t do it, why would it not be part of your new policy? 

Mr. EVANINA. Again, I will say that the policy is a start where 

we’re going right now to get where we are. 

Mr. MEADOWS. So are you willing to look at that particular component about asking for other online identities and maybe report 

back and your philosophy here within the next 60 days to this committee? 

Mr. EVANINA. Sir, I think we’re willing to look at all suspects of 

social media and how it pertains to the background investigation 

process. 

Mr. MEADOWS. But, specifically, with regards to that question, 

are you willing to look at it and just report back? I’m not asking—— 

Mr. EVANINA. Yes, sir. 


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Mr. MEADOWS. —you to give me a definitive answer; just that 

you get back to this committee on what your opinion is—— 

Mr. EVANINA. Yes, sir. 

Mr. MEADOWS. —on why you should or should not do that. 

Mr. EVANINA. Yes, sir. 

Mr. MEADOWS. All right. Thank you. 

Ms. Cobert, I’m going to finish with you, and it’s really something from in the past. And I just would like to ask you, with regards to the CIO and IG relationship, how would you characterize 

that from where it has been and where it is today? And if you can 

speak to that. 

Ms. COBERT. Thank you, Congressman. Let me turn it on. Thank 

you, Congressman. We have been working across the agency to 

strengthen our effectiveness of our dialogue with the CIO, and I believe we’ve made real progress in a number of different areas. 

We’ve set up a cadence of regular communications at my level 

with the inspector general, currently acting inspector general. On 

a biweekly basis we meet and get an overview of the issues. We 

have specific working teams that meet on a periodic basis as well, 

both around the CIO, around procurement. We set up that same 

kind of mechanism around the standup of the NBIB, given the 

oversight issues there and making—wanting to make sure we get 

those right. 

So I think we’ve made considerable progress in terms of the dialogue, the clarity of the communications. We welcome their input 

on what we could be doing as better, as we welcome input from our 

colleagues here and elsewhere. 

Mr. MEADOWS. So you would characterize it as much improved 

under your leadership? 

Ms. COBERT. I would characterize it as much improved, yes, sir. 

Mr. MEADOWS. All right. Thank you. 

The chair recognizes Mr. Lynch for a closing question or statement. 

Mr. LYNCH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And, again, I want to thank you for being here. I want to ask 

you a question sort of off the grid here. I appreciate that you’re 

making progress, and that’s a good thing, and we’re working together with DOD to secure our systems. 

There’s another issue. You know, these hackers have become so 

proficient. You know, this morning we got news that the SWIFT, 

you know, commercial bank system—I think it’s 11,000 banks and 

companies that handle international banking transactions, they 

were hacked again. They were just hacked through Bangladesh and 

the New York Fed, which is troubling, to the tune of about $81 million. Now we find out there’s another hack going on similar to that 

one. So they are being breached. 

The FDIC, Chinese hackers, news, again, this morning, that the 

FDIC has been hacked. And these are entities that have fairly robust, you know, protections. And we’re about to enter into this— 

well, we’re about to debate the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and one 

of the provisions in that Trans-Pacific Partnership requires U.S. 

companies to establish databases in the foreign countries. There’s 

about 12 countries. But, you know, one of them is Vietnam, a Communist country. 


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So we would have to—the U.S. companies will have to establish, 

physically, databases in those countries, Malaysia, Vietnam. And a 

lot of the banks and companies involved here are very concerned 

about the security aspect of this overseas. 

And I just wonder, especially, Mr. Evanina, you know, I know 

you worry about this stuff all the time; as well, you know, Ms. 

Cobert, you are dealing with; Mr. Scott, you as well. What about 

that dimension of this? I know it’s not—you know, you weren’t prepared this morning to address this question, and I appreciate it if 

you want to take a pass, but I’m just worried about that, about it’s 

tough enough to protect the data when it’s in the United States. 

And now we’re being asked to force our companies, if they’re dealing in international trade, to actually deposit their data in these 

foreign countries that don’t have the security protections that even 

we have. 

Mr. Evanina? 

Mr. EVANINA. Sir, I concur with your concern for cybersecurity 

and the need for us to be prepared to at least meet where we are 

in the global economy. I’m not particularly familiar with the requirements contained within this policy, so I can’t speak to that. 

But under the purview of national security, the cyber threat is real. 

And I think we have to take that into consideration for anything 

we do moving forward, whether here domestically in the United 

States or any of our businesses and government operations overseas. 

Mr. LYNCH. Okay. Thank you. 

Ms. Cobert, Mr. Scott, you want to take a bite at that, or you all 

set? 

Mr. SCOTT. Well, I would just say, one of the lessons learned, I 

think, worldwide has been that cybersecurity knows no national 

boundaries and, you know, concerns about cybersecurity are, you 

know, global. Physical location is one element, but probably in the 

case of cybersecurity, not the most dispositive in terms of the concerns I would have. It’s more about the secure-by-design sort of notion, you know, what have you put in place and how well is it implemented, and so on. So those would be more my primary concerns. 

Mr. LYNCH. Yeah, my—— 

Mr. SCOTT. In some cases, the physical location. 

Mr. LYNCH. Right. My concern is obviously the Communist government in Vietnam is going to require access. So that was my concern. You have suffered enough. 

I want to yield back. Thank you. 

Mr. MEADOWS. I thank you. 

And I want to thank all the witnesses for being here today. And 

if there’s no further business before the subcommittees, the subcommittees stand adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 10:15 a.m., the subcommittees were adjourned.] 

Æ 


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