Biz that OK'd Edward Snowden for security clearance is fined $30m for obvious reasons The US Department of Justice (DoJ) will pocket $30m (£19.14m) from the company tasked with screening, among others, whistleblower Edward Snowden. The DoJ announced on Wednesday that US Investigations Services (USIS) will give up a $30m (£19.14m) payment in exchange for settling charges that it violated the US False Claims Act …
They have to hold someone accountable, and have some other things they can ding this company for where they screwed up, but arguing that clearing Snowden was negligent would be pretty ridiculous.
He'd be on the top of any list of people you'd clear. His grandfather was a rear admiral in the Coast Guard and later worked for the FBI, his father was an officer in the Coast Guard, his mother and sister worked in the US judicial system, and prior to contracting for the CIA he himself was employed by them.
Yes, but in this case Snowden was entirely the wrong target. The people who should not have been hired were the arse-covering managers who refused to listen when he tried to report security failings to them.
Dunno about Aaron Alexis: was USIS supposed to be screening for homicidal maniacs as well as doing security checks?
And, who should take the rap for outsourcing security to a private company? It sounds like such a stupid thing to do.
Listen, you goddamned assholes asked us for -- and I quote here -- "[a] sickly, nerdy little twerp of questionable hygiene and sexual orientation." And exactly on what point did we fail to fulfill your requirements?
Some 15 years ago, I remember Subway Sandwiches asked us for "[a] quirky, twitchy little twerp who reminds you of your hefty pedophile uncle." I haven't heard any complaints on that hire, either.
Thank you, DougS, for the details on Snowden's background. I figured this was some kind of back-handed smear campaign against Snowden, to imply that there was something bad in his background that should have disqualified him if USIS had done their job and since they did not, well, we saw what happened. Because there's no way on this green earth anyone truly qualified would ever say bad things about the gubmint, izzere.
Regardless of his background, there's a procedure they should have followed - talking to certain people, making certain efforts to track and find certain people, making certain efforts to conduct face-to-face interviews rather than phone or email... And if they can be shown to have skipped some of those steps or faked the numbers, then they're squarely in the frame for screwing up.
Really, the blame belongs to whoever in government decided to contract out this job on a commercial basis. They're the ones who created the incentive to cut costs, and converted "an obligation to national security" into "a quantifiable, rationally assessable business risk for a limited-liability company".
And then they cry foul when it turns out that the lowest qualifying bidder - probably shouldn't have qualified.
Fucktards.
>>The CIA did have some adverse information about him but it was not forwarded.
So, standard operating procedure then? Collect data, but don't hand it out to the people that need it most until well after the fact. To be fair it's probably just that they collect so much there's a backlog on the filing systems.
Err, why is his grandfather's occupation relevant?
The list of his relatives reads like one of the justifications Britain used to dole out. "But he's one of us, you see. Eton and Trinity. Father played for Middlesex. Mother was one of the Herefordshire Breakspears. His grandfather fought at Khartoum doncha know. Of course we thought he would be reliable. Humming the Red Flag all the time and calling his dog Lenin were just his little jokes. We had no idea he was passing all our secrets across. Poor show all round. If you can't trust an MCC man who can you trust, eh?"
The only important point is that he used to work for the CIA. If they were happy with him why shouldn't he be cleared?
I doubt it. Bet they're making it up, so they can preserve the illusion that a background check will sniff out bad actors. Because if they want to claim Snowden's actions were near the top of the most treasonous acts ever committed against the US government, and he's as squeaky clean as his record indicates, they're basically admitting that it is impossible to know for sure if someone is looking to do the US harm no matter what how deeply you look at his record.
So they've invented a fiction where they had a record of some adverse information, that somehow didn't terminate his CIA employment in a bad way that would have left him unable to contract for them, and was "accidentally" not put in his permanent record that would be referred to during the clearance process. They may outsource the data gathering part of it, but there is still government involvement and the government maintains their own records where this information would have been filed so this whole idea that they had adverse information on him looks pretty shaky to me.
...they are being fined for not being precog enough?
"Yes, Mr. Anderson. It seems your department's work has not been up to the usual standards lately .... give money plox!"
Does their insurance cover that sort of event?
And do they screen animals like Cheney, Hillary and "Inspector Surge" Petraeus?
...they are being fined for not being precog enough?
Yes they failed to learn from HH2G and borrow Doc Brown's DeLorean, travelled forward in time to discover if a candidate did anything to invalidate their security clearance, return to the present day and refuse to grant that candidate a security clearance...
By the way that's not a coat, but a towel!
Contractors (*) are not part of your organisation. They come, do the job and are gone. If you have a good one, all is well. If you hit a bad one, bad luck for you.
Lesson to learn: need critical stuff done? Don't assign it to a contractor. Just don't.
(*) and that's me speaking as contractor...
>Did Snowden have a history of whistleblowing then?
No, the "obvious reasons" refer to why USIS was fined:
1) "the government" is never to blame
2) someone must be blamed
3) We need to keep focus on other people's failings, not the government's failings.
4) We need to further legitimise the pursuit of Snowden by having already convicted someone of something.
Perhaps we should have a whip-round to help USIS out.
...a guy from the US says what use is USIS. Ah, US, you sez you use USIS for uses to vet forces and that use is not useless vis-a-vis crises with groups like ISIS.
But now, the US says it must assess this use of assessors like USIS for assessment of assistants, and seize this role back and cease this, what's more to see fit to do this at no cost if US can assess USIS as useless.
With a huge nod to Charlie Brooker
The bureaucrats simply approve invoices. Outsourcing went into high gear under Reagan and the feds started buying COTS (Commercial Off the Shelf) hardware. You would be amazed by the amount of whitebox computers purchased, some even assembled in the suburbs.
" So...they are being fined for not being precog enough?"
To me, it sounds like USIS was fined for vetting people they did not do a complete background check on. Of course the feds will use this opportunity to imply there was dirt to be dug up on Snowden, but ultimately (whether these background checks would have affected anything or not) they are being fined for not doing what they were being paid to do.
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