The latest effort to point the accusing finger of blame at the contractor performing the background investigation of Washington Navy Yard shooter Aaron Alexis misses a critical point. The quality of any background investigation is no better than what the recipient of the data does with this information. And the ultimate decider using such an investigation to grant or withhold a security clearance is a government employee, not a contractor. This is an undelegable duty that government employees reserve for themselves, on the oft-touted and logically defended argument that there are some duties not to be passed on to the private sector.
Not that this argument is infallible. After all, when it comes to most work in the national security space, the people doing the heavy lifting behind the scenes come from the same gene pool and are more alike than they are different. One day they may be career government employees. The next day they may be contractors. In either case, adjudicators who review discrepant data surfaced by background checks to make a determination on whether to grant a security clearance do not need a corporate paycheck to make a mistake. Inertia, bureaucracy, and insufficient scrutiny surely do not bypass government offices to infect only the private sector. Indeed, private companies like background investigation firms have the wherewithal to inoculate themselves at least somewhat against bureaucratic ineptitude. They can fire incompetents. Government counterparts only sigh wistfully when daydreaming of imposing such involuntary career events in their work force.
Nevertheless, some mistakes and systemic failures infect the public and private sectors with equal regularity. One such instance is a chronic failure to do something about aberrant behavior on two fronts. One front is to simply use the tools available for what they were intended. A security clearance is not supposed to be a right or entitlement. It is and should be something for which one qualifies. Instability, insubordination, and multiple encounters with police associated with threatening behavior supply ample justification for withholding or at least suspending a security clearance. And while a security focal point in the private sector may have a hand in reporting such data to the government, the one responsible for doing something remains a government employee. The responsibility does not stop there.
This is the second front. One could argue that everyone working with or routinely encountering Alexis who witnessed his troubling behavior had some kind of obligation to do something, but what? A co-worker, whether a Navy employee or contractor could be obliged to approach management or security to report concerns about a potential threat to the workplace. Failure analysis will likely unearth stories of warning signs neglected or unaddressed by those with the power to intervene. What will the accused fall back on to excuse their failure to act?
Privacy. Confidentiality of medical information or personnel data. Individual employee rights. Fear of lawsuits arising from wrongful discharge or from allegations of discrimination. There is a common thread tying all such excuses. It is the loss of perspective which follows when organizations focus on individual rights at the expense of the more basic interests of the larger employee population.
Sure, no individual should be unfairly treated by being denied a clearance or fired from a job without good reason. However, in the knee-jerk emphasis of fairness and liability avoidance, organizations often lose sight of the larger consequences. And so, letting Alexis keep his security clearance, sweeping his threatening behavior under the rug of privacy or employee rights, and passing the buck for his next employer to handle what appeared to be chronic personal problems that were only getting worse -- all this becomes the default at work. And this is why it is ethically unsupportable to point the accusing finger of blame at a single contractor. Lots of fingers remain for pointing elsewhere.
-- Nick Catrantzos
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Nick Catrantzos + Tom Goff
- All Secure
- NICK CATRANTZOS is the lead author of the All Secure website and is the emeritus security director for a large public organization. He has also managed security aspects of corporate takeovers, response to international hostage situations, and finding and keeping secrets. He has been board certified in security management, licensed as a private investigator, and certified as an incident commander. He worked as a case officer for a discreet branch of public service. He protected stealth technology at Lockheed and, later, as a consulting security director for both Kroll and Control Risks, he assisted executives with workplace violence cases and with protecting VIPs and critical assets globally in volatile areas. Nick's partner, TOM GOFF, was a captain in the Military Police Corps, U.S. Army Reserve and has a law degree from the University of California at Davis. He is a former reporter for Fortune Magazine, was senior editor at New York Magazine and Esquire, and has provided crisis and communications counsel to senior executives at Fortune 500 companies, including Lockheed, ARCO, Microsoft, Nissan, and Sony Pictures.