National security is a team sport, with a variety of security roles and professionals ensuring information, facility and personnel are protected. The role of partnering in the security relationship was spotlighted at last week’s NCMS Seminar, which gathered more than 1700 security professionals, government leaders, and experts from agencies including the Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency (DCSA).
“We are here to develop a relationship and a partnership with you,” said Daniel Lecce, deputy director of DCSA during his NCMS Seminar keynote remarks. He noted that battling the ‘present, persistent, and exigent’ threats faced today requires true relationships and partnerships – and a focus on the mission statement of the security community, which is protecting national security.
The security community today faces a number of changes. From policy to process, sessions focused on everything from Trusted Workforce 2.0 reforms to SEAD 3 and self-reporting guidelines. But it’s not just security policies and process that are changing, it’s also the workforce accomplishing the mission.
“We have a new generation, a new workforce that’s far less tolerant of the administrative burdens we’ve placed on it,” said Ryan Dennis, Vetting Risk Office, DCSA. “We can’t stop vetting them, we just need to do it better. That’s why we’re doing Trusted Workforce.”
Bureaucratic delays and 100-day wait times for onboarding into a new position means the government loses talent that could play a critical role in the mission. Big policy shifts like Continuous Vetting (CV) help increase workforce mobility and improve onboarding.
The government is also considering conditional clearances for industry applicants (an option already available for government and military clearance holders). Conditional clearance eligibility would allow the onboarding of individuals with mitigatable issues like financial issues or recent drug use – they could begin working in a conditional status and avoid a clearance denial for something that passage of time or a verifiable change in behavior could mitigate.
Trusted Workforce 2.0 and CV allow that kind of risk mitigation posture. “It’s collaborative risk management,” said Richard Weyrauch, DCSA Central Adjudications.
Trusted Workforce 2.0 is no longer future policy – it’s the framework moving national security forward and evolving the security clearance and vetting process into the 21st century. DCSA officials noted the current review of the security clearance process in the wake of the Jack Teixeira alleged leaks of classified information – and noted that reviews, overhauls and advancements in the process are nothing new. A static security clearance process is not the reality of today.
“Look at continuous vetting – that’s change,” said Dennis. “That’s the type of change we’re looking for in government.”
NBIS Takes Center Stage
This is the year the National Background Investigation Services (NBIS) train pulls out of the station, and it’s barreling toward every security clearance holder and applicant as the government pushes security officers to begin making personnel updates in NBIS, and processing new applicants through eApp, the replacement for the eQIP security clearance application.
For security clearance applicants, the move to eApp represents a seismic shift in completing the application. While one may never go so far to call it easy, it is absolutely more streamlined. A May 5 memo from DCSA outlined how the government plans to phase full implementation of NBIS based on company size, advising companies with 10 or fewer subjects to begin uploading their personnel into NBIS now, but urging all companies to get ready for implementation by the end of July, with full enrollment completed by October 1.
“All of Trusted Workforce 2.0 rests on NBIS,” said Lecce. “It’s not optional that we do this.”
For all of the issues addressed at the NCMS Seminar – from NBIS implementation to self-reporting and CV, the continuing information exchange, relationship building, and mission focus are the critical elements. As Lecce emphasized, implementing Trusted Workforce 2.0 and improving the personnel security process isn’t option – it’s a process that’s well underway, with ongoing iterative steps to effect real change.
