security clearance | The Contracting Education Academy

July 17, 2019 By AMK

Pentagon aims to expedite security clearance process with $75 million award

Perspecta Enterprise Solutions LLC won a $75 million other transaction agreement on May 14 to continue modernization of the federal security clearance process, in particular with machine learning and related technology.

The Defense Security Service and Defense Information Systems Agency awarded the 24-month OTA, which covers improvements to National Background Investigation Services information technology.

Perspecta will help DSS — which will eventually be renamed the Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency — expedite background investigations, adjudications, continuous vetting and insider-threat programs by creating a Security Enterprise Architecture and Data Services prototype.

When a new employee or transfer needs clearance, the prototype will use machine learning and natural language processing to pull from disparate data sources to fill out form information. Previously a full investigative package was prepared manually and handed over for adjudication.

Keep reading article at: https://www.fedscoop.com/security-clearances-perspecta-enterprise-solutions-ota/

July 11, 2019 By AMK

DISA, DSS award second OTA to build governmentwide security clearance system

Defense officials said Tuesday that they had awarded a $75 million other transaction agreement to build major components of the IT system that will eventually handle all background investigations and security clearance adjudications for federal employees and contractors.

The award went to a team of vendors led by Perspecta, the same large government contractor that won a separate $49 million OTA last year to build another portion of the National Background Investigation System (NBIS).

The new agreement is specifically meant to build the security architecture and data services for NBIS. Officials decided it was needed after lessons learned from the first OTA, which focused primarily on building investigation management tools.

“We’ve had pieces of the NBIS application running at other DoD agency data centers and being built by other partners, independent of this common enterprise architecture,” said Terry Carpenter, the program executive officer for NBIS. “What we’re figuring out is by building out a common data broker, we can get an even greater efficiency. This is a federal-wide service that has to be up 365 days a year, 24 by seven. And to assure that type of robustness, we really wanted to make sure we were taking advantage of the cloud architecture to make sure that the application has those kinds of properties: Self-healing, self-aware, can expand with the demand. And all of those pieces are in this new OTA.”

Keep reading article at: https://federalnewsnetwork.com/nbib-transfer-to-dod/2019/05/disa-dss-award-second-ota-to-build-governmentwide-security-clearance-system/

May 22, 2019 By AMK

Trump shifts all security clearance work to Pentagon

After months of speculation and a standing September deadline, President Donald Trump signed an executive order Wednesday officially moving the federal government’s background and security clearance investigations to the Defense Department and giving the receiving office a new name.

After the 2015 breach of Office of Personnel Management systems that compromised sensitive personal information of more than 21 million current and prospective federal employees and contractors, the Obama administration created a new background investigation office called the National Background Investigation Bureau. But the administration also charged the Defense Department with supporting NBIB by building and managing the underlying IT systems, which would be called the National Background Investigation Service.

Congress later passed language in the 2018 defense authorization bill giving the Defense Department responsibility for meeting its own clearance needs, which make up about 70 percent of all investigations work. The remaining 30 percent of civilian agency clearances would remain with NBIB and OPM.

Rather than split that work up, the Trump administration made moves to migrate all clearance work to the Defense Department under the Defense Security Service. As the early days of planning began, officials took the opportunity to rethink the process, which hadn’t had an overhaul in more than 50 years.

Keep reading article at: https://www.nextgov.com/cio-briefing/2019/04/its-official-trump-shifts-all-security-clearance-work-pentagon/156534/

March 18, 2019 By AMK

VA procurement and security clearance processing land on GAO’s high-risk list

The Veterans Affairs Department suffers from “fundamental management weaknesses and is one of the most challenged in the federal government,” Comptroller General Gene Dodaro told a Senate panel recently.

Leadership instability, high-level vacancies and a lack of accountability are all problems at the sprawling, decentralized VA, which appears three times on the newly released biennial list of high-risk programs compiled by the Government Accountability Office (GAO).

VA Secretary Robert Wilkie “has a plan but there’s not a lot of detail” for implementing GAO recommendations in such areas as the department’s outdated procurement system that relies too heavily on expensive emergency procurements, Dodaro said.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.govexec.com/management/2019/03/va-procurement-and-security-clearance-processing-land-gaos-high-risk-list/155354

March 13, 2019 By AMK

Security clearance process about to get its biggest overhaul in 50 years

The federal intelligence and human resources communities are preparing a coming out party for the first major update to the security clearance process in some 50 years.

For the last year, the Suitability and Security Clearance Performance Accountability Council has been working on the Trusted Workforce 2.0 framework, the start of a wide-ranging effort to overhaul how background investigations are conducted. Representatives from the intelligence community, Defense Department, Office of Personnel Management, and Office of Management and Budget are leading PAC’s efforts.

Over the next two weeks, the team plans to debut the finalized framework to the White House and Congress and offered a group of reporters a first look at what’s to come.

This is the first time ever that the legislative and executive branches are on the same page with regard to clearance reform, according to Bill Evanina, director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, who is leading the framework effort along with OPM Deputy Director Michael Rigas.

The two agencies, along with members of the Defense Department, have been working to reduce the crushing backlog of security investigations, which topped 725,000 in early 2018. That backlog has since been reduced to 551,000 as of Monday. But that number is 100 percent above what security professionals consider to be the baseline “steady state” of 220,000 to 250,000 investigations in process at any given time.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.nextgov.com/cio-briefing/2019/02/security-clearance-process-about-get-its-biggest-overhaul-50-years/155229/

Perspecta Enterprise Solutions LLC won a $75 million other transaction agreement on May 14 to continue modernization of the federal security clearance process, in particular with machine learning and related technology.

Defense officials said Tuesday that they had awarded a $75 million other transaction agreement to build major components of the IT system that will eventually handle all background investigations and security clearance adjudications for federal employees and contractors.

After months of speculation and a standing September deadline, President Donald Trump signed an executive order Wednesday officially moving the federal government’s background and security clearance investigations to the Defense Department and giving the receiving office a new name.

The Veterans Affairs Department suffers from “fundamental management weaknesses and is one of the most challenged in the federal government,” Comptroller General Gene Dodaro told a Senate panel recently.

The federal intelligence and human resources communities are preparing a coming out party for the first major update to the security clearance process in some 50 years.

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