FASTER, PLEASE: Overdue Overhaul: Security Clearance Reform in a Decade of Leakers, Spies and Insider Threats.

The most significant overhaul of the security clearance process in 50 years appears to finally be at hand. At the end of February, the director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center and the deputy director of the Office of Personnel Management – working through the interagency Security, Suitability, and Credentialing Performance Accountability Council – announced that the Trusted Workforce 2.0 framework would be implemented soon, once White House review of the framework is complete.

Trusted Workforce 2.0 is intended to improve the government’s personnel vetting and security clearance processes. Media reporting indicates that this improvement will be based on six primary pillars: more nimble policymaking and clear policy for implementation; ensuring personnel vetting is tailored, reciprocal between agencies, and includes continuous vetting (which will tie into insider threat programs) rather than laborious periodic reinvestigations; aligning and streamlining security, suitability and credentialing processes; reducing the number of investigative levels, or tiers, from five to three (Trusted, Secret and Top Secret); expanding the spectrum of investigative methods, including the use of digital interview channels; and implementing a trusted information provider program to improve efficiency by allowing investigators to leverage certain information that has already been collected by designated government and private sources.

I might go further, and have security clearances automatically withdrawn at the end of government employment, available for reissue, but not automatically reissued, on an as-needed basis for consult work.

Consider a part of Glenn’s revolving door tax surcharge plan.