DCSA Prepares Focus on Cleaning Up Periodic Reinvestigations
For the last three years the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) and the Defense Counterintelligence Agency (DCSA) have put periodic reinvestigations (PR) on hold in order to reduce the huge investigation backlog. Now that the backlog is down to a steady state flow, DCSA is now starting to focus on cleaning up all contractor security clearance records whose PR is due but were not screened for deferment or enrolled into the Continuous Evaluation Program.
Guidance released by DCSA last week stated that Facility Security Officers (FSO) would get a notification from the new system of record called Defense Information System for Security (DISS) to go in and validate their contractor employees who have investigations that are out of scope. For T5Rs this is six years from the date of last investigation (in accordance with January 2017 guidance), and ten years from the date of the last reinvestigation for T3Rs. Within 30 days of notification from DISS the FSO would then initiate the appropriate PR and submit it to DCSA for review and make a determination to either defer the PR and enroll into CE or submit the PR for completion.
As reported by ClearanceJobs.com Sr. Editor Lindy Kyzer, continuous vetting is the way forward and I suspect that most PRs will get deferred and the subject will be enrolled in CE/CV. Those PR that do get submitted will be triggered by some type of adverse information or threshold that requires further information to make an adjudicative determination.
I think we have all heard of Continuous Evaluation… but what is that bit about “screened for deferment?”
That is concerning. Previous position had folks going out of scope, but were allowed to stay working as long as they remained on same contract, same function. Though cleared, if they applied for sponsorship under my contract there crossover would be denied, and we were told to submit as an initial. When I would explain they were badged, working, etc…at times they took action to remove them even with no adjudicative reason. If they quit their position and wanted to return later…had to be an initial. Meaning no work till cleared, see you in 24 plus months. Frustrating.
Screened for deferment means that before you are initially placed in CE, you FSO and DCSA look at your updated SF 86 to see if there are any current issues. No issues means you are enrolled in CE and life goes on. If there are issues, a request for information is sent to you through your FSO/CIP or a TESI is scheduled out to the Field. Once issue is mitigated, you are placed in CE.