The nation needs a ‘security clearance ready reserve'

[rangerrebew]

The nation needs a ‘security clearance ready reserve'
A list of cleared, vetted people would serve as a strategic hedge against attrition, espionage and workforce volatility.
Lindy Kyzer | May 19, 2025
 
   
Who gets to hold a security clearance? And more importantly, what happens to that eligibility when someone steps out of federal service?

Security clearances are the gatekeepers of the nation’s secrets – powerful tools of trust wielded exclusively by the federal government, as delegated by the Executive Branch. That authority has never been more visible than during the Trump administration, when high-profile actions were taken to revoke clearances based on perceived threats or disloyalty. It is a clear reminder: your clearance is not your own.

For decades, the clearance process has been driven by agencies, for agencies. Individuals are granted eligibility, “read into” classified programs, and “read out” again if they switch employers, change contracts, or exit service. That’s an optimistic view of the off-boarding process. All too often quick turnaround layoffs, agency shifts, or shifting priorities mean that off-boarding might come in the form of an email – that you may be lucky to access. That leaves laid off cleared workers in limbo, and often concerned about what will happen to their clearance.

Just because you’re out of a contract doesn’t mean your clearance eligibility goes away. The push toward a more efficient security clearance process has been a push to better reciprocity. But policy is one thing and reality is another. Even with efforts toward reciprocity and “transfer of trust,” the process often defaults to redundant reinvestigations and bureaucratic bottlenecks. When the focus is on the agency, and not the individual, the investment the government has made in a clearance ($5,410 for a Top Secret clearance investigation conducted by the Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency) isn’t treated as the resource it is.

https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2025/05/its-time-security-clearance-ready-reserve/405433/?oref=d1-featured-river-secondary

[Timber Rattler]

Uh no.  Security clearances are routinely abused and building such a list would immediately go to the highest bidder.

[DefiantMassRINO]

A security clearance ready reserve is a large sieve of potential security leaks and leakers.  Too many people have security clearances and access to information they do not need.

If you don't need to know, you don't need to know.

Snowden's supervisor gave him the supervisor's credentials to access systems.

Where was US airman Jack Teixeira's supervisor?  Why did some pimiple-faced youth at a Mass Air Naitonal Guard Base need access to so much sensitive information that he had no business accessing?

When Presidents and Secretaries of State (yes, you, Hillary Clinton) are openly careless and irresponsible with sensitive information, they set a bad example, lower the bar, and hurt the morale of front line personnel.

Sensitive material should be rigged to combust when removed from SCIF's or to disinetgrate when exposed to normal light.

[Smokin Joe]

A security clearance ready reserve is a large sieve of potential security leaks and leakers.  Too many people have security clearances and access to information they do not need.

If you don't need to know, you don't need to know.

Snowden's supervisor gave him the supervisor's credentials to access systems.

Where was US airman Jack Teixeira's supervisor?  Why did some pimiple-faced youth at a Mass Air Naitonal Guard Base need access to so much sensitive information that he had no business accessing?

When Presidents and Secretaries of State (yes, you, Hillary Clinton) are openly careless and irresponsible with sensitive information, they set a bad example, lower the bar, and hurt the morale of front line personnel.

Sensitive material should be rigged to combust when removed from SCIF's or to disinetgrate when exposed to normal light.

QFT!

Spot on!

What they don't know won't hurt us.
Otherwise, the newly laid off might find themselves with another means of getting a paycheck...selling  information. Just remove that temptation. It only takes one to weaken.