Pentagon Halts Contractor Clearances

[spindrifter]

By Renae Merle
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, April 29, 2006

The Pentagon stopped processing security clearances for government contractors this week, potentially exacerbating a shortage of employees authorized to work on the government's most secret programs.

The Defense Security Service blamed overwhelming demand and a budget shortfall for the halt, which caught the government contracting community by surprise. Already, 3,000 applications have been put on hold, said Cindy McGovern, a DSS spokeswoman.

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"We have companies right now that have positions that are funded that they can't find people for," said Stan Soloway, president of the Professional Services Council. "This could completely shut the system down."

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The service is also struggling with a budget shortfall, McGovern said, noting that its funding was cut by $20 million this year. McGovern said she did not know how much of a shortfall the agency faces.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/28/AR2006042801878.html

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Wow, Secretary Rumsfailed, let's put our thinking caps on...hmmm, we could recover some of that surplus money that we let H*burton keep and then, uh, maybe use it to hire people to do these security clearances. Or we could call up all the media people, give them lists of the security clearance applicants and let them publish the names so we wouldn't have to worry about security clearances. That would be kind of like the Flame thing KKKarl and Scooter screwed up. Or, yeah, we could just let it shut the system down like it says in the article.:crazy: