Go ahead, be evasive...it's only your job.

DHS Background Check Questioned By Spencer S. Hsu Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, April 7, 2006; Page A04 The Department of Homeland Security official arrested Tuesday on charges of seducing a minor over the Internet faced disciplinary action at his previous workplace, Time magazine's Washington bureau, for misusing company equipment to download pornography, friends and former colleagues said. [Washington Post]

There are a couple of issues here that need to be addressed. I will start with the obvious and work my way to the less obvious.

First, the security check mechanism in place in the United States is severly flawed. It is based on an unrealistic web of trust that starts from a false premise - that being that an American Citizen makes one more trustworth than a non-citizen. I can point out more cases of problems caused by the trusted American than I can for the untrusted non-citizen. And non-citizens have as much access.

Secondly, there is not enough investigators in the United States to do even a cursory background check on even the most important of Federal civil servants, much less the ones that have to be done. Top Secret and Secrect clearance checks, new citizen checks, resident alien checks and a half a dozen others are tying up all availble and trained investigators and will have them tied up for the next decade. And that is before the investigations required under HSPD-12 begin for every fedeal employee and contractor. The realitiy is it cannot happen.

Less obvious, but no less important is the change in behaviour of companies when it comes to background or reference checks. Most companies today will only give out dates of employment and position, basically confirming that you worked there. Some will not even do that much. The reasoning behind this is lawsuits. Several employees have filed suit against their former employers for divulging things that are private or worse, have cased them not to get the job they were applying for. The simple fact that Mr. Doyle's co-workers knew about this does not mean that the human resources department did, or if they did that they would divulge it with anything less than a court order, federal investigator or not.

The people on the Hill can rant all they want. Until there is a better system in place, they are stuck with the one of their own making. Perhaps the amount of material that even requires a background check to access needs to be reassessed. Either that, or the Federal Civil Service needs to be downsized until the investigation staff can be improved.