Grove City, Pa., contractor tied to Snowden background check

Staff/wire report

GROVE CITY, PA.

A Grove City contractor, USIS, has been tied to the faulty background check that provided Edward Snowden with the security clearance he later used to leak information about U.S. secret surveillance programs.

Patrick McFarland, the inspector general for the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, told lawmakers in June that his office is probing USIS, based in Falls Church, Va. USIS conducts federal employee background checks for OPM, the government agency primarily responsible for overseeing such investigations.

“The background-check reviews were handled by a USIS operation in Grove City, Pa., where employees checked the work of investigators assigned to dig into applicants’ backgrounds. The reviewers examined case files for serious problems before sending them to OPM for final review and action,” according to The Wall Street Journal.

Managers in Pennsylvania raised concerns about the directives to “flush” cases, former employees said in the Journal article. One manager began deliberately under-reporting the number of unfinished cases to his bosses so case managers could complete their examinations, said one person familiar with the matter.

Attempts by The Vindicator to contact USIS by phone and email were not successful.

A representative from the Grove City Area Chamber of Commerce said the “help desk” is primarily a call center for USIS. A search of the USIS website, however, shows that positions housed in Grove City include information technology and customer-service positions.

The company employs 700 people at two locations in Grove City and 800 people at nearby Iron Mountain, Pa., according to WTAE Television in Pittsburgh.

The USIS investigation predates the Snowden scandal, but McFarland told the homeland security subcommittee hearing that there are now concerns that USIS may not have carried out its background check into Snowden in an appropriate or thorough manner, according to Reuters.

Snowden, who disclosed details of the U.S. government’s vast phone and Internet surveillance, was a contractor formerly employed by Booz Allen Hamilton who worked at a National Security Agency facility in Hawaii.

“Yes, we do believe that there may be some problems,” McFarland said of the Snowden review.

But USIS said in a statement that it has never been informed that it is under “criminal investigation.” It said it received a subpoena for records from McFarland’s office in January 2012.

“USIS complied with that subpoena and has cooperated fully with the government’s civil investigative efforts,” the statement said. Regarding Snowden, USIS said it does not comment on confidential background investigations.

Snowden is in Russia where he has been granted temporary asylum. The U.S. is pressuring Russia to bring about Snowden’s return to stand trial for leaking the documents.