{"id":37674,"date":"2013-09-22T11:17:42","date_gmt":"2013-09-22T15:17:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=37674"},"modified":"2013-09-22T11:17:42","modified_gmt":"2013-09-22T15:17:42","slug":"background-checks-didnt-kill-13-at-the-navy-yard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=37674","title":{"rendered":"Background checks didn’t kill 13 at the Navy Yard"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ex-PH2 sent us a link to an NBC article about The Experts<\/a>, the company that employed Aaron Alexis, the Navy Yard shooter, which was seeking more government contracts in the days following the shooting.<\/p>\n

A little more than 24 hours after an IT contractor gunned down a dozen workers at the Washington Navy Yard, the CEO of the company he worked for sent an email to Navy Secretary Ray Mabus saying he has the experience to help the military improve its security.<\/p>\n

The email from The Experts chief Thomas Hoshko, which included descriptions of his background and expertise, stunned some Navy leaders still reeling from the shooting rampage Monday that left 13 people dead, including the gunman, former Navy reservist Aaron Alexis.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I guess everyone just figures they should shut their doors. Why wouldn’t they seek more business? It’s a company’s job to do that, isn’t it?<\/p>\n

Revelation of the email comes as the Navy and the Defense Department launch a series of short- and long-term reviews into Alexis’ Navy service history, the Pentagon’s security clearance procedures, overall safety at defense installations around the world and the responsibilities that contractors have in reviewing their workers and notifying the military about potential problems.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Yeah, well, what was there to find in Alexis’ history that was supposed to twig the investigators to his mental health problems? In another article<\/a>, folks are upset that USIS, the contractor that conducted the actual investigation of Alexis also did Eddie Snowden’s investigation.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom Edward Snowden to Aaron Alexis, what\u2019s emerging is a pattern of failure on the part of this company, and a failure of this entire system, that risks nothing less than our national security and the lives of Americans,\u201d [Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo.] said. \u201cWhat\u2019s most frightening is that USIS performs a majority of background checks for our government. We clearly need a top-to-bottom overhaul of how we vet those who have access to our country\u2019s secrets and to our secure facilities. I plan to pursue such an overhaul, and won\u2019t rest until it\u2019s achieved.\u201d <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Yeah, well, as I said, everyone did their best in the case of Alexis to hide his condition. Unless they can find something from the personnel interview that would have tipped off the investigator, they’ve really got nothing. As I’ve said before, everyone from local police to the Navy did their best to make sure that Alexis wouldn’t have a record of being measurably nutty. Alexis only had a Secret clearance, and last I knew, all they do for level is a national activity check – look for police records and at military records. If no one is willing to arrest him or make a record of his nutty behavior, I guess nothing would have pinged their radar.<\/p>\n

If they want to fix the real problem, they should reduce the number of jobs that require a security check. I speak from experience when I say that there are entirely too many people walking around with security clearances that they don’t need and then we need contract investigators to keep up with the demand – and then people like Snowden, Alexis, Wickre and Monkress slip through.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ex-PH2 sent us a link to an NBC article about The Experts, the company that employed … Background checks didn’t kill 13 at the Navy Yard<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[213],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37674","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-your-tax-dollars-at-work"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37674","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=37674"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37674\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=37674"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=37674"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=37674"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}