Further Improvements Needed in Department of Defense Oversight of Special Access (Carve-Out) Contracts

摘要

The objective of the Defense Industrial Security Program is to protect classified information held by industry and is applicable to all DOD components and other Government agencies that enter into agreements with DOD. Since establishment of centralized security congnizance, the number of carve-out contracts has continually increased. Briefly, we found that DOD needs to (1) establish oversight procedures for carve-out contracts entered into by the military services; (2) improve implementation of uniform construction standards for sensitive compartmented information facilities; (3) centralize and improve security inspections of sensitive compartmented information facilities and special access contracts; and (4) improve the process for advance DOD approval of contractors' requests for employee special access authorizations that require special background investigations. These findings are discussed in detail in the appendix.