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DEFENSE PERSONNEL SECURITY RESEARCH CENTER
99 Pacific Street, Suite 455-E
Monterey, California 93940
Tel: (831) 657-3000

A Brief History

In the wake of an alarming number of espionage cases involving cleared US employees in the early-to-mid 1980s, Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger established the DoD Security Review Commission under the chairmanship of Gen. Richard G. Stilwell, USA (Ret.). The Commission examined then-current Department of Defense (DoD) policies and procedures with a view to preventing further damaging loss of classified information. It recommended that a personnel security research center be set up within the Navy. In 1986 the Defense Personnel Security Research and Education Center (PERSEREC) was established in Monterey, CA. This location was selected to take advantage of support offered by the Naval Postgraduate School and the Defense Manpower Data Center.

As mandated by the 1997 Defense Reform Initiative, PERSEREC became functionally integrated into the new Defense Security Service (formerly Defense Investigative Service) and in 1998 was renamed the Security Research Center (SRC). In 1999, the Joint Security Commission II recommended that SRC be moved from DSS. Consequently, in November 1999 SRC was reassigned to Defense Human Resources Activity, with policy oversight to be provided by the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Command, Control, Communication and Intelligence (OASD[C3I]). SRC's name was subsequently changed to the Defense Personnel Security Research Center, with the acronym, once again, of PERSEREC.

Our Mission

PERSEREC's mission is to improve the effectiveness, efficiency, and fairness of the DoD personnel and industrial security systems.

To achieve this mission, researchers at PERSEREC:

• Conduct long-term programmatic research for the security and intelligence communities
• Provide quick-response studies and analyses in support of policy formulation and systems operation
• Disseminate research information to security policymakers and practitioners
• Develop innovative tools and job aids for security professionals

Our Research Focus

Since our founding in 1986, research has focused on key aspects of the DoD personnel security program. More specifically, work has been directed toward improving personnel security investigations, adjudications, due process, continuing evaluation of cleared personnel, and security awareness. In addition, we have placed special emphasis on the use of automated information and have conducted research on the phenomenon of espionage itself.

Our program has shifted recently to reflect the several major changes that are impacting the security environment. These include:

• Increasing attention to the insider threat-betrayal or compromise by trusted personnel having legitimate access to privileged information
• Burgeoning size and vulnerability of electronic-based information systems and technologies for storing, processing, and disseminating information in government and industry
• Recognition of the need to protect a wider range of information, along with the national infrastructures that carry that information
• Resource and budgetary restrictions and reductions in security programs

PERSEREC's research program is divided into five programmatic areas.

Automated Systems for Personnel Security

The primary aim of research in this area is to improve the effectiveness and the efficiency of the investigative process by developing systems that electronically acquire and analyze relevant investigative data from commercial and government databases. Systems to detect and deter financially irresponsible or illegal activity are being developed and tested. In addition, automated systems that incorporate other types of individual data, useful for continuing evaluation and counterintelligence purposes, are under development.

Trust Betrayal

The research in this area is focused on understanding the phenomenon of trust betrayal, particularly espionage. There has been no shortage of journalistic and biographical writing about individual American spies and their stories. However, there is a continuing need to put the cases together into an organized framework so that comparative analyses can be conducted and a more comprehensive picture of espionage created. Currently we are updating our database of espionage cases occurring between 1940 and the present. In addition, in response to a recent DoD tasking, PERSEREC is developing a database of events representing the misuse of information systems by malicious or negligent insiders. Those acts that have resulted in damage to data or systems, diminishing our capability to meet mission requirements, are seen as yet another form of trust betrayal. The database will yield valuable information for policymakers, security educators, and systems specialists who are tasked with the development of deterrents and countermeasures.

Vetting Systems

The vetting systems area covers a wide range of personnel security processes. It generally involves the process of evaluating personnel for their suitability for access to national security information and focuses on the processes involved in initial clearances. As such, the area covers prescreening, investigations and adjudications and includes topics such as procedures to select personnel for high-security occupations, the type of information that is needed to make access determinations, the investigative elements that best provide security-related information, and the consistency of security adjudications. Vetting systems research concentrates on investigative elements and the subsequent processing of information by adjudicators.

Continuing Evaluation and Aftercare

This area involves research aimed at helping to ensure the continued reliability, trustworthiness and loyalty of cleared personnel. We hope to systematically examine and improve three key post-vetting functions of personnel security systems: monitoring or continuing evaluation, security education, and intervention and employee assistance. Continuing evaluation includes the reporting of information that may bear on an individual's continued eligibility to hold a clearance or have access to privileged information. Security education focuses on enhancing in the minds of trusted employees an awareness of the threat and of human and technical vulnerabilities to adversaries. Finally, intervention and employee assistance looks at how security programs can help cleared individuals with personal problems seek assistance and thereby maintain their security clearance eligibility. Current research emphasis is on coordination and mutual support between personnel security and employee assistance programs in DoD.

Utility Analysis

The research in this area is aimed at providing a better understanding of the relative effectiveness of security countermeasures within varying organizational contexts and under diverse security threat conditions. Empirical information gleaned from this research should be useful to security policymakers and practitioners in considering the costs and potential benefits of implementing security countermeasures in specific situations. Decisions to implement specific security policies or procedures, informed by results from systematic and comprehensive research rather than "best guesses," should lead to greater security at a lower cost. Comparative analyses are planned in which the efficacy of security countermeasures will be evaluated under varying conditions using a number of important organizational outcomes including cost.

Our Staff

The PERSEREC research staff is made up of behavioral scientists representing a wide range of academic disciplines including psychology, criminal justice, management, anthropology, and political science. They offer scientific and technical expertise and have linkages with the larger academic and research communities. Their collective experience includes long-standing familiarity with existing government security programs, access to relevant databases, and working with security practitioners to implement policy and procedural improvements.

PERSEREC presently has 10 staff members, complemented by research professionals under contract, most of whom are co-located at the PERSEREC office. This combined staff has extensive research and management experience in government, industry, and academic settings.

Our Grant Program

In addition to our contract support, PERSEREC offers a limited number of research awards to academic institutions and advanced degree students who intend to undertake scholarly inquiry in worthwhile areas that coincide with our research program.

For more information on PERSEREC Personnel Security Thesis, Dissertation and Institutional Research Awards, call (831) 657-3000.

Some of Our Achievements

PERSEREC has completed a variety of research projects that have benefited Defense security programs in terms of improving policy and practical procedures, and enhancing efficiency, fairness, and due process in the personnel security system. The following are a few examples:

• Marine Security Guards Screening: These security screening and continuing evaluation systems assist Marine Corps decision-makers in assessing the trustworthiness and reliability of Marine security guards who serve at US embassies.

• Productivity and Scope of Background Investigations: PERSEREC findings issued in 1991 provided the basis for implementing the single-scope background investigation and establishing the subject interview as an integral investigative source. Our 1996 study was used to set the investigative standards in Executive Order 12968.

• Consolidated Adjudication Facilities: PERSEREC recommendations in this study resulted in a reduction from 18 to eight adjudicative facilities, with a projected cost-saving of $21 million over the first 5 years.

• Automated Credit System: This system became operational during FY 1994 and reduced the cost of background investigations by significantly lowering the cost of acquiring credit report information.

• Adjudicative Criteria Development: Developed for use in the National Industrial Security Program, adjudicative criteria recommended by PERSEREC were adopted for the executive branch in 1997, as directed by the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs.

• Military Applicant Security Screening: This computer-based system permits personnel security interviews to be conducted before an applicant is assigned to sensitive duties, thus saving time and preventing wasted administrative efforts. It has been adopted by the Department of the Navy.

• Due Process for Adverse Personnel Determinations in the DoD: This work resulted in clearance appeal boards in each of the components having an adjudicative facility, helping to ensure that effective due process is carried out when a clearance is denied or revoked. Results were later incorporated into Executive Order 12968.

• Review of Foreign Intelligence Threat Awareness Programs: We described and evaluated the effectiveness of foreign intelligence threat awareness programs in government and industry in light of recent changes in the international threat. The study was conducted for the National Counter-intelligence Policy Board.

• Beyond Compliance-Achieving Excellence in Defense Industrial Security: This study examined how outstanding security programs are developed and managed. Ideas and approaches that made programs truly excellent were offered in order to help other facility security officers improve their own programs.

• Customizable Employee's Guide to Security: This is an unclassified, automated, comprehensive reference work that makes a wide range of security and threat awareness information readily accessible on a computer desktop. It is intended to be customized to meet any organization's specific circumstances and needs.

• Trends in Public Attitudes Towards Government Security Programs: PERSEREC has sponsored several security-related items in recent biennial General Social Surveys to assess the climate of US public opinion of security issues. Data show that government measures to protect national security information receive generally strong and stable support over time from the American public. The public also strongly endorses personnel security investigations into most of the key issue areas used for adjudication.

• Guide for Preventing and Responding to School Violence: PERSEREC published this Guide on behalf of the International Association of Chiefs of Police. It brought together the expertise of over 500 school violence experts and school community members and was widely distributed throughout the country.

• Adjudicative Desktop Reference (ADR): PERSEREC developed an automated desktop reference for use by adjudicators, investigators, and other security personnel. The ADR contains information relevant to making access eligibility determinations including regulations and an expanded discussion of potentially disqualifying and mitigating conditions. It also includes background information to help adjudicators evaluate security-relevant behaviors.

• E.O. 12968 Guides and Standards: The Director of the National Security Council directed that the Security Policy Board provide a report on the effectiveness and efficiency of the E.O. 12968 guidelines and standards. PERSEREC was tasked to conduct this research. The study found that DoD is doing a fairly good job in implementing the guidelines and standards but that there is a need for some further policy guidance in applying certain guidelines. Steps are being taken to provide that.

• Data-mining Pilot Study: PERSEREC's objective was to assess the potential value of 10 new sources of automated personnel security-related information for possible use as part of the personnel security clearance process. A pilot study was undertaken and a report recommending use of the additional records checks by DSS and the central adjudicative facilities was completed in September 2000.

For further information, please contact the Office of the Director:

Defense Personnel Security Research Center
99 Pacific Street, Suite 455-E
Monterey CA 93940
Tel: (831) 657-3000

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