National Security Work Leaves Plenty Of Time For Games, Outside Employment, And Sexual Misconduct

Failures

from the BE-YOUR-OWN-BOSS-WORK-ONLY-4-HR-SHIFTS-ETC! dept

FOIA terrorist Jason Leopold has scored another win, securing a copy of an Intelligence Community Inspector General’s investigation from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. It’s the sort of thing that’s rarely released, most likely because it comes from the inner sanctum’s inner sanctum. Maybe this one just seemed too damning to keep secret — not for the ODNI or the Intelligence Community, but for the unnamed (well… redacted) ODNI employee who was caught abusing all sorts of policies, procedures, and laws while on the clock.

The investigation report [PDF] opens with a list of five violations affecting all areas of the employee’s work. And also possibly some violations of other employees.

Subject engaged in conflicts of interest

Subject engaged in improper or unauthorized outside employment

Subject engaged in falsification and misrepresentation

Subject misused government information and information systems.

Subject engaged in sexual misconduct while on duty

So, a very busy employee, albeit one not actually doing much to fulfill the job description. When she wasn’t working for the government (which was apparently most of her shift), she was working for up to 14 other companies. The report says the employee “averaged in excess of five hours per day on personal affairs and unofficial business.”

What she was supposed to be doing was managing secured databases/sites and providing budget planning. What she actually did was handle work for outside companies while collecting a paycheck from taxpayers. This included companies currently being used by the IC as contractors and those seeking to win government contracts — contradicting the information she gave supervisors and presented in disclosure forms. Even with this additional, conflicting workload, she still found plenty of time to do nothing.

A counterintelligence analyst remarked of [redacted] in an assessment of the audits from May 2010 to May 2013, “I have highlighted the subject’s game playing, and noted the trends. Subject appears to use specific gaming sites for a set period of time and then switches to a new site … There do not appear to be any major gaps in time where subject was not visiting some type of gaming site.”

Working for fifteen employers is far less of a strain than I have been led to believe

When confronted with the issue of illegal executables, games, and inappropriate chats on her account during the interview, [redacted] admitted that she spends approximately “all day” on Facebook and plays games at work from four to six hours per day. She also admitted that she engaged in sexually explicit Sametimes with a contractor for the first year of her employment with ODNI.

The bar has been raised for wasting time at work. Between the games and providing some sort of assistance to fourteen outside companies (and engaging in sexual misconduct), the employee also found time to repeatedly access government databases for personal reasons. One of her favorite Privacy Act violations targeted the IC’s most famous/infamous former member.

Between June 10, 2013 and July 2, 2013, [redacted] ran JPAS [Joint Personnel Adjudication System] record searches for Edward Snowden 357 times under three of her accounts (Link Solutions, Augusta Westland, and Twin Soft Corporation) while at ODNI facilities during duty hours. According to the Defense Manpower Data Center’s Manual on JPAS Account Management, one of the most common JPAS user violations is “querying the JPAS application for ‘celebrity’ records.” This policy is explicitly forbidden in the manuals for JPAS. In the case of 357 unauthorized JPAS queries, [redacted] violated the Privacy Act.

[…]

Between June 10, 2013, and May 19, 2014, [redacted] ran JPAS record-searches for her own record 442 times under four accounts (Link Solutions, Augusta Westland, 99999 Consulting, and Wheeler Network Design). 324 of the 442 JPAS violations in this case were performed while at ODNI facilities during duty hours. According to the Defense Manpower Data Center’s Manual on JPAS Account Management, one of the most common JPAS user violations is “querying the JPAS application for your own record.” This policy is explicitly forbidden in the manuals for JPAS.

Unfortunately, the report doesn’t say what happened to this employee. Some of the IG’s conclusions are redacted while others only say the investigation confirmed abuse of systems or violated policies. Her outside compensation also drew the heat of the IRS, which stepped in to examine her tax returns — which she filed on the clock using an IC computer. It’s been confirmed Snowden’s privacy was violated, but I would imagine the IC feels he won’t be filing a lawsuit anytime soon. It’s difficult to believe this person could still be working for the government, but it’s far from impossible she’s still collecting a taxpayer-funded paycheck somewhere. The wheels of bureaucracy grind slower than the wheels of justice and this combines a little of both.

Filed Under: inspector general, intelligence community, misconduct, national security, odni