Nuclear Weapons

Security-Cleared Population Continues to Shrink

06.30.16 | 2 min read | Text by Steven Aftergood

The number of people with security clearances for access to classified information dropped in 2015 for the second year in a row, according to a new report to Congress from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

The total number of security-cleared government employees and contractors decreased by 5.9 percent in FY 2015 down to 4,249,053. That follows a 12.3 percent reduction in FY2014, from a recent peak of 5.1 million clearances in 2013. At the beginning of FY2016, there were 1.36 million persons with Top Secret clearances.

See the 2015 Annual Report on Security Clearance Determinations, Office of the Director of National Intelligence, June 2016.

Continuing reductions in the size of the security-cleared population should result in reduced costs, along with more focused and effective use of finite security resources. A smaller security clearance system may also exercise indirect pressure on national security classification policy in favor of reduced secrecy since there will be fewer persons authorized to classify or to handle classified information. For the same reason, however, some officials and contractors are concerned that the availability of fewer cleared individuals could make it harder for them to “surge” to fulfill emerging classified requirements.

“The majority of decreases [in the number of security clearances] resulted from Department of Defense’s successful implementation of data quality initiatives,” said the new ODNI report, apparently referring to DoD efforts to standardize and improve database management.

“However, some agencies indicated that decreases in their overall population were the result of efforts across the USG to review and validate whether an employee or contractor still requires access to classified information.”

The new report also discussed the time it takes for various agencies to process security clearance requests.

“The IC continues to face timeliness challenges in clearing individuals with unique or critical skills — such as highly desirable language abilities — who often have significant foreign associations that may take additional time to investigate and adjudicate,” the report said.

Regular reporting on the operation of the government-wide security clearance system was not performed prior to the Obama Administration (though GAO produced valuable investigative reports over the years). Annual reports on the security clearance system were first required by Congress in the Intelligence Authorization Act for FY 2010.

publications
See all publications
Nuclear Weapons
Report
Nuclear Notebook: Russian Nuclear Weapons, 2023

The FAS Nuclear Notebook is one of the most widely sourced reference materials worldwide for reliable information about the status of nuclear weapons, and has been published in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists since 1987.. The Nuclear Notebook is researched and written by the staff of the Federation of American Scientists’ Nuclear Information Project: Director Hans […]

05.08.23 | 1 min read
read more
Nuclear Weapons
Blog
Video Indicates that Lida Air Base Might Get Russian “Nuclear Sharing” Mission in Belarus

On 14 April 2023, the Belarusian Ministry of Defence released a short video of a Su-25 pilot explaining his new role in delivering “special [nuclear] munitions” following his training in Russia. The features seen in the video, as well as several other open-source clues, suggest that Lida Air Base––located only 40 kilometers from the Lithuanian border and the […]

04.19.23 | 7 min read
read more
Nuclear Weapons
Blog
Was There a U.S. Nuclear Weapons Accident At a Dutch Air Base? [no, it was training, see update below]

A photo in a Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) student briefing from 2022 shows four people inspecting what appears to be a damaged B61 nuclear bomb.

04.03.23 | 7 min read
read more
Nuclear Weapons
Blog
STRATCOM Says China Has More ICBM Launchers Than The United States – We Have Questions

In early-February 2023, the Wall Street Journal reported that U.S. Strategic Command (STRATCOM) had informed Congress that China now has more launchers for Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs) than the United States. The report is the latest in a serious of revelations over the past four years about China’s growing nuclear weapons arsenal and the deepening […]

02.10.23 | 6 min read
read more