>Why do 'Former' Dignitaries Still Hold SEC Clearance?

In its wisdom, Congress passed the 2004 Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act, which required that by 2009, agencies must process 90 percent of clearance applications within an average of 60 days — less than a sixth of the average 375-day wait in 2003.

The government also chose to farm the bulk of its vetting work out to [contractors], which generally are more nimble than federal agencies in growing or shrinking and are practiced at luring federal funds by promising to cut costs. It relied in particular on U.S. Investigations Services (USIS), a firm that in 1996 was calved off an independent agency known as the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) and quickly got most of the background investigation business before being snapped up by a private equity investment firm in 2003.

http://foreignpolicy.com/2013/10/01/how-congress-screwed-up-americas-security-clearance-system/

Might be worthy of some digging…

USIS was founded in 1996 after the investigative branch, Federal Investigative Service, of the United States Office of Personnel Management (OPM) was privatized. Its creation was due to an effort of Vice President of the United States Al Gore to reduce the size of the civil service. Originally known as US Investigations Services Inc.,[2] it was at first an employee-owned company.

The Carlyle Group invested in USIS and in 2003, Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe also committed capital to them. In 2007, Carlyle announced that it would sell USIS to Providence Equity Partners, a private equity firm, for US$1.5 billion.[3]

In the fiscal year 2012, USIS received $253 million for the contract work of the OPM, 67% of the OPM's contract spending for the fiscal year.[2]

MOAR on sec clearance companies

maybe you faggots would rather have a graphic…