At hearing on security clearances, senators learn that police records can go unchecked [View all]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/federal_government/at-hearing-on-security-clearances-senators-learn-that-police-records-can-go-unchecked/2013/10/31/6fca6650-425b-11e3-a751-f032898f2dbc_story.html?tid=hpModule_14fd66a0-9199-11e2-bdea-e32ad90da239



At hearing on security clearances, senators learn that police records can go unchecked
By Joe Davidson, Updated: Friday, November 1, 7:50 AM E-mail the writer

We know the story: Nine years before Aaron Alexis went on a homicidal rage at the Washington Navy Yard last month, shooting dead a dozen people, he was on another rage.

With a Glock 30 .45-caliber pistol, he shot the tires of a car belonging to a construction worker employed next door to Alexis’s home in Seattle.

In 2007, three years after that, Alexis, a defense contractor, was granted a “secret” security clearance. Government officials didn’t even know details of his earlier wrath. It led to his arrest but not a conviction.

That level of ignorance left members of a Senate committee dismayed at a federal security-clearance process that does not always check an individual’s police record.