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More than 50 years ago, James Brown and the Famous Flames recorded “Bewildered,” with the words: “Must I have sleepless night and endless days.”
Today, another James Brown must be asking the same question and feeling bewildered by his current situation.
The second Brown is a 48-year-old Defense Department contractor who lives in Annapolis. But a crazy string of business problems resulted in him losing his security clearance. So now Brown is without a job.
An individual’s financial situation is one of the things investigators examine when deciding on security clearances. During a rotten economy, the number of people with foreclosures, tax problems or other debts grows. It’s a pretty good bet that the number of federal employees and contractors who have had their livelihood threatened because clearance issues related to personal financial issues is growing, too, though no one has overall statistics on this.
This raises the question: If you go into debt at home, should that prevent you from doing your job at work?
“It is important to note that it’s not financial problems per se that are the issue,” said Ronald Sanders, a former chief personnel officer for the government’s intelligence community. “Rather, it’s the fact that they substantially increase the risk that an individual with those problems could be far more susceptible to revealing secrets as a result of things like bribery or blackmail.”
Brown’s story began in 2003 when his wife was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. The next year, he and his family bought a restaurant business on Long Island. They did not buy the building.
The building turned out to be worse for a restaurateur than bad food.
Three months after they bought the business, the roof severely leaked, according to Brown, who continued his defense work. In 2005, the roof of the walk-in refrigerator fell in, destroying thousands of dollars of food. That same year, the foundation under the outside bar collapsed. A weak ceiling caused the hood over the stove to fall in 2006. In 2007, the roof under the heating and air-conditioning unit sagged into the restaurant. The water heater also broke that year.
With these headaches, it’s no wonder he fell behind on his New York state business taxes. Brown said the $55,000 tax claim was the reason given when the Pentagon did not renew his secret-level clearance, after his regular 10-year review.
“I’ve been out of work for eight months now,” he said in an interview, the anguish clear in his voice.
Being unemployed is serious for anyone. If your wife has MS, it’s terrifying. With no health insurance and no income, he can’t afford the monthly treatments needed to keep his wife healthy.
“I held my clearance for 15 years without a blemish,” said Brown, a marine engineer. It was a source of pride that he provided his skills to the Navy as a contract employee with various companies. “I am not a security risk,” he added firmly.
The department agreed, initially. His clearance was renewed in October 2010. But some officials did not agree with that decision, appealed, and his clearance was revoked in February.
Christopher Graham, Brown’s attorney with the firm of Tully Rinckey, acknowledges that it can be appropriate for the government to deny a clearance because of financial problems, but not in his client’s case.
“His financial problems were a result of unforeseen circumstances: a landlord who did not provide habitable premises, and his wife’s illness,” Graham said. “He had a judgment against the landlord. His attorneys wrote the taxing authorities to assure them the tax liens would be paid immediately upon successful conclusion of the case.”
The Pentagon did not comment. On the overall issue of clearances, the State Department pointed to the “Adjudicative Guidelines for Determining Eligibility for Access to Classified Information.” It says “failure or inability to live within one’s means, satisfy debts, and meet financial obligations may indicate poor self-control, lack of judgment, or unwillingness to abide by rules and regulations, all of which can raise questions about an individual’s reliability, trustworthiness and ability to protect classified information. An individual who is financially overextended is at risk of having to engage in illegal acts to generate funds.”
And just as big bills can arouse suspicion, so can an unexplained big bank account. “Affluence that cannot be explained by known sources of income is also a security concern,” according to the guidelines. “It may indicate proceeds from financially profitable criminal acts.”
Affluence certainly isn’t Brown’s problem and the guidelines on an inability to satisfy debts don’t really seem to apply to him either. Brown said he can reapply for a security clearance in February, a year after it was revoked. But that doesn’t help him now.
“We’re just barely keeping a roof over our heads,” he said.
