Security Bias

F.B.I. Employees With Ties Abroad See Security Bias

By ERIC SCHMITT

The F.B.I. is subjecting hundreds of its employees who were born overseas or have relatives or friends there to an aggressive internal surveillance program that started after Sept. 11, 2001, to prevent foreign spies from coercing newly hired linguists but that has been greatly expanded since then.

The program has drawn criticism from F.B.I. linguists, agents and other personnel with foreign language and cultural skills, and with ties abroad. They complain they are being discriminated against by a secretive “risk-management” plan that the agency uses to guard against espionage. This limits their assignments and stalls their careers, according to several employees and their lawyers.

Employees in the program — called the Post-Adjudication Risk Management plan, or PARM — face more frequent security interviews, polygraph tests, scrutiny of personal travel, and reviews of, in particular, electronic communications and files downloaded from databases.

Some of these employees, including Middle Eastern and Asian personnel who have been hired to fill crucial intelligence and counterterrorism needs, say they are being penalized for possessing the very skills and background that got them hired. They are notified about their inclusion in the program and the extra security requirements, but are not told precisely why they have been placed in it and apparently have no appeal or way out short of severing all ties with family and friends abroad.

The authorities say those connections can pose potential national security risks, but insist placement in the program does not hurt an employee’s career.

The F.B.I. developed the program shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks to monitor newly hired linguists with access to classified information, fearing they could fall prey to foreign spy services or terrorists. Since then, the program has more than doubled in size and now sweeps in nearly 1,000 F.B.I. personnel who have access to classified information.

Details of the little-known security plan are emerging from some angry F.B.I. employees while the nation’s spy agencies are developing new programs and standards to help detect so-called insider threats. These efforts came after the shootings at the Washington Navy Yard in 2013 by a former Navy reservist that left him and 12 other people dead, and the damaging disclosures of highly classified information by Edward J. Snowden, a former National Security Agency contractor.

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All F.B.I. personnel with access to classified information are subject to periodic polygraph tests and other internal security measures, but some PARM participants say they face unfair scrutiny.

“This program was good for the new hires after 9/11, but for it to be used against current employees, some with 10 or 15 years’ experience and who have proved themselves, is unacceptable,” said Gamal Abdel-Hafiz, an Egyptian-born agent in Dallas who joined the F.B.I. in 1994 as a linguist and was put in the program without warning in 2012. He said he no longer received all the top-secret information he needed to carry out his job. Others in the program said it was harder to get choice undercover or overseas assignments.

“If you’re in this program, it affects you from moving up,” said Bobby Devadoss, a Dallas lawyer who represents Mr. Abdel-Hafiz and some West Coast F.B.I. agents in the program. “You could be a superstar agent, but if you’re in this box, you’re in the box.”

Critics say inclusion in the program is not based on performance or behavior, but on shifting, ill-defined security risks. They say they have little legal recourse as the few challenges to the program brought in federal court have been denied on national security grounds.

“It would appear that agents have no idea what they do to get on the program, what they should do while on the program and what they should do to get off the program,” said Jonathan C. Moore, a New York lawyer who once represented an F.B.I. agent in the program. “Inclusion seems to be wholly discretionary, which means it could be caused by the whims of a supervisor who for whatever reason doesn’t think so highly of the agent.”

The F.B.I. began the program in 2002 to help screen scores of contract linguists for security clearances. The authorities feared that the new employees could be manipulated or coerced to help a foreign spy agency or a terrorist group. For example, a friend or relative overseas could be threatened with harm unless the F.B.I. employee provided secret information or otherwise cooperated with the spies or terrorists.

As of April 2008, 314 contract linguists were in the program, according to a Justice Department inspector general’s office report in October 2009, the only publicly available figure. From fiscal years 2005 to 2008, the F.B.I. said, six contract linguists were either suspended or lost their top-secret clearance as a result of the program’s review, according to the report.

F.B.I. officials declined to say why those linguists had been suspended or to provide any updated statistics except to say that since the program was expanded in November 2005 to include all F.B.I. personnel, its ranks had grown to nearly 1,000 people. That is out of a total F.B.I. work force of 36,000 employees and thousands of contractors.

Senior F.B.I. officials insist that inclusion in the program is neither discriminatory nor a hurdle in career advancement, and that the enhanced scrutiny protects the agents or analysts as well as safeguards state secrets.

“I want to assure you that being under a PARM plan is neither an adverse action against you nor an indicator that you are a threat to the national security interests of the United States,” J. Mark Batts, who, as acting section chief in the F.B.I. security division, wrote one employee recently.

“It merely means that persons in your situation may be vulnerable to pressures or outside influences brought on by association with foreign nationals, and the F.B.I. is taking prudent steps to minimize any and all risks,” Mr. Batts said in the two-page letter.

Michael P. Kortan, the F.B.I.’s chief spokesman, said in an email that “the F.B.I. seeks to protect sensitive and classified national information while taking into account any impact on an employee. Inclusion in the program does not affect career advancement opportunities, and factors contributing to the risk assessment are periodically reviewed.”