The looming budget crisis will hit the Defense Department very hard. But there is a place where we can cut budgets and improve our security: reforming the process by which security clearances are granted.

[Recently] an OPM investigator contacted me about my clearance renewal. She would need two hours with me, my secretary was told. No way, I thought. How wrong.

At the appointed hour a pleasant but mechanical investigator arrived. After presenting her credentials and informing me of my rights, she suggested we proceed.

“Is your name John Julian Hamre?” she asked.

Yes, I replied.

She asked if I lived at my street address.

I paused, a bit surprised, then replied, “Yes.”

She asked if I was born on my birth date.

I paused again. “Ma’am, do you plan to read to me my SF-86 form?” I asked. If I lied in completing the form, I noted, I was unlikely to admit it in the interview. Let’s just go to the end, I suggested. “I will swear it is all true, and if you find a fault, you can accuse me of perjury.”

My common-sense suggestion had no effect. “We prefer to read the questions to you and ask you to respond,” I was told.

In other words, to grant a top-secret clearance in the United States, we ask a potential spy to fill out a form, which is given to an employee, possibly a contract worker, who then asks the candidate to verbally confirm what he has written.

Unbelievable.