Access Control
& Security Systems

Defense companies are segregating their non-U.S. citizen employees from the general work force and assigning all foreign nationals and green-card holders new identification badges at the request of the Department of Defense, which has taken a tougher stance toward the security of classified information.

The physical separation of employees has forced some contractors to consider terminating the jobs of non-U.S. citizens since the application process for U.S. citizenship can take 15 months, nearly twice as long as the review took prior to the Sept. 11 attacks.

Using a dated and, until recently, rarely enforced security protocol for the protection of classified material, officials from the Defense Security Service have called on defense contractors to implement strict adherence to their Technology Control Plans. The TCP is a company-produced document highlighting how it controls the access to classified information and the dissemination of that information to foreign nationals employed by the firm or visiting the work site.

Although these plans originated in the 1954 Atomic Energy Commission, executives for local defense contractors have said the DSS only recently began mandating companies abide by them. The government also has suggested certain security measures for foreign nationals include unique badges, escorts and separate work areas.

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