US Investigations Services
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
USIS is the privatized arm of the Office of Personnel Management's Office of Federal Investigations, which was privatized in 1996.
USIS was initially awarded a sole-source no-bid contract for conducting all of OPM's investigations, but since the initial contract other companies have been awarded parts of the investigations contract, including Kroll Inc., SA-TECH, CACI International, Inc., and Omniplex.
USIS began as an employee-owned company, but has since been purchased by private investors and is now owned by The Carlyle Group and Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe, two private equity firms.
Since OPM’s privatization of its federal investigators, approximately 2000 investigators from the Defense Security Service have been transferred to OPM, and OPM has since reconstituted its federal investigations program in the Center for Federal Investigative Services, located within OPM. OPM is responsible for 90% of federal security clearance investigations, but it contracts out most of this work.
[edit] References
- Barr, Stephen. "For Once-Federal Background Investigators, Privatization Leads to Its Own Kind of Check." Washington Post, April 24, 2003.
- Barr, Stephen. "OPM, in a First, Acts to Convert an Operation into Private Firm." Washington Post, April 14, 1996, p. A4.
- Freedland, Jonathan. "Anger at Clinton Plan to Privatise Vetting of Government Employees." The Guardian (London), July 3, 1996.
