It’s become routine in criminal cases for law enforcement to search for suspects’ motives by looking at their social media accounts after the crime. But the government has been slow to search social media proactively in other ways. For instance, like evaluating someone for a security clearance. At a recent event hosted by the Professional Services Council, one federal official said the intelligence community had developed a policy to incorporate social media into background investigations. But it’s been held up for a year and a half by senior leaders. Charlie Sowell is a former intelligence official, now with Salient Federal Solutions. He tells Emily Kopp that few contractors are using social media to vet their employees too, but that’s changing.

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