THE COUNTRY’S IN THE VERY BEST OF HANDS: Hundreds of U.S. security clearances seen falsified. “Federal prosecutors have documented at least 350 instances of faulty background investigations done by private contractors and special agents for the U.S. Office of Personnel Management in recent years, illustrating what some lawmakers call systemic weaknesses in the granting of federal security clearances. . . . In one case, a private contractor investigator, who pleaded guilty to making a false statement, reported interviewing a person who had died more than a decade earlier. Another investigator was found guilty of making false statements in checks for applicants seeking ‘top secret’ clearances for jobs in the Air Force, Army, Navy and U.S. Treasury.”