MR. KOJO NNAMDIIt was a Monday morning in mid-September, the 16th of last year, when early in the day shots were fired in Building 197, at Washington's Navy Yard, on the Southwest Waterfront. The start of an hour and a half long rampage that left 12 dead and 4 wounded and many others deeply shaken. Especially as much of the property remained on lockdown over the course of the day, as an alphabet soup of local and federal law enforcement agencies worked to process the scene, gather information from witnesses, and be sure that the gunman who was killed on the scene had acted alone.

MR. KOJO NNAMDIThe incident raised a lot of questions. And as we near the one-year anniversary of that event, we're going to consider some of them and whether they have ready answers, with Marc Fisher, senior editor of the Washington Post, where he reports and writes on a wide range of topics. Marc is familiar to listeners of this program as one of our regular guest hosts. Marc, good to see you.

MR. MARC FISHERGood to be with you.

NNAMDIAlso in studio with us is Paul Stockton, managing director with Sonecon, LLC. He previously served as assistant secretary of defense for Homeland Security and America's Security Affairs. Paul Stockton, thank you for joining us.

MR. PAUL STOCKTONThank you, Kojo.

NNAMDIIf you have questions or comments -- were you at the Navy Yard during the shooting last year? Tell us how the day unfolded for you and how you feel about it almost a year later. 800-433-8850. You can send email to kojo@wamu.org. Marc, information about the shooter killed on the scene by responders came together in the hours and days after the shooting. What did you learn about Aaron Alexis?

FISHERWell, we learned that he was a very troubled guy. He was an employee of a company that did contract work for the U.S. government. He'd been moved around by them, from one base to another, I believe it was seven different bases in four states and the District, just in the three months before the shooting. And he'd been falling apart. And it was quite clear from talking to his neighbors, his friends, that he had been having a mental health crisis. And that the Navy knew about it. The Navy had cited him for misconduct more than eight times from 2008 to 2010.

FISHERAnd he had tried to blow the whistle on himself. He'd called the police for help. He had sought help at two different veterans' administration facilities in two states. He'd been -- he's sought counseling. And yet no one came forward and said this is a guy who should not have or should never have had secret clearance.

NNAMDIIndeed, Paul, some of the immediate questions in the aftermath of this incident centered on access. Some of our listeners may already hold a security clearance. But for those who don't, could you please explain for us the process of obtaining one and who, broadly speaking, holds them and who conducts the checks?

STOCKTONWell, that is part of the problem that's being addressed today by the Department of Defense. Kojo, too many personnel have security clearances, personnel who have no need for access to classified information. And the process by which these personnel who have the clearances are evaluated, for the kinds of problems that Marc just identified, has been inadequate.

STOCKTONThat's why it's so important that the Department is moving forward to shift towards continuous evaluation of personnel who have clearances so that these kinds of incidents that local law enforcement can identify can be used right away in order to review the -- whether people should have those clearances, rather than periodic evaluations every 10 years in order to determine their continued suitability.

NNAMDIThe Department of Defense moved quickly to establish both internal and external reviews of the security in place at the Navy Yard. You co-chaired the external review. And tell us a little bit about how you came to be selected for that job.

STOCKTONI had served from 2009 until January of 2013, as assistant secretary of defense for Homeland Defense. And in that responsibility I had two duties that are important for insider threats. First, I was the principle advisor to the secretary of defense for force protection, including the protection of DOD personnel from attacks such as occurred in the tragedy at the Washington Navy Yard.

STOCKTONSecond, Kojo, I was responsible for mission assurance. And that is insuring that the Department of Defense can execute its core missions even if adversaries use insiders in order to disrupt DOD operations. And I think it's important to keep that broader threat in mind as we look to the future, and as DOD continues to close the gap between where we were before the Washington Navy Yard and where the Department needs to be.

NNAMDI800-433-8850. Have you gone through a background check? Tell us how rigorous it was or was not. You can also send us a tweet, @kojoshow. Or go to our website, kojoshow.org. Ask a question or make a conversation there. We're talking with Paul Stockton, managing director with Sonecon, LLC and previously assistant secretary of defense for Homeland Security and America's Security Affairs.

NNAMDIHe joins us in studio with Marc Fisher, senior editor of the Washington Post, where Marc reports and writes on a wide range of topics. Marc, the notion that there are too many people with these security clearance credentials is not new. How did we get here and where else have we seen it manifest?

FISHERWell, unfortunately we've seen a number of very high-profile cases where the lack of adequate background checks, or background checks that did their job and no one acted on them, have resulted in tragedy. And whether it was Edward Snowden and the same company that checked Aaron Alexis also checked Edward Snowden -- or inadequately checked them.

FISHERBut we've seen this with other mass shootings and, you know, there have been a number of efforts to tighten that process and to change the rules regarding guns, the availability of guns to people who have mental illness, another big issue. But specifically on the background checks, there's now a lawsuit that the United States government and others have filed against the company that did the background checks on Aaron Alexis. The company's called U.S. Investigation Service.

FISHERAnd they had handled -- the government says that they had inadequately handled more than 600,000 background checks. And they had this tactic that they -- the government says they used called flushing. Where they would say -- they would seek government payment for background checks that really hadn't been done. And the government says that this happened in 600,000 cases.

FISHERThe company, of course, says that they did the work. But just today -- or yesterday, the government has cut off this company, USIS, and said that they will not renew any contract with them for doing background checks going forward.

NNAMDIPaul, putting the toothpaste back in the tube, as they say, is not so easy. Practically speaking, what does a program that dials this back, but allows for so-called just-in-time clearance, for example, what would a program like that look like and how might it work?

STOCKTONWell, rather than automatically assuming that everybody who joins the Department of Defense needs a security clearance, Kojo, each billet, each job would be reviewed in the Department of Defense, at least in terms of categories of jobs, to see whether that job actually requires access to classified information. And if a person is going to that job, that person should get a clearance. And that adjudication decision can be made very, very rapidly.

STOCKTONBecause everybody who joins the Department of Defense fills out an SSF68 form, with all of the data that's necessary in order to do preliminary investigations. So we need to insure that those who get clearances and go to billets that require clearances they get the secret clearances or top secret clearances that are required. And people who don't need classified access, don't get the clearances.

NNAMDIHow difficult would that be to put in operation now?

STOCKTONI think that progress is being made in a number of ways to make sure that the system functions more effectively. But part of the solution I recommend, Kojo, and that the independent review recommended is start by making a 10 percent reduction in the Department of Defense in the number of security clearances that are held now at the secret level. Let's start with that.

STOCKTONAnd then let's go through the longer, more time-consuming process of determining which jobs actually require access to secret clearances. And then make decisions on clearances accordingly.

NNAMDIHas any decision been made to start with that 10 percent reduction?

STOCKTONThe director of national intelligence, General Clapper, has called for a review for reducing the total number of those holding security clearances across the federal government. The issue is being studied very, very carefully now. And I'm hopeful that progress will continue.

NNAMDIOn now to the telephones. Here is Nick, in Arlington, Va. Nick, you're on the air. Go ahead, please.

NICKThank you for taking my call. I hate to change the subject so dramatically from the security clearance debate. I think it's actually extremely important that we have it. But following the day of the shooting, mass -- the misinformation that was being spread was so rampant that we were getting bad intel that it was two shooters, that it was a uniformed shooter.

NICKAnd then not only that, but the response from D.C.'s emergency response and police seemed to be troubling at best, given some of the reports that I heard and read about afterwards. If there's any comments about those.

NNAMDINick, you're not changing the subject. That's where we were planning to go next anyway. Because one of the major questions had to do with coordination of response. Tensions between D.C. city services, federal agencies of course are not new, Marc Fisher. The day of the Navy Yard shooting there was considerable confusion. How much of it was found to be systemic and avoidable? And how was -- how much was likely systemic and unavoidable or how much was likely a product of a chaotic and unanticipated event?

FISHERWell, I think it's pretty clear from the report that the D.C. police just recently concluded on how all of that went down, that the D.C. police and the other law enforcement agencies involved were not prepared for an event of this nature. The D.C. police had not trained for or prepared for responding to an event at a military installation. They had always assumed that the military would take care of that sort of thing on their own.

FISHERThere was an enormous problem on that day with multiple law enforcement agencies and officers self-assigning themselves, so that they -- or self-dispatching themselves so that they descended on this building in the hundreds, causing mass confusion. There were something like 117 officers that entered Building 197 in search of the shooter. When they eventually found him, eight officers from five different agencies fired their weapons at Aaron Alexis.

FISHERThe confusion of information was really quite remarkable. The caller is correct. There were false reports that were put out by the media during that morning. And that came from listening to various different police scanner radios, representing various different agencies, all of whom were confused because they proved to be unable to communicate with each other. And as Chief Lanier, of the D.C. police, put it the other day, that building was a tactical nightmare.

FISHERThere were so many places to hide, so many different agencies on the scene, and there really was no one coordinating. In fact, several different law enforcement agencies brought their RV-style command vans and busses to the scene and the people on the ground, the officers, didn't know who was really in charge.

NNAMDIPaul, the DOD itself is a massive organization, with layers of administration and redundancies. How did your recommendations address the issue of cohesion when it comes to security for both property and personnel?

STOCKTONDOD has opportunities, Kojo, to greatly strengthen the integration of insider threat management, to bring together the two stovepipe components, or each separate service, different defense agencies. Each are looking after their own version of what is information to be gathered, what's information to be integrated and what's information to be acted upon.

STOCKTONThe secretary of defense now has ordered that the Department integrate this insider threat management and analysis to create a center that'll provide for much more effective protection against the kinds of risks that we saw that the Washington Navy Yard tragedy.

NNAMDIHere now is Wayne, in Washington, D.C. Wayne, you are on the air. Go ahead, please.

WAYNEHey, how you guys doing today?

NNAMDIDoing well.

WAYNEAll right. So you guys got any questions for me? I -- like I just told your screener, I am actually not listening to the show.

NNAMDIBut?

WAYNESo I was actually one of the first guys in.

NNAMDIWhat agency are you with?

WAYNED.C.

NNAMDIYou're with the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department?

WAYNEYes, sir.

NNAMDIWe were talking earlier about the confusion. Marc Fisher, you want to take it from there?

FISHERWell, we've seen in the report that your department did on this that there was tremendous confusion there in part because the different law enforcement agencies didn't know what each other were doing or whose responsibility was whose. As someone who was on the ground, what did that confusion look like to you and what could have been done better?

WAYNEWell, that's true. And actually we've learned a lot from it. And every time we have a scenario like this, you know, we always learn a tremendous. So, you know, we had several agencies first responding and then, of course, you know, we come in as the D.C. Police Department. And, you know, we basically take over the scene. So, of course, there's always going to be a little it of miscommunication in the beginning.

WAYNEBut I can tell you that I know several people that went in there just before I got there and they did a lot more than I did, let me -- definitely heroes. NCIS, U.S. Marshal Service, even the -- some of the security guards that were on the facility, plus -- I'm not sure the name of the agency that actually patrols the Navy Yard, but they're a small police agency inside, did a fantastic job.

FISHERYou know, we were told early on that the arriving police -- that a number of officers were stuck outside the gates of the Navy Yard because the base had gone on lockdown and even the arriving first responders were not able to get inside. Did you encounter that?

WAYNEYes, but that was taken care of with a calmly manner.

NNAMDIBut at first when you got there you couldn't get in?

WAYNEJust for a moment. They were basically assessing the situation. I mean -- and at that point the shooter was -- had already been taken out.

NNAMDIOkay.

WAYNESo, and then the question was of a second and there was miscommunication because, you know, there were a couple of military people inside that people have misidentified as a secondary shooter.

NNAMDIOh, we do remember that aspect of the confusion. But, Wayne, thank you very much for calling and thank you very much for being there when you were needed. We have to take a short break. When we come back, we will continue this conversation looking at the mental health issue that was clearly involved here. Still taking your calls at 800-433-8850. Has your workplace conducted active shooter drills or offered training on this issue? You can send email to kojo@wamu.org or shoot us a tweet @kojoshow. I'm Kojo Nnamdi.

NNAMDIWelcome back. We're discussing the deadly and tragic Navy Yard shootings a year later with Paul Stockton. He is managing director with Sonecon, LLC, previously served as assistant secretary of defense for homeland defense and America's security affairs. He joins us in studio with Marc Fisher, senior editor of the Washington Post. Marc reports and writes on a wide-range of topic. You may know him as one of our regular guest hosts here.

NNAMDIPaul, the -- this act of mass violence, like so many before it, also raises serious questions about mental health care. This issue has been something of a catch-22 for the military. Your report highlights the stigma that persists in the culture, especially when it comes to self-reporting. How do you get around it?

STOCKTONWell, we need to further de-stigmatize treatment for mental health care problems. We need to do everything possible to ensure that women and men in the United State Military and contractor employees have access to the mental health care treatment that they need without punishing them. That said, because of the nature of this challenge, too, we also recommended that the department do more to effectively screen those who would join the military for preexisting mental health care challenges that could prove to be problems later on. We need both types of initiative simultaneously.

NNAMDIMarc, this region has reckoned with the question of how to handle mentally ill people who are a threat not only to others but to themselves, but yet concrete actions seems elusive. Do you see any signs of action on the horizon?

FISHERWell, it's not clear. I mean, there have been some moves. The Obama administration moved earlier this year to expand the ban on firearms from those who've been committed to mental institutions to those who have undergone involuntary outpatient commitments. That is the kind of move that might have stopped Seung-Hui Cho, the Virginia Tech shooter, from getting the handguns that be bought legally before going on that rampage.

FISHERAaron Alexis at the Navy Yard had legally bought a shotgun in Virginia despite a documented history of mental illness and gun-related arrests in both Texas and Washington State. So there are still tremendous loopholes, particularly at the state level. And then there is the question of how the military conducts and the rest of the government conduct this background checks that would have or should have shown exactly how troubled Aaron Alexis was. This was not a secret.

FISHERAnd he -- he left no explanatory note, but he had littered his path with statements, cries for help. He scratched on to the barrel of his shotgun, it said end to the torment. Well, he had said similar kinds of things to the police in Rhode Island. He had said that he was under ultralow frequency attack, which is a classic sign of -- another form of psychosis. And he had told this to his Veterans Administration counselor down in Texas and a number of friends who presumably would have been the people contacted in a rigorous background check.

NNAMDIOn again to the telephones and the issue of clearance. Here is David in Potomac, MD. David, your turn.

DAVIDHi, let me just get away from my radio. So, I'm retired from GAO and have been for about six years. And the discussion of security clearance is something that's near and dear to my heart because when we were doing this work, we interviewed a senior DOD official who told us that the government is paying about 15 percent more to hire somebody with a top secret clearance than without a clearance.

DAVIDSo that's a cost to the taxpayers that's probably, you know, many, many billions of dollars every single year. And so there's really something to be gained by reviewing jobs and figuring out whether you really need people with clearances, especially top secret clearances.

NNAMDIAnd I guess that's the point that you have been making, Paul Stockton.

STOCKTONYes, Kojo. But I'd also like to go back to the every important point that Marc just made. There was plenty of evidence that Aaron Alexis was facing severe mental health care challenges. He had problems. In addition to the periodic reviews that are already in place every 10 years now for secret clearances to make sure that people still deserve those clearances or still meriting those clearances, we need that continuous evaluation system. So when there is evidence that people are having difficulties, that can be brought to the attention of those who can then review those cases.

FISHERAnd then there are so many clearances that take place in the government for position -- hiring decisions and positions that don't merit that kind of deep investigation. And, you know, many people who live in Washington have been on the receiving end of calls or visits from the retired FBI agents who are called back into service to conduct these sort of ritual checks where you're asked questions like, you know, does this friend or neighbor have communist leanings?

FISHEROr did they ever do anything that they could be blackmailed for? You know, the kinds of questions that are not going to really reveal anything important or useful. And so, there's a ritualistic nature to a lot of these checks that are going on unnecessarily.

NNAMDIThe question also is not only about clearance, the question as you raised in the case of Aaron Alexis is that in situations where people have mental health issues or are mentally access to firearms. Other mass shootings and instances of workplace violence came before and since there have been more, both on bases at naval station in Norfolk in March and another at Fort Lee late last month, and off.

NNAMDIThese events bring to the fore, at least briefly, the questions about access to firearms. Yet it seems to be an stagnant issue when it come to any action, Marc. Do you see any momentum building on that front at all?

FISHERNo, not really. I mean, you know, as I mentioned earlier, the Obama administration has made some administrative changes as far as the ban on -- who's eligible for firearms purchases at the federal level. But we haven't seen much action either at the federal or state level on that question. A lot of talk around it. In Virginia, obviously, after State Senator Creigh Deeds' son attacked him, there was a whole discussion about looking at the rules on the treatment of mentally ill people. But on the gun front, there really hasn't been much action. That gets back to the national paralysis over attitudes toward gun ownership.

NNAMDIAnd on the issue of mental health, that's what Clark in Annapolis, MD would like to address. Clark, you're on the air, go ahead please.

CLARKHello?

NNAMDIHi, Clark.

CLARKHey, Kojo. I would like to start by saying very clearly that I'm a psychology student. And I've had a couple internships and I actually recognize some patterns among -- among patients in regards to firearms, specifically with depression and obsessive compulsive disorder or, excuse me, PTSD, posttraumatic stress.

CLARKI recognize that a few of them who seem to be receiving treatment well seem to come to the conclusion that they themselves would like to refrain from being around firearms, because in instances of suicides mostly, we've seen that -- or I have observed that in potential or suicide attempts, it's a very -- the patients describe it as a very impulsory and unconscious action that they're doing. And they get tunnel vision. And so they like to -- there's a good bit of them that like to distance themselves from that...

NNAMDIFrom firearms during...

CLARKExactly, just to avoid making...

NNAMDIWell, here's Paul Stockton.

STOCKTONWell, I just want to emphasize that from the perspective of predicting violence, Kojo, mental illness in isolation from other risk factors is an exceedingly week predictor of future violent behavior. So let's keep that in broader context and remind each other that it's imperative that DOD continue to work to assist individuals who acquired mental health care problems during their service. Got to continue to make progress in that regard.

FISHERBut Aaron Alexis was someone who, as the caller mentions, did tell friends that he was suffering posttraumatic stress disorder from having been in New York City at the time of the September 11th terrorist attacks. And it was following that that he made some effort personally to separate himself from guns and violent atmosphere. And he, in Texas, settled into an immigrant community where he meditated at a Buddhist temple and sought to distance himself from what he -- from the demons that he seem to be cognizant of at that point. Of course, later on, he didn't seem to be very aware of himself at all as things deteriorated.

NNAMDIWorkplace violence is not an issue unique to the Defense Department. Some have advocated for more drills and training, while a recent Wall Street Journal pointed out, legal complaints that active shooter drills have sparked. Paul, how does an organization of any sort or size strike a balance between readiness and fear?

STOCKTONWell, I think it's important not to turn this into something that is counterproductive, that produces fear. I'd also say that, going forward, as we ramp up continuous evaluation both in the private sector and in government of those who have access to classified information, it's very important to also strengthen protection of privacy. The fair information practice principles provide a good baseline to start to make sure that as we strengthen scrutiny of those who hold security clearances, we do much more than we've done in the past to continue to protect their privacy and information.

NNAMDIWe have fire drills all the time and people have become used to them. But active shooter drills seem to be a whole another...

FISHERWell, and in the case cited by the Wall Street Journal, these were drills to the officers who were conducting them but to the people who in the workplace they were not in all cases informed that this was a drill and people reacted quite severely and were traumatized by what appeared to be a true terrorist event rather than a drill.

FISHERAnd so, obviously, there's a danger that you overreact to these kinds of situations and create even more of this sort of security state in which something like a live drill, which people are not informed of its practice nature seems acceptable to somebody and obviously that's just not necessary.

NNAMDISpeaking of training, that's what Terry in Washington. D.C. would like to talk about. Terry, you're on the air, go ahead please.

TERRYThank you, Kojo. I'm calling -- I'm a co-chairman of the Washington, D.C. Police Foundation. We do a lot of work with Chief Lanier and her command staff, (unintelligible) private sector, support kids' programs of the police and so on. But what brings me to the program today is one of the great projects we were involved in was the over a four-year period of development and now bringing online of a brand-new, state-of-the-art tactical village out at the Police Academy. A $6 million facility that is really among the best in the country.

NNAMDIHow would that help in situations like occurred at the Navy Yard a year ago?

TERRYWell, exactly this way. We recreate for -- the great challenge, of course, is dealing with active shooters. We've recreated a 16-room classroom, school, townhouses, I mean, under two acres of undercover. But one of the areas is configured in such a way to allow for training to deal with situations like the Navy Yard that weren't anticipated. They went into a large room, 100 shoulder-high office dividers, hundreds of places in any one room for the shooter to hide.

TERRYThey now can configure at the tactical village to train for that. So it's a great facility. It's been brought online, best in the country and it I just wanted to bring that to the attention of your listeners.

NNAMDIDoes that tactical training involve any coordination with other security, federal or local agencies?

TERRYI know there's been a great demand or request by regional PDs to also to train in the facility. I don't -- I'm not clear whether or not it's joint training, but I know a lot of other -- Fairfax, Prince George and others and even some federal agencies are seeking time in the facility because of the tremendous appeal it has.

NNAMDIBecause, Marc Fisher, the ongoing story -- and thank you for your call, Terry, we only have about 30 seconds left -- is the tension between federal and local agencies here in Washington, D.C.

FISHERRight. We see that in everything from traffic management to major crises. And obviously it needs more coordination. And the reports that have come in so far about sort of after-action reports say that that is something that needs to be fixed. And the lines of communication as well as the lines of command were just not clear.

NNAMDIMarc Fisher, senior editor of the Washington Post where he reports and writes on a wide range of topics. Marc Fisher, always a pleasure.

FISHERThank you.

NNAMDIPaul Stockton is managing director with Sonecon, LLC, previously serving as assistant secretary of defense for homeland defense and America's security affairs from 2009 to 2013. Paul, thank you for joining us.

STOCKTONMy pleasure, Kojo.

NNAMDIAnd thank you all for listening. I'm Kojo Nnamdi.