Last month, Fox News reported that more than 700 Iranian nationals — some flagged for terrorism concerns — had been admitted into the United States during the Biden years by US immigration authorities. Arrested while crossing our border with Mexico, they were later released by the administration into the sprawl of American life.
But while political chatter continues to orbit the border — who crossed, when and how — the more urgent threat is hiding in plain sight.
It doesn’t wear foreign colors or carry a forged passport. It wears a uniform. It carries a badge. It has credentials. And it has access.
The danger isn’t who’s trying to get in. The danger is who American authorities have already let in — and who they’ve long since stopped watching.
One of them was Joseph Daniel Schmidt. On June 20, the former Army intelligence sergeant pleaded guilty to attempting to deliver US military secrets to China. He is currently in federal custody and scheduled for sentencing this September.
This wasn’t a Cold War thriller. It was a betrayal by a soldier with a security clearance and access to top-secret systems. Schmidt served at Joint Base Lewis–McChord from 2015 to 2020. After leaving the Army, he emailed Chinese government contacts offering to share information on American surveillance and intelligence capabilities. He then flew to Hong Kong, carrying a secure-access device and a set of classified military briefings.
Prosecutors haven’t disclosed whether Schmidt was paid, but his communications suggested he was seeking protection or compensation in exchange for secrets.
It’s easy to see Schmidt as a fluke. He isn’t.
In April, Army analyst Korbein Schultz was sentenced to seven years for leaking 92 classified documents — including intelligence on missile defense — to someone he believed was a Chinese agent. He was paid $42,000. In March, three US soldiers were arrested for stealing and selling components from the Army’s HIMARS missile system. And just weeks ago, two Chinese nationals were charged with attempting to recruit US military personnel to spy for Beijing.
For decades, America’s national security bureaucracy — from the Pentagon to the CIA — has operated under the assumption that once an employee is granted a security clearance, they remain trustworthy. The clearance — and access — is rarely reviewed again. Which is why so many of the most dangerous people we’re failing to watch are not infiltrators. They are government employees, contractors and uniformed personnel working within our bases, intelligence hubs and encrypted networks. And the systems meant to monitor them have failed to keep pace.
A 2023 Government Accounting Office report found that nearly 80% of the 3.6 million Americans with security clearances aren’t enrolled in any kind of continuous vetting. Some go a full decade without a second look.
The Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency’s vetting program covers 3.8 million individuals, but only alerts for administrative flags: arrests, bankruptcies, foreign travel. It does not monitor social media activity, encrypted communication platforms or psychological instability.
We assume loyalty is permanent. It isn’t. A soldier might pass a polygraph at 25 and spiral at 32 — financially, emotionally, ideologically — and no one will notice until it’s too late.
Our allies are adapting. In the UK, the Cabinet Office has expanded its insider-threat protocols to include behavioral risk modeling and continuous social monitoring for civil servants and defense employees. In Israel, the Shin Bet runs rolling psychological and behavioral checks on military officers and cleared intelligence personnel even after initial vetting.
We aren’t doing the same.
Meanwhile, China’s Ministry of State Security, especially Bureau 4 — which focuses on penetrating foreign governments — is well aware of the holes in our system. They use LinkedIn, WhatsApp and even job boards to target disillusioned Americans with access to secure intelligence. The pitch doesn’t start with cash. It starts with a connection.
Security clearance must become a living credential — reviewed and revalidated continuously, not granted once and forgotten. That means real-time risk analysis at onboarding, and long-term behavioral monitoring for anyone with access to sensitive materials — especially in the military and intelligence community.
When red flags emerge, clearances should be paused within days, not buried under six months of interagency red tape. And yes, this does happen. A GAO study examining the Department of Defense’s continuous evaluation pilot found that 3% of the personnel reviewed warranted revocation or suspension of access.
Another GAO report found that clearance revocations could take anywhere from 220 to 375 days — even when credible concerns had already been flagged.
This isn’t a theoretical gap. It’s a procedural failure. The result is a security architecture that moves too slowly for the risks it’s supposed to manage.
Joseph Schmidt wasn’t exotic. He was a soldier. Trained. Trusted. Ignored.
The next breach won’t come from malware or missiles. It will walk through the front door — with a badge, a login and no one watching.
Kevin Cohen is the CEO and co-founder of the cyber-intelligence company RealEye.ai.
This story originally appeared on NYPost
