The 3 Key Takeaways from the Ridiculous “Insider Threat Program”

McClatchy’s recent report covering the government’s expansive employee snitch policy, aka the Insider Threat Program, has gotten a great deal of attention in the alternative media, and rightfully so. I finally took the time to read it and quickly realized that I need to offer my own take since it encapsulates so much of the severe mental illness, delusion and sociopathy rampant within the so-called American “elite” class.

The first line of the report pretty much summarizes what the Insider Threat Program intends to do:

“In an initiative aimed at rooting out future leakers and other security violators, President Barack Obama has ordered federal employees to report suspicious actions of their colleagues.”

There are three main takeaways from this revelation I think are crucial to be aware of.  I will cover each of them briefly.

1) This creates a horrible and counterproductive work environment where everyone distrusts everyone else.

So imagine working for the government and being fully aware that because you are going through a divorce or having some financial difficulties that you are now deemed “suspicious” to your superiors.  What about voicing a political view in a conversation at the water cooler? The mere fact that this program exists turns the work environment into a virtual prison where all normal human behavior is suspect and you are encouraged to become a government robot.  But it’s even worse than that.  This program guarantees that the nastiest and most immoral types will rise to the top. Someone with sociopathic tendencies will quickly realize that the “upside” is to always snitch on everyone. Is there someone right above you who’s position you covet?  Simply make consistent accusations against them and play the political game until you ruin that person. This works particularly well if your target is a decent person.

2) Solidifies the fact the government is not interested in solving problems, but rather is focused on continuing the cronyism and criminality and merely covering it up.

The above point basically summarizes everything that is wrong with all of our major institutions today, and why we have total political and economic disfunction. This is a topic I have covered for many, many years with regard to the financial system. The reason the economy has not really recovered and why it will not enter into a healthy recovery is that our “leaders” merely covered up all of the bubbles and crimes pre-2008.  Not only did no one go to jail, but those most responsible for the crisis were rewarded with high political positions (Larry Summers and Tim Geithner) and also monetarily through bailouts. The same thing is now happening with the NSA scandal. Rather than addressing this gross violation of the 4th Amendment as well as Clapper lying in front of Congress, the power structure is focused on making sure its crimes aren’t revealed going forward. Whistleblowers are prosecuted and jailed, while those in power destroying the Constitution are promoted. This guarantees future societal breakdown.

3) Exposes how completely hopeless and terminal the status quo is.

This is the silver lining to the entire thing. I have covered previously how the status quo has no philosophy the masses can believe in. Its position of power depends on its crimes being hidden in the shadows and enormous payoffs (or threats) for those at the top directly involved in the pillaging. Once the scam is exposed, the public will ultimately turn against the system. This is why Snowden’s leaks are so important and why the status quo is panicking. One of the things McClatchy notes is that one trend the government is looking out for is: “an increasingly disgruntled, post-Great Recession workforce and the entry of younger, ‘Gen Y’ employees who were ‘raised on the Internet.'”  Sorry, but a power structure this frightened of the younger generation cannot and will not survive. It is simply a matter of time.

Now here are some key excerpts from the McClatchy report:

WASHINGTON — In an initiative aimed at rooting out future leakers and other security violators, President Barack Obama has ordered federal employees to report suspicious actions of their colleagues based on behavioral profiling techniques that are not scientifically proven to work, according to experts and government documents.

The techniques are a key pillar of the Insider Threat Program, an unprecedented government-wide crackdown under which millions of federal bureaucrats and contractors must watch out for “high-risk persons or behaviors” among co-workers. Those who fail to report them could face penalties, including criminal charges.

The order covers virtually every federal department and agency, including the Peace Corps, the Department of Education and others not directly involved in national security.

Federal employees and contractors are asked to pay particular attention to the lifestyles, attitudes and behaviors – like financial troubles, odd working hours or unexplained travel – of co-workers as a way to predict whether they might do “harm to the United States.” Managers of special insider threat offices will have “regular, timely, and, if possible, electronic, access” to employees’ personnel, payroll, disciplinary and “personal contact” files, as well as records of their use of classified and unclassified computer networks, polygraph results, travel reports and financial disclosure forms.

The White House, the Justice Department, the Peace Corps and the departments of Health and Human Services, Homeland Security and Education refused to answer questions about the program’s implementation.Instead, they issued virtually identical email statements directing inquiries to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, declined to comment or didn’t respond.

Transparency!

Caitlin Hayden, a spokeswoman for the White House National Security Council, said in her statement that the Insider Threat Program includes extra safeguards for “civil rights, civil liberties and privacy,” but she didn’t elaborate.

I spit out my coffee laughing at that one.

Manning’s leaks to WikiLeaks, she added, showed that at the time protections of classified materials were “inadequate and put our nation’s security at risk.”

Ok Caitlin, so killing civilians and laughing about it isn’t the problem, the problem is that the world found out about it. USA! USA!

McClatchy obtained a copy of the document, which was produced by an Insider Threat Task Force that was set up under Obama’s order and is headed by Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and Attorney General Eric Holder. McClatchy also obtained the group’s final policy guidance. The White House, the Justice Department and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence declined requests for both documents, neither of which is classified.

More transparency.

For instance, an FBI insider threat detection guide warns private security personnel and managers to watch for “a desire to help the ‘underdog’ or a particular cause,” a “James Bond Wannabe” and a “divided loyalty: allegiance to another person or company or to a country besides the United States.”

A “desire to help the underdog.”  How evil and un-American.

A report by the Deloitte consulting firm identifies “several key trends that are making all organizations particularly susceptible to insider threat today.” These trends include an increasingly disgruntled, post-Great Recession workforce and the entry of younger, “Gen Y” employees who were “raised on the Internet” and are “highly involved in social networking.”

That there is a long-term strategy guaranteed to fail. The message is essentially to beware all members of a particular generation, and those that use the internet (ie, those who haven’t been fully indoctrinated with decades of Operation Mockingbird media).  Good lord.

But some current and former U.S. officials and experts worry that Obama’s Insider Threat Program could lead to false or retaliatory accusations across the entire government, in part because security officials are granted access to information outside their usual purview.

These current and former U.S. officials and experts also ridiculed as overly zealous and simplistic the idea of using reports of suspicious behavior to predict potential insider threats. It takes years for professional spy-hunters to learn their craft, and relying on the observations of inexperienced people could lead to baseless and discriminatory investigations, they said.

“Anyone is an amateur looking at behavior here,” said Thomas Fingar, a former State Department intelligence chief who chaired the National Intelligence Council, which prepares top-secret intelligence analyses for the president, from 2005 to 2008.

Co-workers, Fingar said, should “be attentive” to colleagues’ personal problems in order to refer them to counseling, not to report them as potential security violators. “It’s simply because they are colleagues, fellow human beings,” he said.

Careful Mr. Fingar, that sensitivity type talk is awfully close to terrorist talk in the United States of Merica these days.

Full article here.

In Liberty,
Mike

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9 thoughts on “The 3 Key Takeaways from the Ridiculous “Insider Threat Program””

  1. Q: And who on Earth would willingly work under such Orwellian conditions?

    A: Any unemployed college graduate staring down a lifetime servicing an unpayable, undischargeable tuition debt–wait for it–once the government rolls out it’s new tuition-debt-forgiveness program for federal employees.
    Alongside all of the other benefits Fed workers still get, the program might feature…. signing “bonus” that goes right to principle… monthly payroll deductions matched by your employer, the US taxpayer…and other mechanisms, all drawn out over an adult career span that makes it impossible for you to quit or act out, and guaranteeing Michael’s point about rewarding the sociopathic.

    Niiiiiice!

    Reply
  2. I believe this is the same tactic our military used in Afghanistan when they first arrived in October of 2001. They basically let all the rival faction tribes point at each other and lie so that the military police would lock them up. Of course we are still sorting out that nightmare in Guantanamo today. But I’m sure this tactic will work in a civilized office envrionment right?!! And by the way, since Snowden leaked that you are spying on everyone…..why is this new see somthing, say something deal even necessary? Your spying should already tell you who is and who isn’t a good guy. Just lock up all the good guys, and let the sociopaths do what the tribal warlords in Afghanistan did. That will end the corruption!

    Tranparency? Special precautions to protect our civil liberties? C’mon, I fell off my Brooklyn Bridge that I bought from you last time. Me thinks the power base is having serious credibility issues. And you mentioned people with dual citizenships are potential whistle blowers. Does that include all of the countries in the middle east, or is there one country that is exempt from that region? Don’t ask, don’t tell turned into snoop on your neighbor pretty quickly didn’t it?

    Whatever happened to mind your own beeswax?

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  3. The Venetian Mouth of Truth was the mark of the end-times for the Venetian Empire. Anyone could drop a slip on you and did not even have to sign their name. You would be tortured to confess and all your assets confiscated. Such practices destroy the very purpose of civilization – coming together for cooperation. Turning everyone against everyone else defeats the entire purpose.

    Reply

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