The Obama Administration’s Orwellian government employee snitch network, dubbed the “Insider Threat Program,” first made headlines about a year ago. I found it to be so disturbingly significant I wrote a post about it titled: The 3 Key Takeaways from the Ridiculous “Insider Threat Program.” Those 3 key takeaways were that it…
- Creates a horrible and counterproductive work environment where everyone distrusts everyone else.
- 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.
- Exposes how completely hopeless and terminal the status quo is.
Fast forward a year, and it appears that several members of Congress are also becoming increasingly concerned. Some are starting to ask questions, but as usual, the “most transparent administration in history” is entirely nontransparent. We learn from the Washington Post that:
In early April, Sen. Charles E. Grassley summoned FBI officials to his Capitol Hill office. He said he wanted them to explain how a program designed to uncover internal security threats would at the same time protect whistleblowers who wanted to report wrongdoing within the bureau.
The meeting with two FBI officials, including the chief of the bureau’s Insider Threat Program, ended almost as soon as it began. The officials said the FBI would protect whistleblowers by “registering” them. When Grassley’s staff members asked them to elaborate, the FBI officials declined to answer any more questions and headed for the door.
“We’re leaving,” said J. Christopher McDonough, an FBI agent assigned to the bureau’s congressional affairs office, said Senate staff members who attended the meeting.
The episode infuriated Grassley (Iowa), a leading advocate for whistleblowers in Congress and the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee. Any effort to register whistleblowers, he said, would “clearly put a target on their backs.”
The Insider Threat Program and a continuous monitoring initiative under consideration in the intelligence community were begun by the Obama administration after the leaks of classified information by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden and Army Pvt. Chelsea Manning, and the Navy Yard shootings by Aaron Alexis, who used his security clearance to gain access to the base.
The programs are designed to prevent leaks of classified information by monitoring government computers and employees’ behavior.
Grassley said the episode with the FBI illustrates how federal agencies are setting up internal security programs without giving careful consideration to whether they could dissuade whistleblowers from coming forward.
“The Insider Threat Program has the potential for taking the legs out from underneath all of the whistleblower protections we have,” Grassley said in a recent interview.
Greg Klein, the head of the FBI’s Insider Threat Program, and McDonough, the congressional affairs agent, did not return calls seeking comment. An FBI spokesman said the bureau does not plan to register whistleblowers. He said there was a misunderstanding about the nature of the briefing with staff members for Grassley, Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) and a law enforcement official who is assigned to the Senate panel. The spokesman noted that the FBI has a whistleblower training program for employees and a whistleblower protection office.
Of course not. Why would a federal police force have to answer to Congress or the media? It’s not like this is a democracy or anything.
Grassley is part of a growing chorus of lawmakers on Capitol Hill and attorneys for whistleblowers who warn that the Insider Threat Program and the potential intelligence community initiative threaten to undermine federal workers’ ability to report wrongdoing without retaliation.
Together, the programs cover millions of federal workers and contractors at every government agency.
“I think it’s time to put up the caution light here,” said Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee.
“This really has the potential for abuse, and I think it could have a chilling effect on the public’s right to know and effective oversight of our government,” Wyden said.
Michael German, a former undercover FBI agent and whistleblower, called the Insider Threat Program a “dangerous” initiative.
“These agencies have long treated whistleblowers as security threats and this makes things even worse,” said German, now a senior national security fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law.
As I have maintained time and time again, what is clear since the Edward Snowden revelations is that the government has zero interest in reining in these programs. It merely wants to make sure the public can never learn about government criminality in the future. Hence the aggressive “war on whistleblowers.”
Full article here.
In Liberty,
Michael Krieger
T4C……..LOL!
Now that I have two dogs I get that look a lot from one when I pet the other. The two dogs could not be more different but they are both jealous of the other.
The older dog is a fool for tennis balls! Psychotic even!
The puppy seems to love bugs more than any other thing in life. She is always dragging bugs in the house to play with. Slugs, worms, bees, ants, beetles, ladybugs, spiders and several bugs that I have no idea what they are. She plays with them gently for quite some time before they expire. They probably drown from the dog slobber. She had a huge slug about nine inches long one day and I thought it was a garter snake! When I mow the lawn in the evening these tiny white moths come up out of the grass and she runs around pouncing on them and collecting them in her mouth. If I startle her sometimes a moth will fly out of her mouth while she stares at me.
I’m going to buy her a small kiddy pool and put some live crayfish in it to see what she does with a critter that can fight back!
I was going to add that when the puppy finds a bug that can actually move through her fur like ants or little centipedes it’s like watching her play “red light, green light” as she alternately freezes so she can “feel” where it’s at and then freaks out trying to capture it! Hilarious!
Puppies kick ass!
We should not be too concerned over this nonsense. The militarization of the police, this silly “inside threat” program and all the rest of this bullshit will lead to nothing but mass chaos, and that is a good thing. In fact, the more innocent, law-abiding Americans who fall into the machinery of oppression, the better. Each one will emerge embittered, enraged and with their eyes wide open. Every arrogant, loud-mouth cop, every groping pervert at the airport, every lying piece of shit politician or official cuts the ground from underneath the whole sordid show. The shoot-down of the Malaysian jetliner – almost certainly an accident and probably done by Ukraine forces – will blow up in the faces of the warmongers soon enough. The Gaza mess has forced millions to see the Israelis as they really are. We are getting pretty close to a “Nobody is in control” moment.
T4C, Soly the pup provides hours of laughs as she rolls around on the floor playing with bugs. She has figured out how to spit them out about two feet at a time then she growls as she does a low crawl in their direction. It must be hell to be a bug!