Sometimes I am so shocked and dismayed about a US Government policy that I feel I should write long essays chastising the President, Congress, the courts, or whoever formulated the policy. What usually happens is that I’m first made aware of the malfeasance at a blog like Charlie Pierce’s or maybe Digby’s. I then realize that they’ve said what I wanted to say but a whole lot better.
That’s the case today. Pierce writes about this story from McClatchy:
President Barack Obama’s unprecedented initiative, known as the Insider Threat Program, is sweeping in its reach. It has received scant public attention even though it extends beyond the U.S. national security bureaucracies to most federal departments and agencies nationwide, including the Peace Corps, the Social Security Administration and the Education and Agriculture departments. It emphasizes leaks of classified material, but catchall definitions of “insider threat” give agencies latitude to pursue and penalize a range of other conduct.
Government documents reviewed by McClatchy illustrate how some agencies are using that latitude to pursue unauthorized disclosures of any information, not just classified material. They also show how millions of federal employees and contractors must watch for “high-risk persons or behaviors” among co-workers and could face penalties, including criminal charges, for failing to report them. Leaks to the media are equated with espionage.
I’m outraged by this, but I can’t hold a candle to Pierce’s feelings:
You want “Nixonian”? This, right here, this is Nixonian, if Nixon had grown up in East Germany. You’ve got the entire federal bureaucracy looking for signs of “high-risk persons or behaviors” the way Nixon sent Fred Malek out to count the Jews. You’ve got created within the entire federal bureaucracy a culture of spies and informers, which will inevitably breed fear and deceit and countless acts of interoffice treachery. (Don’t like your boss at the Bureau Of Land Management? Hmm, he looks like a high-risk person. Tell someone.) And this is the clincher.
Hammer this fact home . . . leaking is tantamount to aiding the enemies of the United States,” says a June 1, 2012, Defense Department strategy for the program that was obtained by McClatchy.
Yep. Turn your employees into informants. That’s a helluva way to ensure they’re getting their jobs done.
This is unbelievable. If Obama signed off on this rather than it being some wild hair idea of a Cabinet under-secretary then he’s not the man I voted for at all. This needs to be stopped at once.
This kind of creepy yet rather stupid nonsense is what should disturb people about their tax money being wasted on putting people in positions to need to spend more time Covering Their Asses in a cutthroat work environment that’s already stressed by the crappy job market & understaffing, than working as a team to accomplish the goals we as a society want them to accomplish.
And if nothing else, general “co-workers” should not be considered sufficiently qualified to judge who or what is “high risk”. For pity’s sake, with that kind of general order, you’re going to have the receptionist at the local Social Security office being sacked & investigated for having mentioned that the clerical pool department head eats puffed wheat for breakfast within earshot of a reporter for the local 10-page newspaper at the corner bar’s happy hour.