Note: Long time (non-registered, then finally registered) user; lots of comments; first diary. Be gentle, please.
I’ve been waiting for someone to diary about this, US network to scan workers with secret clearances, reported yesterday by the AP. Hadn’t seen anything, other than small blurb over at DU, and now a short post at TechDirt. The comments so far on that site have been atrocious. It’s all like “here’s a mirror,” and “who’s gonna watch the watchers,” and "always a totally different kettle of fish when it's your ass under the microscope!!.
Just in case anyone around here has read this and, like these nitwits, have come away with the idea that it’s only the Intel contractors who are subject to this, let me please dissuade you from that false recap.
Make the Jump for more!
As the AP states:
Stung by internal security lapses, U.S. intelligence officials plan to use a sweeping electronic system to continually monitor workers with secret clearances, current and former officials told The Associated Press. The system is intended to identify rogue agents, corrupt officials and leakers and draws on a Defense Department model under development for more than a decade, according to officials and documents reviewed by the AP.
Read the line that says “to continually monitor workers with secret clearances…” and also the one “under development for more than a decade…”
Here’s what our favorite DNI guy, Clapper, had to say in rebuttal to privacy advocates and the Gov’t Employees Union:
"What we need is a system of continuous evaluation where when someone is in the system and they're cleared initially, then we have a way of monitoring their behavior, both their electronic behavior on the job as well as off the job," Director of National Intelligence James Clapper told Congress last month.
This is personal monitoring and profiling – data collection and file creation - of ALL government employees, regardless of what job they hold, both on-the-job and off-the-job (on their own personal time). Practically everyone who works for the government has a secret clearance, whether their job ever brings them within 100 miles of secret information. Although no one admits as such, I’ve come to the conclusion it’s just part of the package of becoming a GS employee – like fingerprints and background checks. Many of us have said for years gov’t has a problem with over-classifying its employees!
Clapper states that they’re going to be pulling this from “six or seven data streams” (whatever THAT means), and that some employees could start being monitored as early as September, and then the whole monitoring program would be “fully operational across the government by September 2016.”
Oh… and get this… even Clapper (stand-up guy he is) admits it’s going to be expensive. He estimates it’ll be nearly $9 million dollars for just next year, alone. He also calls this “Insider Threat-related” research. All of us GS employees around here KNOW how much training we already get on “Insider threats.” Well, it seems now we’re ALL going to be considered guilty until proven under “Insider Threats.” Wonder why Repubs and Dems both thought cutting food stamps, etc., was necessary? And how many really believe this decade long program isn’t already in use in one form or another?
I admit it; when it comes to government “for our own good” (aka “cya”) I’m extremely cynical. Don’t care what party… or who… is in office; just used to trust the Dems more. No longer. If this, as well as the rest of the alphabet soup’s spying programs, has Obama’s approval… then they’ve lost mine; this is the last straw, and not just because it affects me personally. I’m also afraid I don’t trust Hillary to end this unconstitutional snooping, either. THIS type of issue will be Number 1 on my questioning of any candidate for any office – city, state, or federal – followed closely by Women’s Rights and Gay Rights. But I worry, mightily….
What repercussions might I face by posting this diary here? Or commenting on TechDirt? Or writing it up and commenting on it to my small group on my own website? I shouldn’t be afraid to speak my mind in this country, right?
What constitutional right do “they” have to PERSONALLY monitor and record everything in my life – on the job and off the job – and, merging that with those data streams on which we’re all being recorded; capturing my friends, family, etc?
While I may object to being monitored at work, I have to accept that. By dint of prior judgments, we all do, wherever we work. But nowhere is a business allowed to monitor everything you do in your off-time. Surely, this is a bridge-too-far? And yet, I look at the comments on TechDirt and I shake my head, both in wonder and fear.
I have more than one dog in this fight. I’m not only a government employee; I’m a progressive. In fact, I am a flaming liberal with a loud mouth who is proud of who and what I am, as well as all those protests I’ve been part of, and all the causes I’ve supported since I came of age in the hippie-era. (NO DFH bashing tolerated!) Plenty of stuff for gov’t snoops to paw through a second, third, fourth time or more. Each issue can be seen a little differently depending on who’s in charge, eh?
I’m also a Pagan, and Craft. Been one now for over 35 years. Not only that, I’m a High Priestess of an active coven – one which has been together for over 20 years – about the same time I came “out of the broom closet.” Known in the US and in some places overseas for nearly as long as that. In those 35 years, I’ve seen the witch scare and people jailed. I’ve personally known people jailed for holding a small Circle (their form of worship) in their apartment, as well as people who’ve had their kids taken away. Yes, those jailed were released because of the “freedom to worship”… but they still lost their jobs, many of their friends, and some… even had family members turn against them. In addition to that, I live in Kansas. Enough said, right?
I rescue animals and, when I had the $$$ did catch, spay, release. Those no one else would take, became part of my family. No animal was left to suffer anywhere around me. Same way with people. I feed everything I can – from four-footed to two-footed, to those with wings.
Before the Web came into existence, I also was one of the only females in this area to setup and run a FidoNet-connected BBS, specifically on the topic of Paganism, Wicca, and other alternative religions. I was also a proud member of PodsNet (Pagan oriented network), and several smaller networks. You can still find the name of my old BBS, Tapestry, listed on the Internet today.
Now… Just how much of the information I posted in those two preceding paragraphs press how many buttons on someone’s “watch list?” Where are MY Constitutional Rights? Did I give those up simply because I took a GS position worth 2/3 of the salary I was previously being paid as a contractor? Is that what I, and others like me, deserve after our years of Military Service? Is this my “reward” for being simply being “an American?”
And if they don’t press someone’s buttons now, what about when we get a Republican House, Senate, and/or Presidency? What if that President is a (closeted or not) Dominionist?
I’m officially scared now. Not freaking-out, running around scared. HEALTHILY scared – for the present and the future. What can I do? I’m nearly 60 years old. I’ve been in the tech business since punch cards and am still in it today (doing web-type work). No one else is going to hire me now. I’m too old to be hired for another job, and too young to retire… not that I could afford that, right now, either! And you have NO IDEA how fracked-out MAD I am. “Spitting mad” doesn’t even BEGIN to touch it. Although I can’t afford any more money coming out of my meager paycheck, I AM going to be joining the Government Employees Union – if I can get assurances they’re going to fight this.
But cognitive dissonance runs deep. How can I continue to support my politics when I know they’re deemed as against those in power? How can I continue to minister to my coven, and others who come to me, knowing they could be one of those “jumps” the NSA prides itself on collecting? How can I continue to let my voice be heard, when the government, itself, is saying, “You don’t have a voice unless we agree with the words?” -- Not just on-the-job, but in my own private, very personal, constitutionally guaranteed, life?
I’m 4-7 years from retirement. I like my job. I love the people I work with; we’re like a family… more so than anywhere else I’ve worked. Many of us are former or retired military. We have shared experiences, regardless of our politics. I consider the job I do to be important to those I serve. I consider “service” to be the highest calling. Yet the government, itself, is now telling me because of this, I’m a suspected “Insider Threat” for no reason other than they got their butt caught out on secrets they never should have been keeping in the first place. Over-classification of material, even that already in the public sphere for whatever reason, is a huge problem. Oh, no… Let’s not address over-classification! We need our secrets! Instead, react with the heaviest hand one can think of. Someone takes info out on a USB drive? Well, we’ll fix that! Block all USB ports!!! And, once again, it’s dump on those stupid enough to have thought public service was a good cause to which to devote their life and livelihood.