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US Intelligence Officials To Monitor Federal Employees With Security Clearances
First time accepted submitter Trachman writes in with news about a monitoring program designed to help stop future leaks of government documents. "U.S. intelligence officials are planning a sweeping system of electronic monitoring that would tap into government, financial and other databases to scan the behavior of many of the 5 million federal employees 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."
I can't imagine why they wouldn't monitor people with access to secret clearances. I know they polygraph them all the time and regularly perform spot checks for law enforcement violations, etc.
Don't want the government knowing everything about you? Don't request secret clearance from it.
But who monitors the monitors?
The best way to prevent leaks like those that have happened lately is to have a REAL, RESPONSIVE, FUNCTIONAL whistle blower program so people do not have to take the law into their own hands.
Meaingfully monitoring five million people is going to be very difficult. Perhaps we should re-evaluate what is classified and what jobs need classified status. If you have less people with secrets, it's much easier to keep them.
This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
Is it not more unreasonable that we have five million people (out of a total of just under 320 million, with labor force size ~155 million, unknown percentage of that with characteristics that make them getting a clearance rather unlikely) involved in Super Secret Uncle Sam Stuff?
br> I'm less interested in crying for the poor, poor, clearanceholders and more interested in why a touch over three percent of the US labor force spends its time pushing classified paper.
as a holder of a SECRET clearance, I would disagree.
:)
'unreasonable' is meaningless when national security is involved. I don't particularly like it, but civil rights go out the window when there's actual national security concerns. Now, whether there really are any justifying this is another question entirely
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
1. Because Government is a Big Business (about 40% of the GDP) and,
2. The Military Industrial Complex is a large portion of that (particulars unimportant for now) and
3. The MIC arguably does deal in quite a bit of classified paper ("We have top men looking into that....") and, most important
4. When you have the only tool you know how to use is a Top Secret stamp, everything looks like a Classified Document.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Civil rights never go out the window. As a cleared government employee I have not waived my civil rights and would never do so. I have agreed to allow some intrusive inspection of my life but I still have and will always have my civil rights.
Idiots like you who think that national security trumps all are what is wrong with today's national security infrastructure.
One word: Contractors.
This is a boring sig