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US Intelligence Officials To Monitor Federal Employees With Security Clearances

Posted by samzenpus on from the watching-the-watchers dept.

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."

38 of 186 comments (clear)

  1. One would hope by colin_faber · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:One would hope by pixelpusher220 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      No they don't polygraph you all the time. There are 'SECRET' clearances, which I have, that are basically nothing more than a background check. No other checks are done at all that involve me. Never had a polygraph ever.

      TOP SECRET might, but there is TOP SECRET w/Poly as a separate clearance so me thinks that might be the only one that gets it sometimes. This isn't '24'.

      --
      People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people :-D
    2. Re:One would hope by Whorhay · · Score: 2

      I think the only standard practice for TS over S clearance is that they will very likely send people to talk to your references and vaildate work and habitation history in so far as it is possible. I've worked with a lot of TS people and never heard of any of them being subjected to a polygraph, though it is allowed for in the clearance agreement. What I do see happening on a semi regular basis is drug testing. They also pull a random sampling on a fairly constant basis for periodic review of stuff like credit history.

      When I enlisted it was standard practice for every basic graduate to be given a Secrect Clearance. The only people I knew that didn't get a clearance were obvious exceptions, like the guy who was born in the US but visited relatives in Columbia every couple years since the time he was an infant. There was no way he could give them a detailed list of every association he had made in Columbia and even less of a chance that they'd be able to validate it.

    3. Re:One would hope by tsqr · · Score: 2

      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.

      I have held a secret clearance for 36 years and have been polygraphed exactly zero times. But then, I work for a defense contractor, not the Federal government.

    4. Re:One would hope by n7ytd · · Score: 2

      Yes, and TS doesn't always get you a polygraph, either. Even SCI doesn't automatically mean a polygraph.

  2. So much... by cayenne8 · · Score: 4, Funny

    ...for posting on Slashdot during work hours for many.

    --
    Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
    1. Re:So much... by Znork · · Score: 2

      If you want to post on Slashdot just transfer to the JTRIG unit for Slashdot posting.

  3. 1984 Cascade by xdor · · Score: 5, Insightful

    But who monitors the monitors?

    1. Re:1984 Cascade by ackthpt · · Score: 2

      Indeed. The SS did a great job of this. They just have to make you think everyone is a snitch.

      You have been reported.

      I reported myself, too, just for good measure.

      --

      A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
    2. Re:1984 Cascade by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 2

      You just aim one of the cameras onto its own screen. You've never done that?

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    3. Re:1984 Cascade by beatle42 · · Score: 2

      Whether polygraphs work or not depends on what you want them to do. You may not be able to say for sure that a person is lying or not, but if you're using it as one tool in a suite to decide if someone is worthy of trust it can be effective. You may rule out some people that you could have trusted, but if you're ruling out people you shouldn't trust it's a good tool. You may trust some people you shouldn't still, but that's why it's not the only tool you use.

      And I think they'll still get plenty of recruits because a) there are some people who think that helping the government is a worthwhile pursuit and b) if you have a special qualification in any job (e.g., hold a security clearance) you can generally make more money than someone who doesn't have that qualification.

    4. Re:1984 Cascade by Marginal+Coward · · Score: 2

      I've long held a theory that polygraphs are near-useless as scientific lie-detection devices, but are used primarily as a sort of psychological "truth serum". In other words, the fact that someone is connected to something that they *think* can detect a lie encourages them to tell the truth. That's just my personal theory though - I have no science to back that up.

    5. Re:1984 Cascade by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 2

      "Anyway, there is evidence that they work significantly better than chance on untrained people that believe they work. In other words, most of the time for most people."

      There is also a lot of evidence that they don't. Or rather: it may be "significantly more than chance", but not enough more to be really useful.

      Quote from the first sentence of that first link:

      "Most psychologists agree that there is little evidence that polygraph tests can accurately detect lies."

      And from the second:

      "For federal agencies, the polygraph is a way to get around discrimination laws. There is virtually no appeal you can make if you are failed by a federal polygrapher. The polygraph is a license to abuse power."

      And from the conclusion of the third:

      "The instrument cannot itself detect deception... false positive rate (innocent persons found deceptive) ranged from 0 to 75 percent and averaged 19.1 percent;"

      An average of over 19% false positive rate (government's own figures), and as high as 75%, means the polygraph is effectively useless as a lie detector for any serious purposes. That's a HUGE false positive rate. It simply isn't a basis for punishing someone when there is an almost 20% chance on average that the results are false. And that's just false positives... there are false negatives too.

      I repeat: the government knows this, and uses it more as an instrument of intimidation, in order to try to wring confessions out of people, than anything else. Many ex-government-polygraphers -- and subjects of polygraph exams, for that matter -- have told the same story.

    6. Re:1984 Cascade by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 2

      There is also a lot of evidence that they don't.

      Except that NONE of these studies say polygraphs "don't work". Instead they say they are imperfect, and often used incorrectly or even maliciously. Which is a different thing.

  4. Well... by Etherwalk · · Score: 2

    Having a three-tiered system of government employability effectively bars countless Americans from serving in government and *ensures* it is nonrepresentative. In effect, you have cleared employees, non-cleared employees, and ex-cons, in decreasing order of government employability.

    1. Re:Well... by trdtaylor · · Score: 2

      Actually worse

      You have super-cleared individuals, cleared individuals, or non-cleared individuals.
      And who becomes cleared depends on how much paperwork your willing to push to do it.

  5. Whistle blowers by frnic · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Whistle blowers by denis-The-menace · · Score: 2

      I agree.
      Government corruption is best measured on how bad whistleblower laws are in that country.

      --
      Obama's legacy: (N)othing (S)ecure (A)nywhere and (T)error (S)imulation (A)dministration
  6. Fourth Amendment by Etherwalk · · Score: 2

    Don't want the government knowing everything about you? Don't request secret clearance from it.

    It is absurd that we have five *million* people in the country whom the government has forced to waive their right to be free from *unreasonable* search in order to qualify for their jobs.

    If the government inquiries are reasonable, why would they need to make people sign the waiver?

    1. Re:Fourth Amendment by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

    2. Re:Fourth Amendment by ColdWetDog · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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!
    3. Re:Fourth Amendment by BaronAaron · · Score: 2

      The five million number doesn't make sense.

      According to official reports the federal government only employ's 4.3 million including 1.5 million military personnel.

    4. Re:Fourth Amendment by Quila · · Score: 2

      That's just the number of people who have clearances, not the number of people who have access to anything. Sometimes you need a clearance just to work in a certain building.

    5. Re:Fourth Amendment by alex67500 · · Score: 2

      It is absurd that we have five *million* people in the country whom the government has forced to waive their right to be free from *unreasonable* search in order to qualify for their jobs.

      What's unreasonable is that 5 million people need a security clearance!!

    6. Re:Fourth Amendment by Marillion · · Score: 3, Insightful

      One word: Contractors.

      --
      This is a boring sig
    7. Re:Fourth Amendment by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 2

      Contractors.

      Some of them also do independent work; but others (in terms of customer base and income) are basically federal employees in all but name and price.

  7. Yo dawg! by Subm · · Score: 5, Funny

    Yo dawg! I heard you liked monitoring people so we got some monitoring people to monitor your monitoring people so you can monitor your monitoring people while you monitor people!

    Yo dawg! I heard you like policing your state so we got you some police to police your police so you can police your police while you police your state!

  8. An alternative solution. by king+neckbeard · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.
  9. It's turtles all the way down by somepunk · · Score: 2

    Who watches the watchers watching the watchers watching the watchers?

    --
    Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do. (Isaac Asimov)
    1. Re:It's turtles all the way down by coolsnowmen · · Score: 2

      That isn't a hard problem to solve because of the proportionality. If say one person can look into a different person every couple weeks. That means for every say 25 people we need a watcher. So @ 3.5million cleared people we'd need 140,000 watchers, 5,600 watchers of those watchers (or level 2 watchers), 224 level 3s, 9 level 4s, and 1 level 5.

      this logarithmically increasing overhead seems manageable.

  10. just like DRM by postmortem · · Score: 2

    so baddies have been warned, they have plenty of time to apply corrective actions. And employees with nothing to hide will be only ones affected by this.

  11. The NSA has learnt its lesson! by tinkerton · · Score: 2

    - get rid of as many sysadmins as possible
    - screen sysadmins for libertarian tendencies and for caring too much about the constitution
    - make sure information is less widely accessible
    - increase monitoring of everyone who accesses information
    - prepare to make a few token concessions for public consumption .. but, but.. we sort of hoped you'd cut back on the surveillance schemes! You know, mend your ways?
    Do what? Hm no, we didn't think of that. Why would we have to do that then ?

  12. And the obvious result is... by Guppy06 · · Score: 2

    Only the people who see nothing wrong with such monitoring would be doing the job.

  13. Re:Not good by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 2

    There are no false positives, comrade citizen, only people who harbor unpatriotic doubts about the accuracy of our Intelligence Community. Surely you aren't one of those?

  14. Bullshit by AF_Cheddar_Head · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Bullshit by AF_Cheddar_Head · · Score: 5, Informative

      I have not waived my right against unreasonable search and seizure, even with my clearance the US Government has the same warrant requirements to come into my home as they have for the general public. The intrusiveness that I have agreed to is the following: periodic re-investigations where they may or may not interview my associates and family members as to my trustworthiness, the possibility of submitting to a non-lifestyle polygraph because of clearance type, having to report contact with foreign nationals (depending on the type of contact), and informing the security manager if I plan on traveling out of the country.

      Not unreasonable search and seizure and a fairly well defined set of requirements for reporting.

  15. Re:Sounds like a great plan..... by ColdWetDog · · Score: 2

    And it's polygraphs all the way down.

    --
    Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
  16. Re:Only Republicans will put-up with being spied o by PPH · · Score: 2

    Actually, they may have more to lose from this policy than others. Specifically, the socially conservative ones.

    With the elimination of policies like "don't ask, don't tell", people with alternative lifestyles no longer represent blackmail risks if they are not ashamed of coming out of the closet. Members of more conservative social groups who participate in such alternative lifestyle activities (and there are quite a few of them) will still be at risk from being ostracized by their community.

    Security services have come to understand this. They have found that people with things to hide and pressures other than a threat to their employment to keep them hidden are ongoing risks. The tendency will be to identify such people and block them from sensitive areas of the government.

    --
    Have gnu, will travel.