SPY vs. SPY

Homeland Security Threatens to 
Punish Staff

By Mark Karlin, Editor, BuzzFlash at Truthout

July 19, 2013--Homeland Security Threatens to Punish Staff for Reading NSA Article--The Washington Post recently obtained a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) memo that warned staff not to read articles printed in the Washington Post that covered whistleblower revelations about classified information.

You better not read it, Staff! Under penalty of 49 whacks with a wet noodle across your back! OUCH!

Remember Victor Mature from the movie matinees? Well, just picture Victor getting beaten....his arms and legs shackled...sweating profusely...whack! across his sweaty back...did you finish all the popcorn?...

Specifically, DHS implied that there could be legal repercussions for employees who read Washington Post stories about whistleblowers and the information that they disclose.

Legal repercussions? Oh no! Not that! Anything in particular?

What moron thought this crap up?

In particular, a DHS memo prohibited reading of such articles from any computer outside of the DHS office.

Hello, Sis...wanna read something juicy?

The Department of Homeland Security has warned its employees that the government may penalize them for opening a Washington Post article containing a classified slide that shows how the National Security Agency eavesdrops on international communications.

International communications...yeah, yeah...go on...

An internal memo from DHS headquarters told workers on Friday that viewing the document from an “unclassified government workstation” could lead to administrative or legal action.

Gee, I wonder what they’re hiding.

“You may be violating your non-disclosure agreement in which you sign that you will protect classified national security information,” the communication said.

Yeah, but I had my fingers crossed behind my back!

The memo said workers who view the article through an unclassified workstation should report the incident as a “classified data spillage.”

Spillage? WTF?

"Classifed data spillage."  This "data spillage" is in the press and on the web around the world--and DHS is implying that the NSA is monitoring employees use of computers outside the office to see if they are reading such media coverage, so much for not spying on Americans.

Remember George Orwell--1984? 

This is so retro totalitarian, so Soviet and Stasi Kafkaesque, that it's hard to believe. As a website TechDirt comments: "Got that? Working for the government and merely reading the news about things the government is doing might subject you to legal action."

Oh no! Not legal action! I’m already up to my bloomin' arse in bankruptcy crap!  

Of course, if a co-worker who is an "Insider Threat" informative sees you reading a whistleblower-related article in a print newspaper, he or she may report you as a potential danger to national security.

And, we get to tattle on each other...that makes for a healthy work environment, don’t it?

This is not an exaggeration!

I know! I know!

In case you managed to miss stories about operation "Insider Threat" (formally known as the National Insider Threat Policy), this is the Obama administration's program to turn the hundreds of thousands of people who work in the surveillance state apparatus into stool pigeons.

Obama! I knew he was behind this! What should we expect from a Kenyan?

Of course, as in any police state apparatus, anyone can report another person against whom they hold a personal grudge as an "enemy of the state."

Yeah! What a good idea! I can report that bitch with the dog that barks day and night! 

I wish that all this were hyperbolic fear mongering against some perfectly legitimate national concerns, but it is not.

Hype...hyperbolic...okay, I’ve got it!

According to the Federation of American Scientists blog on secrecy:

A national policy on “insider threats” was developed by the Obama Administration in order to protect against actions by government employees who would harm the security of the nation.

Is that anything like insider trading?

But under the rubric of insider threats, the policy subsumes* the seemingly disparate acts of spies, terrorists, and those who leak classified information.

The ru what?

The insider threat is defined as “the threat that an insider will use his/her authorized access, wittingly or unwittingly, to do harm to the security of the United States.

*To classify, include, or incorporate in a more comprehensive category or under a general principle.  

This threat can include damage to the United States through espionage, terrorism, or unauthorized disclosure of national security information,” according to the newly disclosed National Insider Threat Policy, issued in November 2012.

One of the implications of aggregating spies, terrorists and leakers in a single category is that the nation’s spy-hunters and counterterrorism specialists can now be trained upon those who are suspected of leaking classified information.

Subsequent articles on the "Insider Threat" program have revealed that it is shabbily constructed and sets up an environment of co-workers fearing each other. 

A BuzzFlash at Truthout reader sent in a satirical song performed by the late Zero Mostel during the McCarthy era, when the FBI and Congress were looking for "Commies under every table."  The refrain to Mostel's parody (paraphased) was: "Who's going to be the man (or woman) watching the man (or woman) who's watching me?"

Did you say Commies? Why, I kicked the bars outa my crib I was laughing so hard the first time I heard that word!

That's a good question indeed in a surveillance state that has creeped across the threshold into a state of fear, one in which you are legally threatened for reading a public newspaper because of now public information in it about your government.

Didn't I read about all this crap already?

In such a nation, as happened in the nations of the former Soviet empire, we are all "insider threats." We all have become targets for spying because the government has superseded the rights and legal protections of the individual.

Can you say Gestapo? SS?

No?

How about KGB? CIA? 

How about Edward Snowden?

Yeah...I thought you could.

So, is he a traitor or a hero? 

The goal has become the protection of the state apparatus--and the contracting firms receiving billions of dollars for surveillance consultation--not the security of the people who live in the state--or in this case the United States.

Well, that sux!