Only a constitutional republic devolving into authoritarianism would pass laws protecting those who reveal wrongdoing, waste, fraud and abuse, while at the same time quietly adopting policies aimed at rooting out whistleblowers so they can be stopped from blowing the lid off corruption.

Welcome to America, circa 2016.

As reported by Nextgov, a news site devoted to reporting on federal government activities, the always-secretive Obama Administration is adopting, as a New Year’s goal, a policy aimed at building a task force responsible solely for heading off employee leaks — an internal affairs division of the federal government, if you will.

We’re not here to out employees

Not easy to do, as Nextgov reports:

It is a delicate task to simultaneously guard hard-working federal personnel and expose the bad apples. And it takes different talents than those one would find in a counterintelligence analyst, human resources professional or information security professional. The insider threat discipline melds all those disciplines.

So, now “whistleblowing,” in the age of Obama, is an “insider threat.” And what’s more, there are ample federal employees who are eager to fill the task force’s ranks.

“It’s a privilege to work in that program. And the only reason that you are there is to help protect your colleagues, not to out them. So, we’ve got to professionalize that workforce of people who do this for a living,” Patricia Larsen, co-director of the National Insider Threat Task Force, said at a forum hosted in early December by Nextgov. “They have to view themselves as part of a community.”

It is ironic that Larsen instinctively says the task force’s job is not to “out” federal employees, but that’s like insisting cops who work for departmental internal affairs divisions aren’t there to, well, “out” corrupt officers. But the difference here is that the federal task force appears poised to identify legitimate whistleblowers like Edward Snowden as somehow a threat to government.

The website reported that the Obama Administration created the office that Larsen heads up after former Army soldier Chelsea (Bradley) Manning exposed U.S. secrets to WikiLeaks. More recent actions, Larsen said, involving Snowden indicates that the task force needs to step up its pace.

The problem, it seems, is that being a government internal affairs operator needs some personnel clarification.

“[T]here is no occupational series and pay scale for the insider threat profession,” Nextgov reported. “The task force is exploring whether a new occupational code might be warranted, Larsen [said]. In the meantime, agencies are using several existing job classifications to recruit staff.

“Be an insider threat professional“

The site further reported that federal workers or other personnel who have insider threat experience can earn a six-figure salary in either government or industry

At present, there is an opening at the Office of Management and Personnel for a “Supervisory Intelligence Operations Specialist” paying a salary between $106,263 and $138,136, whose responsibilities include insider threat awareness training, according to federal employment website USAJobs.gov.

Currently, insider threat specialists are serving within about 70 different federal agencies. They hail from fields of counterintelligence, civil liberties and information security, as well as law enforcement, Nextgov reported.

“They bring their own experiences with them but now we’re asking them to do a unique skillset, a unique discipline — to be an insider threat professional,” Larsen said.

Every federal agency that provides access to, or holds, classified information is required by law to establish an insider threat program, and that makes sense, because the government has an inherent interest in protecting so-called “state secrets.” But is there a line that gets crossed when ordinary whistleblowers, even if they divulge classified information, are to be considered threats to government, when the government is clearly violating constitutional protections of citizens?

Civil libertarians say yes.

Sources:

http://www.nextgov.com
https://www.usajobs.gov
http://www.inforisktoday.com