The NSA Wants To Spy on Itself

The NSA and other federal intelligence agencies are working on implementing a system that would allow the agencies to continuously monitor employees with security clearances and access to classified information, the Associated Press reports. The move is a direct response to Edward Snowden’s leaks and will, if Director of National Security James Clapper gets his way, allow security officials to keep tabs on employees even while they’re off the job.

"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," Clapper told Congress last month.

It appears he’ll be getting his wish. There is little standing in the way of intelligence communities implementing the plan—having access to classified information means you’ve got to forfeit a lot of your privacy rights, and there are bills in Congress right now that would require “random, computerized reviews” for government workers with a secret clearance.

The proposed NSA program is closely based on a similar system the Department of Defense has been working on for 10 years. According to the AP, the DOD project, called the Automated Continuous Evaluation System, uses 40 publicly-available databases and other government data streams and information from credit agencies to monitor employees. The NSA program would likely be similar.

Getting a security clearance is already pretty invasive—I have served as a reference for a few friends, and the process involves polygraph tests, thorough interviews with former employers, friends, and even childhood classmates. Vetting agents ask you questions about your friend’s international travel, partying habits, organizational affiliations (with a special emphasis on any radical or foreign-based groups), and more.

Obtaining a clearance definitely isn’t easy, but, after you’ve got it, reevaluations are rare, which is how you end up with pesky whistleblowers, Clapper argues. With a better monitoring system, he says, Snowden’s behavior would have raised red flags and he would have been dealt with before unleashing this seemingly never-ending public relations nightmare for the agency.

There’s no word on when or how the program would be implemented or how much it’ll cost, and it’s possible we never hear specific details about it. But given how much flak the agency has taken over the past year, they've almost definitely got the motivation to get something done soon.

So now we know the answer to the eternal "Who will watch the watchers?" question. Looks like it will, in fact, be the watchers watching the watchers.