Government workers with “a lust for money and sex” could be potential “insider threats” to the government, according to the Obama administration.
The Obama administration has quietly implemented the “Insider Threat Program” to force federal employees to report their co-workers if they identify signs that they might harm the government’s interests from within.
“Insiders who seek to harm U.S. security interests normally are either long-term plants or they are people who have been lured to betray their nation for ideological reasons, a lust for money or sex, or through blackmail,” warns the Office of the National Counterintelligence Executive on its website, the federal government’s top counterintelligence agency.
The administration’s “Insider Threat Program” requires federal employees to report “indicators of insider threat behavior” among their own colleagues, in order to defend against potential spies and security leaks.
Obama created the program by executive order in October 2011, after soldier Bradley Manning leaked classified military information to Wikileaks. The program triggers investigations into federal employee conduct both in the office and online, where computer network monitoring systems patrol for “suspicious user behavior.”
The program requires federal workers to pay close attention to their colleagues’ lifestyle patterns — with odd working hours or unexplained travel indicators of suspicious activity.
But the federal government also identified “a lust for money or sex” as one of the primary motivating factors for espionage in its description of potential “insider threats” posted online prior to the public revelation Wednesday of Obama’s program.