house Bill H.R. 666
Department of Homeland Security Insider Threat and Mitigation Act of 2017
Timing is everything and the timing of this makes it sound like a great strategy to root out anyone not in total agreement with the pres. (After all, dissenting increases your risk of DOING something about it, right?) From the bill: “(F) develop a timeline for deploying workplace monitoring technologies, employee awareness campaigns, and education and training programs related to identifying, preventing, mitigating, and responding to potential insider threats to the Department’s critical assets;" -- This is HORRIFYING. It is asking people to spy on their coworkers and foster an environment of suspicion and fear.
This bill creates a new program and committee within DHS which appears to replicate existing services and provides no funding to do so. Further, some of the phrasing is sufficiently vague as to be prone to misuse against American citizens. We do face internal threats, but this is not an effective strategy to address them. Full Bill Text here: https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/666/text
What does this bill entail, exactly?? I cannot support something so vague and open-ended, particularly when it entails the examination of people already residing on US soil.
Too vague and could be used to limit access or get rid of whistleblowers or others who seek to provide the public with information regarding actions within their own government.
After skimming the bill, the gist of it is that an "Insider Threat" is someone who works with classified information and may be in a position to leak classified info. They want to set up a committee to figure out how to oversee and police potential "Insider Threats" within the government itself.
This is a vaguely-worded bill that doesn't respond to any named credible threat, but increases the powers of DHS exponentially. The vagaries concern who might be considered an "insider threat" or "security assets," which could be almost anyone, according to the language of this bill.
This seems like an obvious ploy to take innocent citizens out who speak out against immigration bands like the one Trump issued on Friday. Absolutely not.
Having looked up the text to this bill, I am TERRIFIED. The "Insider Threat" program is meant to punish whistleblowers who wish to expose governmental wrongdoing. However, it doesn't stop there. The bill is worded so that ANY person involved in governmental activities, including state, local and tribal leaders, could be punished for speaking out against anything that's deemed "a threat to national security". As we know already, the disgusting people in charge consider any disagreement a threat. If this bill passes, it means those we elect will have no ability to speak out without the threat of being prosecuted and jailed, or worse, for treason. This bill is an affront to the values we hold dear in this country, especially free speech. It's authoritarian in nature at best, and fascistic at worst.
This seems very vague and would possibly give too much power to the current administration who has already asked for the names of those working on various projects the president does not agree with.
This bill creates a new program and committee within DHS which appears to replicate existing services and provides no funding to do so. Further, some of the phrasing is sufficiently vague as to be prone to misuse against American citizens. We do face internal threats, but this is not an effective strategy to address them.
This is far too vague, likely purposely so, and equally likely to be misused. When one considers the sponsor of the bill, this is even more likely. Mr. King should perhaps take a break from proposing new bills for the interim.
"The call is coming from inside the house" !?!? Scare tactic much? So we should be scared of immigrants and now we should be scared of our neighbors. Fear fear fear. No.
Rep. King would be well served to review Executive Order 9835 ("The Loyalty" Bill) signed by Pres. Truman in 1947. Joseph McCarthy used it pretty well, don't you think?
This bill sounds like another way to strengthen citizen spying. I vote no.
We need more protection for government whistleblowers, not more restrictions that make it harder for them to act!
Unless we are planning a full-blown reenactment of 1984 and V for Vendetta, vote "no" on this too broad and overreaching change.
The phrasing and word choice here are not only vague, but far reaching and open to wide interpretation. This is only setting the stage for witch hunting and internal mistrust.