On Nov. 2 the House passed a bill to establish a program to detect “insider threats” within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). H.R. 3361: Insider Threat and Mitigation Act of 2015 is sponsored by the chair of the House Subcommittee on Counterterrorism and Intelligence, Rep. Peter King (R-NY2).

King offered recent examples of insider spying: NSA contractor Edward Snowden’s leak of national surveillance programs, Army private Chelsea Manning who provided classified documents to WikiLeaks, and a contractor with security clearance who shot and killed 12 people at the Washington Navy Yard. King said these people “were able to conduct their traitors’ work undetected because the government had at one time vetted and granted them access to secure facilities and information systems.”

The new program would:

Ensure through training that DHS personnel better “identify, prevent, mitigate, and respond to insider threat risks”

Provide investigative support regarding such threats

Conduct risk mitigation activities for such threats

Democrats have shown different points of view on the bill’s necessity. Sen. Brian Higgins, (D-NY26), a ranking member of the subcommittee on Counterterrorism and Intelligence agreed with the relevance of H.R. 3361. “A survey published by ‘Federal Times’ reflected that 45 percent of Federal agencies have employees or contractors that tried to access or take unauthorized data over the last year.”

Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS2) has disagreed, voicing concern that internal evaluations could allow “a back door for DHS to deploy continuous evaluation” on individuals. Thompson, ranking member of the House Committee on Homeland Security, did not offer an amendment as the bill proceeded.

Other agencies are already working against internal espionage threats to national security. Since 2011, the National Counterintelligence and Security Center (NCSC) has coordinated representatives from numerous government agencies. Among them: the FBI, the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Veterans Administration (VA). And NCSC notes that insider betrayal is not new. “Over the past century the most damaging U.S. counterintelligence failures were perpetrated by a trusted insider with ulterior motives. In each case, the compromised individual exhibited the identifiable signs of a traitor — but the signs went unreported for years due to the unwillingness or inability of colleagues to accept the possibility of treason.”

“In the face of these insider threat scenarios, it is vital that government agencies have the tools to detect and disrupt future insider threat situations before damage is done,” said King.