Open Topic Sunday ... CIA
Oh, this needs to be fixed. Glenn Reynolds points to this from the New Editor. Tom elia, the poster for this piece, highlights a Chicago Tribune article. And after reading the story I was not pleased with the CIA. (You must register to view the entire piece.)
John Crewdson, the author of the piece, writes, in part:
When the Tribune searched a commercial online data service, the result was a virtual directory of more than 2,600 CIA employees, 50 internal agency telephone numbers and the locations of some two dozen secret CIA facilities around the United States.
Only recently has the CIA recognized that in the Internet age its traditional system of providing cover for clandestine employees working overseas is fraught with holes, a discovery that is said to have "horrified" CIA Director Porter Goss....
Not all of the 2,653 employees whose names were produced by the Tribune search are supposed to be working under cover. More than 160 are intelligence analysts, an occupation that is not considered a covert position, and senior CIA executives such as Tenet are included on the list.
But an undisclosed number of those on the list--the CIA would not say how many--are covert employees, and some are known to hold jobs that could make them terrorist targets....
A senior U.S. official, reacting to the computer searches that produced the names and addresses, said, "I don't know whether Al Qaeda could do this, but the Chinese could."...
Although the Tribune's initial search for "Central Intelligence Agency" employees turned up only work-related addresses and phone numbers, other Internet-based services provide, usually for a fee but sometimes for free, the home addresses and telephone numbers of U.S. residents, as well as satellite photographs of the locations where they live and work.
Asked how so many personal details of CIA employees had found their way into the public domain, the senior U.S. intelligence official replied that "I don't have a great explanation, quite frankly."
The official noted, however, that the CIA's credo has always been that "individuals are the first person responsible for their cover. If they can't keep their cover, then it's hard for anyone else to keep it. If someone filled out a credit report and put that down, that's just stupid."
One senior U.S. official used a barnyard epithet to describe the agency's traditional system of providing many of its foreign operatives with easily decipherable covers that include little more than a post office box for an address and a non-existent company as an employer.
While I will agree that it is up to those that are covert to maintain their covers, part of this lies at the agency's feet. And this is not something that can just be swept under the rug. It needs to be fixed, and soon, because in the day and age we live in, life or death is a matter for many of the covert people we insert around the globe for HUMINT functions. The last thing we need is a rash of agents ending up dead because they can be tracked down and identified. This isn't fiction. These operatives are not Tom Clancy's John Clark, Joel Surnow & Robert Cochran's Jack Bauer, or even Ian Fleming's James Bond. Hell, they're probably not even an Erin McCoy. These are real people who will have real problems if their cover is blown during an operation.
Surely the CIA is aware of that, and the fact that they have some updating to do. Maybe like joining the rest of the world in the 21st Century?
Mistress Pundit
Oh, this needs to be fixed. Glenn Reynolds points to this from the New Editor. Tom elia, the poster for this piece, highlights a Chicago Tribune article. And after reading the story I was not pleased with the CIA. (You must register to view the entire piece.)
John Crewdson, the author of the piece, writes, in part:
When the Tribune searched a commercial online data service, the result was a virtual directory of more than 2,600 CIA employees, 50 internal agency telephone numbers and the locations of some two dozen secret CIA facilities around the United States.
Only recently has the CIA recognized that in the Internet age its traditional system of providing cover for clandestine employees working overseas is fraught with holes, a discovery that is said to have "horrified" CIA Director Porter Goss....
Not all of the 2,653 employees whose names were produced by the Tribune search are supposed to be working under cover. More than 160 are intelligence analysts, an occupation that is not considered a covert position, and senior CIA executives such as Tenet are included on the list.
But an undisclosed number of those on the list--the CIA would not say how many--are covert employees, and some are known to hold jobs that could make them terrorist targets....
A senior U.S. official, reacting to the computer searches that produced the names and addresses, said, "I don't know whether Al Qaeda could do this, but the Chinese could."...
Although the Tribune's initial search for "Central Intelligence Agency" employees turned up only work-related addresses and phone numbers, other Internet-based services provide, usually for a fee but sometimes for free, the home addresses and telephone numbers of U.S. residents, as well as satellite photographs of the locations where they live and work.
Asked how so many personal details of CIA employees had found their way into the public domain, the senior U.S. intelligence official replied that "I don't have a great explanation, quite frankly."
The official noted, however, that the CIA's credo has always been that "individuals are the first person responsible for their cover. If they can't keep their cover, then it's hard for anyone else to keep it. If someone filled out a credit report and put that down, that's just stupid."
One senior U.S. official used a barnyard epithet to describe the agency's traditional system of providing many of its foreign operatives with easily decipherable covers that include little more than a post office box for an address and a non-existent company as an employer.
While I will agree that it is up to those that are covert to maintain their covers, part of this lies at the agency's feet. And this is not something that can just be swept under the rug. It needs to be fixed, and soon, because in the day and age we live in, life or death is a matter for many of the covert people we insert around the globe for HUMINT functions. The last thing we need is a rash of agents ending up dead because they can be tracked down and identified. This isn't fiction. These operatives are not Tom Clancy's John Clark, Joel Surnow & Robert Cochran's Jack Bauer, or even Ian Fleming's James Bond. Hell, they're probably not even an Erin McCoy. These are real people who will have real problems if their cover is blown during an operation.
Surely the CIA is aware of that, and the fact that they have some updating to do. Maybe like joining the rest of the world in the 21st Century?
Mistress Pundit
posted by Syd And Vaughn | 11:38 PM
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