More CIA Incompetence: "Cover" Easily Breached By Simple Internet Searches

Yes, we should all fear the "turf war" occasioned by transferring more intelligence and covert action functions to our military. I mean, the CIA is so completely on the ball:

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.

More at The New Editor.

Bush has made some mistakes. One of the biggest was having any sort of faith in the CIA.

posted by Ace at 04:30 PM

| Access Comments