Sunshine Week for Covert Operatives

The Chicago Tribune tips off CIA Director Porter Goss to some sort of worldwide system of interconnected computer networks the kids are calling Internet:

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….

Asked how so many personal details of CIA employees had found their way into the public domain, [a] senior U.S. intelligence official replied that "I don't have a great explanation, quite frankly."

Whole thing here.

Sunshine Week info here.

Comments

[Jamie Kelly]

I wonder if the Chicago Trib reporter reached the CIA for comment on its rotary dial phones.

[Chuck Norris]

Sorry, guys, I was just thinking about how funny it would be if this happened, and next thing I knew...

[Larry A]

I can just see the next Tom Clancy:

"CIA operative John Doe opened a Google search for "Al Quaida" and..."

Why do we need the PATRIOT Act?

[Shelby]

Why do we need the PATRIOT Act?

Think of it as an "Domestic Espionage for Dummies" Act and it makes more sense. The CIA needed a simpler way to violate your rights, because it was finding all this technical stuff too confusing.

[Adam]

Makes all that Valerie Plame hullabaloo a little over the top now. Wonder if Scooter Libby will be able to use the "Google did it" defense in court.

[SR]

"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."

Yes, for example, there are thousands of websites (including an entire Wikipedia page) with detailed personal information about Agent Jack Bauer....

[John DeWitt]

Yes, for example, there are thousands of websites (including an entire Wikipedia page) with detailed personal information about Agent Jack Bauer....

Yes, but you'd better not call him. Jack Bauer can make bullets go through telephone lines...