Outing CIA officers
Wasn't it only a few years ago that the press was baying for the head of my then colleague Karl Rove, when they thought he was the man who had leaked the name of Valerie Plame (turns out there was a lot less interest when it emerged the leaker was Richard Armitage.
Well, here's the lead paragraph in a story about an explicit effort to unmask CIA operatives:
The CIA probably doesn't want you to know this, but unmasking its covert operatives isn't as hard as you'd think. Just ask John Sifton. During a six-year stint at Human Rights Watch, the attorney and investigator was hot on the trail of the CIA and some of its most sensitive Bush-era counterterrorism programs, including extraordinary rendition, secret Eastern European detention sites, and the legally dubious and brutal methods used to extract information from detainees. "Even deep-cover CIA officers are real people, with mortgages and credit reports," Sifton once told CQ Politics. For researchers with a trained eye for the hallmarks of a CIA alias, there are obvious giveaways: "A brand new Social Security number, a single P.O. box in Reston, Virginia. You disregard those and focus on the real persons who lie behind, and you can find them."
National Review? The Wall Street Journal? No ... Mother Jones. Read it here.
- Comment (8)
- · Quote
- · UnfollowFollow (1)
Comments :
Jun '10
Re: Outing CIA officers
But did these "operatives" ever work full-time at the US Embassy in Athens, Greece at one time, or work full-time at CIA Headquarters in Langley, VA for several years? That's how you know they're really really covert, deep cover. :)
Re: Outing CIA officers
They were CIA interrogators. Understandably, these CIA people take the view that al Qaeda should not know who they are, who their wives and children are, and where they live.
May '10
Re: Outing CIA officers
Right out of a Vince Flynn novel.....
This is sure to damper enthusiasm of prospective CIA recruits, not to mention give cause for existing agents to consider "pursuing other opportunities."
May '10
Re: Outing CIA officers
I wonder just how much damage has been done to our ability to operate effectively now and in the future. The impact on recruitment must be significant. The desire to "go the extra mile" or take any kind of risks must be virtually non existant.
I do not feel safer now.
Re: Outing CIA officers
One of the creepier pleasures of the past few years was watching the Left suddenly discover the CIA, suddenly decide that they were "patriots" and "heroes."
It's sort of analogous to the decision, a few years ago, that Afghanistan was the right war, the good war, the war Bush was messing up in order to due the bidding of Big Oil.
Re: Outing CIA officers
This is very creepy. We have people following around CIA agents, learning about their credit histories, their families, searching for their homes. Then they hand over photos of these men to al Qaeda operatives. Who in his right mind would sign up to be a CIA interrogator today? And where's the outrage?
May '10
Re: Outing CIA officers
I also do not feel safer now, and I AM outraged. A strong national defense includes the necessity of a fully functioning intelligence apparatus. Outing CIA operatives dispatching their duty in an effort to keep our country safe, and making a business of it, seems borderline treasonous to me.
Re: Outing CIA officers
I have a different perspective. I've long felt that these flimsy cover practices (which are well-known--this is no revelation) were lazy and posed a tremendous risk to the employees of the Agency and the assets they handle. Does anyone seriously think the Russians don't already know this? If an article like this causes the Agency to wake up and tighten up, it's performed a legitimate public service.