|
|
|
|
|
CIA director has made plugging
leaks a top priority Mark Mazzetti, Scott Shane / NY Times | April 24 2006 WASHINGTON — The firing of a veteran CIA officer who has been accused of leaking classified information is a rare and dramatic move, yet CIA officials say it is only the beginning of a campaign to stanch the unauthorized flow of information from the spy agency. CIA Director Porter Goss has for three months carried out one of the most aggressive leak investigations in the agency's history, using polygraph tests to determine who at the agency might be behind what Goss says is an explosion of damaging leaks to the news media. According to CIA officials, staff members have been summoned by the agency's Security Center to undergo lie-detector tests in an effort to find out who revealed to reporters information about classified programs, including the agency's secret overseas detention jails for high-level al Qaeda detainees. It is uncommon for CIA directors to make leak crackdowns a priority of their tenure. Goss' use of targeted polygraphs in a leak investigation — which led to the firing Thursday of Mary McCarthy — is a sign of how serious he is about enforcing discipline in the agency's ranks. When Goss took the helm in September 2004, he inherited an agency that was widely viewed in Washington as being at war with the Bush administration. The longtime Republican House member was mulling retirement when President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney pressed him to take the CIA job, in part to rein in what they viewed as a coordinated campaign of leaks from CIA insiders hostile to the administration. But some think that the problem has grown under Goss' leadership. "There really has been an absolute proliferation of leaks," said one intelligence official who was granted anonymity because the information at issue is classified. "It's clear that there are those who have become lax with the information they have been given access to." Many see McCarthy's firing as an effort by Goss to send a clear message to the agency's rank and file. "I think it's a recognition that there has been a loosening of discipline" at the agency, said Richard Kerr, a former CIA deputy director. Some in the intelligence community deny the charge that CIA officials are a primary source of leaks. Unlike members of Congress or civilian policymakers at the Pentagon, the State Department and elsewhere, CIA operatives and analysts are given routine polygraph tests at least every five years in which they are asked whether they have disclosed classified information. The current round of "single issue" polygraph tests are aimed at specific leaks, including information published in The Washington Post late last year about the CIA's detention centers. The stories won a Pulitzer Prize for Post reporter Dana Priest. Although McCarthy is described as having an independent streak, some who worked with her at the White House and other offices during her intelligence career say they cannot imagine her as a leaker of classified information. As a senior National Security Council aide for intelligence from 1996 to 2001, she was responsible for guarding some of the nation's most sensitive secrets. "We're talking about a person with great integrity who played by the book and, as far as I know, never deviated from the rules," said Steven Simon, a National Security Council aide in the Clinton administration who worked closely with McCarthy. But others said it was possible that McCarthy — who began attending law school at night several years ago, made a contribution to Sen. John Kerry's presidential campaign in 2004 and had announced her intention to retire from CIA — had grown increasingly disenchanted with the often harsh and nonlegal methods adopted by the Bush administration for handling al Qaeda prisoners and felt she had no alternative except to go to the press. Additional material from New York Times writer David S. Cloud. ---------------------------------------------------
Prison Planet.tv: The Premier Multimedia Subscription Package: Download and Share the Truth! Please help our fight against the New World Order by giving a donation. As bandwidth costs increase, the only way we can stay online and expand is with your support. Please consider giving a monthly or one-off donation for whatever you can afford. You can pay securely by either credit card or Paypal. Click here to donate. |
