John Robb's Weblog

Misuses of Secrecy and Hunting Accidents

More heat on the lack of transparency at the White House (all the White House correspondents were scooped -- which begs the question: why are they there if they can't get the story?). Of course, one reason for a delay: most of the hunting accidents I have heard about in my personal experience involve drinking and shooting.

The Use and Abuse of Secrecy

Here's a great example from a lecture by a former agent (this is real life experience as opposed to the crap spin you get on so many political blogs):

The Administration’s ignoring of the law in the case of wiretapping is but one part of what I see as an emerging pattern or practice of illegal and unethical conduct. When my CIA classmate, Valerie Wilson’s cover was exposed by the White House in 2003, I as well as other members of my class appeared in October of that year on Nightline to explain the consequences of that unprecedented act. It was from that program that the CIA leak case became a national story. Behind the scenes, there is an interesting, as well as informative story.

After the Nightline program, my fellow classmates and I wrote a letter to the Senate Intelligence Committee requesting a hearing to explain our side of the story. That letter was ignored until we were contacted by Senator Tom Daschle’s staff offering a Democratic Senate hearing in the Capital. The Senate Democratic offer was accepted and a hearing was set for a Friday morning in Washington. Almost immediately after the Democratic hearing became public, we were notified by the Senate Intelligence Committee staff that we would be granted a hearing before a closed session of the Senate Intelligence Committee. That hearing was to take place the afternoon of the day before the Friday Senate hearing. We accepted that as well.

I flew to Washington and appeared before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday. The thrust of my delivery to the Committee was that we, the classmates of Valerie Wilson, were betrayed. We were betrayed because whether we were inside or outside the Agency, we kept her identity a secret for more than 18 years. There was nothing “secret” about my remarks.

Following my delivery to the Committee on that Thursday afternoon, I left the Senate offices and went to a nearby park. While sitting on a park bench I received a call from Senator Daschle’s office with a message: Senate Republican Pat Roberts, Chairman of the Intelligence Committee, had declared all of my testimony before the Committee “secret”. I was then asked if I could still testify the next day before the Senate Democrats or whether I would have to first check for approval with the CIA legal affairs office. I was flabbergasted and didn’t know what to say. I had to think about it. I had to call back.

As I sat on that park bench there were many thoughts running through my mind. I had signed a secrecy agreement upon entering the CIA. If I testified the next day, telling the same story I told the Intelligence Committee, would I be in violation of that agreement? Could the Senate Intelligence Chairman simply declare what I said secret? Would I be arrested or subject to criminal prosecution? Could the CIA even “clear” my remarks within a few hours? Would the public hearing be cancelled and the public not learn of this important issue?

As I sat there, by myself, it was kind of lonely debating the issues in my mind. The first thing I did (and you should keep this in mind at all times! Ha!), I called a lawyer. While this very good friend of mine is probably the brightest, most commonsensical lawyer I know, he knew absolutely nothing about national security law. But we talked, and he helped. I knew there was nothing secret about my testimony, but that didn’t ease my mind as what the Republicans might try to do, based on what they had just done! The more we talked, the angrier I became. I knew what I had to do.

After about 20 minutes of talking and thinking about it, I called Senator Daschle’s staffer and told her to tell the Committee Chairman “to go to hell”.

Read the whole thing..

The voices of a failed government

Meet the Press discusses the NSA program to spy on Americans. How overweening pretensions of the value of secrecy undermined protection of the Constitution.

Listen to the entire thing, it's very depressing.... You can understand why Bush selected these guys to be briefed on the program, they are idiots (particularly Senator Pat Roberts).

Constraints spur innovation

Shloky has some great comments on constraints and innovation within the framework of warfare. The question is: was 9/11 the maximal outcome of 4GW terrorism? If it can't be topped in scale or scope, then a shift to GG systems disruption is inevitable. Personally, I already see the signs of that shift. Barring the ability to deploy dirty bombs (chem is too finicky, nukes are too difficult, and bio is too early), the max has already been reached.

Parallels between Vietnam and Iraq

Interesting article...

Interesting Engineering Discussion

An audio interview with Glenn Zorpette, from IEEE Spectrum who just got back from Iraq.

"The guerrillas have made it impossible to do anything in linear infrastructure. They aren't doing any of that now."

Here's his article in the Spectrum:

1,000 megawatts of decentralized "black market" diesel electricity being generated... (over 1/4 of the total for the country)

Overview: Massive corruption. Politically motivated engineering decisions. Broken markets. Factional politics. Theft (20% of centrally produced electricity is stolen). Dirty supplies (low grade fuels that clog turbines and an inability to connect natural gas supplies). Erosion of skill sets. A looted SCADA system.

Great article.

Robert Coram

Tom Peters has an interview with Robert Coram about Boyd.

Goss doesn't get it

NYTimes. Goss makes his case for the opaque state in a NYTimes OP-ED today. He argues that any disclosures are dangerous to our national security, and disputes the concept of whistleblowers:

Part of the problem is that the term "whistleblower" has been misappropriated. The sharp distinction between a whistleblower and someone who breaks the law by willfully compromising classified information has been muddied.

He also complains about being caught negotiating with Turkey to bomb Iran:

Last month, a news article in this newspaper described a "secret meeting" to discuss "highly classified" techniques to detect efforts by other countries to build nuclear weapons. This information was attributed to unnamed intelligence officials who "spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the effort's secrecy." Whether accurate or not, this is a direct acknowledgment that these unnamed officials apparently know the importance of secrecy.

The real damage to our national security isn't in the disclosure of too much information. Al Qaeda doesn't have bureaucracies of analysts and spies probing for weaknesses in the American security system. The worst thing that could potentially happen is that the name of a captured jihadi is prematurely leaked before useful intelligence can be gained. As for the recent leaks, does anyone truly think that al Qaeda actually believed that e-mails and phone calls to the US weren't being monitored?

No, the HUGE problem, the elephant in the room, isn't leaks. Rather, it is in a complete lack of transparency. As we have seen again and again, secrecy prevents the full analysis of alternatives. It shuts down debate and prevents the qualification of sources. It is also the crutch of bad and/or nefarious management.

Of course, what should we expect. Goss is running a mind-blowingly expensive agency that didn't protect NY city, London, and Madrid. It didn't analyze Iraq's WMD program correctly nor can it find bin Laden. If I were him, I would probably be complaining that leaks have prevented me from doing anything useful too.

Can a decentralized network run a proto-state?

Interesting conversation about Hamas on Lydon's "open source radio."

Mexico's Cantarell Running out of steam

AFXNews. An internal study reviewed by The Wall Street Journal shows water and gas are encroaching more quickly than expected in Cantarell, Mexico's biggest oil field, and might cause output to drop precipitously over the next few years. Currently, Cantarell produces 2 mln barrels of oil a day, or six of every 10 barrels produced by Mexico, and is the world's second-biggest-producing field after Saudi Arabia's Ghawar. Pemex says it is confident it can make up for any decline at Cantarell by squeezing more output from other fields, but some analysts outside the company are far less sanguine. The study was carried out last year by Pemex experts.