NSA employees to monitor media for leaks [View All]

[Robbien]

An updated internal policy on news media contacts may require every National Security Agency employee to stop working on their core missions and spend time on looking instead for employees who might be talking to the press. Which, of course, is the most important thing for them to be doing. After all, there aren’t any terrorists to be found.

The new policy, which was obtained by the Baltimore Sun, directs employees to “actively monitor the media for the purpose of identifying unauthorized disclosures” of classified information, the newspaper reported.

Such directives create pressure to identify more leaks, said Matthew Aid, a former NSA analyst who is writing a multivolume history of the agency. “Instead of hunting for spies within the agency, now you’re hunting for disenchanted employees who may know somebody who knows a reporter,” he said. “It’s bound to divert resources and focus.”

Some NSA veterans and security analysts said the policy imposes new responsibilities on employees. “‘Actively monitor’ means they’re supposed to go out, surf the Web and look for classified information, not report it when they find it,” said Steven Aftergood, a government secrecy expert at the Federation of American Scientists. “That amounts to a new tasking of every part of the organization to hunt for unauthorized disclosures.”

One former NSA official called the directive “bizarre.”

“We’re going to turn all of NSA into a vast media monitor?

http://www.homelandstupidity.us/2006/07/30/nsa-employees-to-monitor-media-for-leaks
The site for this blog entry sometimes has problems, but the referenced original story in the BaltimoreSun is also available with all the same info:
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nationworld/bal-te.nsa23jul23,0,2392810.story?coll=bal-home-headlines