CIA grappling with the whole "secrecy" thing

Once again, the CIA's clandestine efforts aren't so hard to find, given it leaves blinking neon arrows pointing towards them. Via Laura Rozen, the NYT has been poking around in the FAA's records on Aero Contractors Ltd., the CIA's "secret" air service:

Behind a surprisingly thin cover of rural hideaways, front companies and shell corporations that share officers who appear to exist only on paper, the C.I.A. has rapidly expanded its air operations since 2001 as it has pursued and questioned terrorism suspects around the world.

Who's surprised? After an extended commercial for Aero Contractors, the Times then has fun correlating various spooky events with company flight logs. That the CIA is doing this is not at all newsworthy; that the secrecy of it all is so half-assed certainly is, though.

A search of public records for ordinary identifying information about the [shell company] officers - addresses, phone numbers, house purchases, and so on - comes up with only post office boxes in Virginia, Maryland and Washington, D.C.

But whoever created the companies used some of the same post office box addresses and the same apparently fictitious officers for two or more of the companies.

This mainly rehashes and expands on work that the Boston Globe and the Washington Post did last year. (See this old post.) Basically, the CIA was using the same five PO boxes to establish both its shell companies and hundreds of fake identities. The Times goes further, however, showing that the same fake identities were being used for multiple front companies, thus illuminating the entire network after minimal sleuthing in the public records:

Mr. Glerum, the C.I.A. and Air America veteran, said the use of one such name on more than one company was "bad tradecraft: you shouldn't allow an element of one entity to lead to others."

As I wrote last December, the CIA's N379P Gulfstream has been an open secret since October 2001, the lack of secrecy being the only thing notable. What is most startling is just how badly the CIA has botched creating fake identities. Last December, WaPo presented the CIA with a network chart based on the PO box info showing links between all of the names and shell companies:

Each of the officers of Premier Executive is linked in public records to one of five post office box numbers in Arlington, Oakton, Chevy Chase and the District. A total of 325 names are registered to the five post office boxes.

And a large sample of those names were investigated, and all were basically fake. But those identities were obviously blown.

According to former CIA operatives experienced in using "proprietary," or front, companies, the CIA likely used, or intended to use, some of the 325 names to hide other activities, the nature of which could not be learned. The former operatives also noted that the agency devotes more effort to producing cover identities for its operatives in the field, which are supposed to stand up under scrutiny, than to hiding its ownership of a plane.

Update: Bill Roggio and commenters are mad at the New York Times of course, basically accusing it of treason. Since little of what they published was genuinely new, and all available on the public record, it's hard to be sympathetic when Bill writes:

At the very least, the CIA must now change the companies being used as charters, all at a great effort and cost to US taxpayers.

Ya think? The New York Times is hardly to blame when the United States' clandestine service bungles its own core mission.

Clarification: Bill Roggio protests. Above I conjoin "Bill Roggio and commenters" as "basically accusing it of treason." Bill does not explicitly accuse the Times of treason -- (note my slippery qualifier, "basically"), although several commenters do to varying degrees after picking up Bill's theme. (A few examples are here, here, here, and here.) Via the trackbacks, several other bloggers are also taking the cue.

I lumped "Bill Roggio and commenters" together out of expediency, and hardly feel I've been inaccurate. The closest Bill gets is:

It appears the editors of the New York Times feel that breaking a titillating story about sensitive CIA operations is much more important than national security and the lives of those fighting in the war.

You say tomato . . . .

Anyway, this idea that US media should be complicit in ignoring the CIA's shoddy security for the sake of national security misses the point entirely, since the CIA wasn't keeping all that much secure in the first place. Thus, Bill lightly throws around some red meat while ignoring the real national security issue at hand.

The story isn't really about sensitive operations, since everyone already knows about them and has for some time. It's about how ludicrous it is that the CIA does such a mediocre job at keeping operations sensitive. For instance, why doesn't Homeland Security institute some kind of FAA log security exemption? At the end of the day, CIA will be forced to up its game thanks to this attention, and it's about damn time.

Comments

[Bill Roggio]

I never called it treason, that is a serious allegation that I do not throw around lightly. Find out where I said this, or retract it, Stygius.

[Stygius]

Updated.

[Bill Roggio]

Do you understand the defininition of treason? Treason implies direct cooperation with the enemy. I do not accuse them of this. I think the media has been irresponsible or opportunistic, but not treasonous. Your halfhearted attempted at a clarification disgusts me. Do not pretend to know what I am thinking, specifically when I am telling you.

As for the WaPo or the NY Times doing the investigations of flight operations so al Qaeda doesn't have to, if you think it is responsible or it helps the war effort in any way, then you are naive. They could hand over their results on the side and make recommendations. Splashing it on the newspages helps no one but al Qaeda.

[Bill Roggio]

As for your saying it is safe to say I am calling it treason based on commentors replies and trackbacks, you demonstrate very shoddy logic.

[Stygius]

As to your second post, my point there is that it's hard to take your "shocked, shocked" response very seriously given the meme it has helped create and reinforce, so I'm not overwhelmed when you come here to make a mountain out of a mole hill when I poke a little fun. You are an important blogger, and you play a role in distribution ideas and reinforcing assumptions, and I think it is reasonable to evaluate the impact you have on others.

As for parsing treason, treason concerns giving aid and comfort to the enemy; something less specific than your "direct cooperation." Now, one can debate the parameters of that -- "direct cooperation" versus indirect assistance, or what have you. Frankly, at the time I felt "treason" was a reasonable inference from what you wrote, and I still do.

That is because I regard compromising "national security and the lives of those fighting in the war," as generally treasonous. Perhaps I am mistaken there, but I genuinely do. My point is that the accusation that NYT and other papers have violated national security is hyperbolic.

And I hazard a guess that al-Qaeda knows a lot more about these planes and where they come and go than NYT or WaPo ever will. If they could launch an attack on them, they would. Instead, it helps Americans to know that the intelligence community is botching things up -- so that they can demand accountability.

[Bill Roggio]

I am shocked over nothing. I quite expected it, and attempted to clear up the record. As to your poking fun or whatever it is you are doing, it is your perogative, as it is mine to refute your claim. You sounded quite serios to me, and note the meme you have now created.

Here is a well accepted defination of treason:

2 : the offense of attempting by overt acts to overthrow the government of the state to which the offender owes allegiance or to kill or personally injure the sovereign or the sovereign's family

If I wanted to say this was treason, I would have said it, period.

So al Qaeda was interviewing CIA operatives, pouring through airport logs, etc? I'd love to see evidence of that. Please, by all means, present it to me, Stygius. What teh WaPo and NYT is disclose very specific information using their investigative tools which I seriously doubt al Qaeda lacks.

[Stygius]

C'mon. Maybe they got some spook filler quotes, but the bulk of this research was done at a desk with a computer. In fact, most of the article is a *gee whiz* narrative on how cool Aero Contractors is. And damned if they aren't.

But all the FAA stuff is online. All the PO box info, SSN info, and everything else is all online open-source information. Most of their article was just a rehash of other paper's work on Premier Executive (one of the shell companies), and a lot of online BBS-types who sit outside airports and post this stuff all the time. I guarantee you that al-Qaeda can fart around on the Internet just as well as anyone else -- and often better than most, I'm sure. The only really new thing in the article was that they noted the CIA was stupidly using the same fake identities to staff multiple shell companies -- which just defeats the purpose.

I grant you that recycling the story about the kidnapped German guy was a lascivious digression, but that is an ideological point -- not a security issue.

[Bill Roggio]

Nice dodge on the reason issue. You lose all credibility with me by maintaining your stand on that. Again, I told you up front I do not view this as treasonous based on the definition I use from a dictionary.

I did not see all of these companies in the prior reports, nor this level of detail on the operations. Did it ever occur to you that al Qaeda may not have done their homework on this, and that the NY Times has now made their jobs much easier? It doesn't matter how easy or difficult it was for the NY Times to obtain the information. And I am pretty damned sure that if a foreign Arab approached the people cited for interviews, some of those interviewed would have had their hackles raised.

Your "the CIA is stupid and the NYT showed them up" argument masks the fact that the NY Times and other outlets may have done the intelligence work for al Qaeda. You do not know for certain what al Qaeda knows, so it is better for the media to act with caution.

[Stygius]

There still is a "reason issue"? My apologies, it seemed kind of boring after a few exchanges. Again, I'm not interested in what ex post facto definition you prefer, that is beside the point. I still think it was a reasonable inference not only on my part, but on your other readers' part to make (as they did). And if you really want to parse meaning, recall that I originally qualified it, in a paraphrase of your point. I did not say you used the word "treason" -- in fact, the qualification is a clear indiciation that you did not. Instead, this was a paraphrase I thought -- and still think -- to be a reasonable characterization of your post.

You have your favorite definition of treason, which I think is unable to capture the scope of what is treasonous, but that is your problem. Acting to aid an enemy doesn't imply "direct cooperation." I also think Merriam-Webster's first definition (which you omit; yours is the second) is outrageously broad.

So I'm not dodging anything, I just find it distasteful to be playing this game.

Lastly, I don't view this as just an al-Qaeda problem. If the CIA does such a shoddy job setting up there false fronts, imagine how easy it would be for a foreign government to sniff them out or penetrate. Talk about wasting taxpayer dollars.... And considering you have touched on nowhere on the points I have raised -- chiefly, CIA's error are a big damn problem -- I find your steadily narrowing attempts to refute my points unpersuasive.

[Robert Sherrell]

Good Evening!

After my spirited exchanges over at Mr. Roggio's blog, I thought I would look at other blogs that had linked in the NYT article and see what other people are thinking.

Your comments reflect my own. I stated before that my ideal handling of secrets and covert operations is to do it so well that the press has nothing to report, period.

No one leaking secrets, no sources willing to release sensitive information to investigative reporters, no commerical databases loaded with evidence of CIA operations, etc.

This NYT bashing is yet another attempt to score points against the mythical "Liberal Press" at the expense of hiding the real issues that confront us with every failure of covert operations due to the entities that are responsible for them.

History is rife with examples where people with agendas used the written word to twist or even elimnate the truth. I don't have to go back to the Hitler era to come up with examples, either.

So thank you for the rational exchange of statements with Mr. Roggio. I enjoyed it immensely.

Sincerely,

Robert Sherrell

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