This is a great interview with a person who is incredibly well-informed and erudite on the subject of national security materials and vulnerabilities. There are a couple points that I think can stand to be emphasized:
– Any potential release or compromise of documents as sensitive as these must be treated as if they WERE compromised. The sensitivity of some of these programs means that we can’t act like it’s a maybe – it’s treated as if it were confirmed that the files were read and copied and sent to literally everyone, because to assume they remained safe is to put people, sources, and methods at risk. Some of those risks are deadly, and some are misinformation. It’s likely that we will never know who, if anyone, read these files. But, if we continue to use certain sources and think they’re good, when they’re actually feeding us bullshit, we’re going to have a bad time. For more on this, read “Between Silk and Cyanide,” by Leo Marks.
– Our allies can no longer trust us with their secrets. We have a number of bilateral and multi-lateral sharing agreements and relationships. Why should any of them ever trust us implicitly again? This causes a significant constriction in our level of information available in areas where we don’t have (and in some places may never have) a strong presence of our own. We rely on our partners to let us know things. This level of cavalier mishandling of intelligence material jeopardizes literally generations of cooperation.
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