Keystone Kops Alert: "Civil servant suspended after top secret al-Qa'eda documents are left on train," by Graham Tibbetts for the Telegraph, June 12 (thanks to all who sent this in):
A senior civil servant has been suspended after top secret intelligence documents on al-Qa'eda were left on a commuter train, the Cabinet Office announced....The documents, which also relate to Iraq, were only intended for senior officials and ministers and should have been kept in a secure briefcase....
The individual who left the documents on the train is a senior civil servant working in the Cabinet Office's intelligence and security unit, which contributes to the work of the Joint Intelligence Committee.
It is understood that his work involves writing and contributing to intelligence and security assessments and that he has the authority to take documents of this sort out of the Cabinet Office, as long as strict procedures to ensure their safety are observed.
One of the documents is a seven-page report by the JIC on "al-Qa'eda Vulnerabilities" and is understood to look at the state of the Islamist terror network in Afghanistan and neighbouring Pakistan.
Commissioned by the Foreign Office and Home Office, the document was classified "UK top secret" and was considered so sensitive that each page was numbered and marked "For UK, US, Canadian and Australian eyes only"....
Shouldn't the document have been marked:
"For non-Muslim UK, US, Canadian and Australian eyes only"
A hat, an umbrella, maybe the occasional bag being left behind on a commuter train, I can understand.
But a box full of highly classified documents?
This defies all logic in all Western security services. But this little gem:
For all the uninitiated readers here, leakage of any TOP SECRET information is bad enough in of itself; any compromise of information marked with the caveat "For UK, US, Canadian and Australian eyes only" is REALLY bad.
All my fellow telecomm operators (military or otherwise) know what I mean.
Good Lord! A civil servant as well! Glad to know this material was recovered before it was compromised.
Or was it?
Was the BBC the best choice of media outlets to give the documents to? I wonder...
Keystone Kops or Muslim infiltrator? The lack of identifying information on the person is suspicious. The documents probably had plenty of time to be scanned before they were recovered (if they were recovered).
And why are our "friends and allies" not privy to such information?
Would not the following be more correct?...
.."For UK, US, Canadian and Australian blue eyed devils only"
Sounds like it was done on purpose to me. It can't be a coincidence that some of THE most top secret papers, on Al-Q vulnerabilities no less, just gets accidentally left on a train. BS!
I guess they aren't vulnerabilities any longer.
TS,
Agreed. This sounds more like a document drop.
It's about as accidental as Sandy Berger's "forgetting" he took documents from the Archives. What is the name of this "senior civil servant"?
Having held a Top Secret Clearance with a few caveats, I am inclined to agree with some of the above. You do not just have Secret Documents out to leave lying around. There are certain procedures you must know and to not follow them is intentional, not a mistake.
I suggest the documents were either shown to someone, handed off or "dropped".
It is too bad that the Govt's only punish low level Military for security offenses when any "Official" or Commissioned Officer can virtually do anything they want. I found a whole slew of Top Secret - Confideltial documents in a Major's Old Desk which was about to be taken out likely to be sold at auction when they spent(wasted) money on "New" desks. Even though I reported it the response was, he is a Major and no doubt knows what he is doing and had good reason and it was suggested that I was being insubordinate and "disloyal" for even attempting to "make a deal" of the issue. Even though the scumbag piece of trash should Not have been keeping them in his desk to begin with, none of that mattered because it would "Embarass" the "Officers Corps" so cover up is the game.
These People really need to be execute, starting with Sandy Burglar.