| 09 February 2006 Policy Watching hubris explode in this town is the only thing that rivals the passion for the Redskins. The people on horseback with the One True Answer show up, and they crash around for a while and presently the systems dulls them, or breaks them, or begins to ridicule them. But right at the beginning the fear of the system is palpable- you can almost smell it. The funny thing is that is so deceptively simple. Things only work the way they do because there is some policy derived from some law, which was created in a reaction to some abuse, which was in accordance with some other interpretation of some previous policy. The furor over the NSA Terrorist Monitoring Program is one of those, policy trying to chase technology. Cleaning up the policy should be as easy as installing a new software release, but it is exactly the other way around. I had a chance to be involved in a couple of those organizations, ones that were chartered to be disruptive and create change. They were placed in positions to manage and direct other organizations that had become mired in process, and had ceased to remember that there were any customers except one another. The best of the transformational organizations I got to work for was effective for about a year because we were empowered to ignore policy, or make up our own when we needed it. The bureaucracy got even with us eventually, bogging us down in reports and meetings until we were just as slow and reactive as everyone else. The freedom to act, while we had it, was dizzying. We actually got some good things done. But there is a limited time for reform. That is particularly true in the Intelligence community, since they have the fabled Green Door of classification to hide behind. Porter Goss, chief of the CIA and once the Chairman of the House intelligence Committee, had an Op-Ed piece in the Times this morning, decrying the bureaucrats who scurry like cockroaches to the press to disgorge the proceedings of highly classified meetings. Mr. Goss specifically referenced the disclosure about Osama's cell phone, and how we tracked it. Someone just had to show how cleaver and important they were, and blabbed about it. Sure enough, the last time we were able to track that phone was at the battle of Tora-Bora. Goodness knows where Osama is now, and it is certain he is not going to talk about it in any way we can hear. Mr. Goss says some of the other Services around the world think we are a joke, and can't be expected to keep their secrets if we cannot keep our own, and it is hard to deny. But the culture of secrecy is a funny thing. There has been quite a buzz this week about Gary Cooper, the new Czar who is chartered to clean up information sharing in the Intelligence Community. The dimensions of his challenge are defined by Porter Goss's article. What do you share, with whom? The equities are vast, or rather, are as vast as the little desk-tops of the bureaucrats who have the power to say “No.” They consider their little secrets as being of the same magnitude as Osama's cell phone, and have the power to hold that information away from others, on the grounds that the secrets might get to the Press, and something irresponsible. And responsibility is something only they can determine. It is about ownership of secrets. Suppose the FBI or Customs and Border Protection got access to cool intelligence? Imagine what could happen. The most astonishing act of organizational ju-jitsu happened in response to our coaltion operations in DESRERT STORM. We had dozens of partners who needed some of our intelligence, but we had no formal relations with them, as we did with our British and Canadian and Australian buddies. Based on the policy of the day, certain kinds of sensitive information were considered not eligible for foreign dissemination. The term of art was "NOFORN," and it made it hard to cooperate and share information. It was just a simple policy decision to eliminate the term, and just share the data. The bureaucrats turned the policy on its head. Their iterpretation was that since there was no more NOFORN information, everything must be withheld from our foreign partners, including the stuff we had routinely given before, unless we went through and specifically marked what and to whom we wanted to share it. It is so bizarre that I still don't believe it. But it isn't over, of course, and policy issues are once more in play. I got an e-mail this morning from a pal who has been there and done that. The e-mail said that Gary Cooper had six months, tops, before the system made him implode. I took the note seriously, since my friend had been savaged in the same process when it looked like he might change things. And you should have seen what they did to another pal who was in charge of the Aldrich Ames Damage Assessment when it was done. He was sent to organizational Siberia, no window, no secretary. The Innocent needed to be punished. Things had been changed. So the game is afoot, and the clock is ticking for Gary Cooper. I am pulling for him, and wish him success. This is vitally important. It might even be so important that something will happen. With hard work and a lot of frustration, I give it even money, at least for a year. Copyright 2006 Vic Socotra |