24 April 2006

The Muzzle

The Crossroads of Big Pink is the lobby, and in the congestion around the Concierge desk it is not uncommon to see several animals tugging on their leashes at any given time.

Most of the dogs are pretty mellow, and have become accustomed to the bedlam in the late afternoon, when the mail has been delivered and people are checking their boxes and calling at the desk for packages.

Some of the dogs are not so relaxed. There are a few, predominantly small ones, who appear to have been driven insane by overstimulation.

One of them lives on my floor. If I jingle my keys as I walk toward the elevator the high-pitched yapping begins. The poor thing must hunch there in expectation. The barking is shrill, even through the heavy door, and I can hear the thud of a tiny body hurling itself against it in an effort to get at me and rend my ankles.

It's curious. I'm a dog man, have been all my life, but I confess that the yipping gets on my nerves. I do not know how the owners can endure it, unless they too have been driven insane by over-stimulation.

I have no idea how the lunatic dogs are walked, or even if they are. Perhaps that contributes to the problem.

There are a few medium-sized dogs around who have the extra strap around their noses. The strap is attached to the leash, so that with a yank from the owner the animal cannot open its jaws. Between the leash and the strap, they are kept close and prevented from biting.

I had my hand torn last year by a dog, a handsome one who I did not recognize as being overstimulated.

So I think twice these days before reaching down to tousle the fur of animals I do not know. As to the dogs with the extra strap, I presume they wear it due to prudence on the part of the owners. Perhaps they are attorneys. I don't know. The dogs seem nice enough, but perhaps they have a low threashold for stimulation.

It would be understandable. I know I do. But there is some odd stuff going on in town. The paper this morning reported that the Director, Deputy Director and independent Inspector General of the CIA all recently took polygraphs to demonstrate that they had not leaked classified information.

That is highly unusual, and I have the feeling that the polygrapher that attended to Mr. Goss and Admiral Calland was nicer than the ones I have been subjected to. The inclusion of the IG was a novelty. Aside from the basic test on entry to the Agency, that office is supposed to be immune from the threat of the witch-doctor's box. But John Helgerson agreed to submit.

I have the feeling that it was not optional, since he could have refused. That would make him a non-team player, which is a risky thing here in town.

Being strapped to the box in a little airless room with a whole career on the line can have a bit of a chilling effect. In fact, it is so degrading and horrible that even a mild-mannered soul like myself has been tempted to go over the desk at the examiner. I might have, had I not been wired to the stiff cushionless chair, and really needed the job.

There was a reign of ploygraph terror at Langley after the Aldrich Ames spy affair. That drunk compromised dozens of sources overseas, and some of them died.

The fact that Ames had passed the poly didn't a bit dissuade the leadership from using it as a tool to terrorize hundreds of innocent and otherwise patriotic employees. It is a useful tool, they tell us, even if not admissable in court, and has the possibility to turn up interesting information.

Leaks are a problem, and I am the first one to agree with that. This latest flap started over the continuing investigation on who disclosed the existence of the black prisons and mystery aircraft.

The information was good enough to rack up a couple Pulitzer Prize-winning articles for the Washington Post and the New York Times. Mary McCarthy is getting the finger as the leaker, or at least one of them. She was senior director for intelligence programs at the National Security Council under President Clinton, and for part of the Bush Two administration.

If she talked to the reporters and deliberately compromised classified information, she should be tried. If convicted she should go to jail. The administration is looking to make an example of what happens when senior people talk to the press to advance personal agendas.

The polygraph exams are apparently only one segment of an integrated campaign. The spooks have been over at the National Archives, scooping up previously declassified papers and returning them to the secret world.

Employees have always been required to submit literary works and papers to the Publications Review Panel for approval. It was a relatively painless and cordial process, back in the day, but that has changed.

Now thetheory goes that if enough unclassified information is put together, you can put together a "mosaic" of what is really going on. It is child's play, really, and even the Post and the Times can do it.

Thus, many unclassified works are being shoved in the freezer on the grounds that the mosiac makes the data classified. Authors are getting letters informing them that files have been opened, and may be referred to the Justice Department if they do not cease and desist.

The whole thing is intended to stop people from talking. I can feel the muzzle being slipped on, just as the prudent dog owners at Big Pink have done. It is better to be safe than sorry, after all.

I think the Administration is a little overstimulated. The President leaks information when it is useful to him, under the notion that he is the ultimate classification authroity. Maybe he is right, and is justified in punishing those who leak things that are not.

The funny thing is that someone leaked some good news to me over the weekend. The source is impeccable, and the information was that a plot had been foiled. It was a nasty one that might have affected us personally in the capital.

But I can't tell you anything about it. My life is a mosaic of information, and taken as a whole, could be construed as classified.

I would therefore have to submit it for review. And I would not hold my breath waiting for an answer.

Copyright 2006 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com

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