Counter-Intelligence…or is there anyone minding the store?

The NY Sun is doing some terrific work on the investigations or lack thereof into the leaks that have so hampered our war effort. The tone matches this Rush quote and it is exactly the right tone to strike in the midst of this existential war we find ourselves in. A war against an enemy who so far has managed to do the most damage to our homeland than any other enemy since 1812.

“It’s become more and more obvious that there is a symbiotic relationship between these agencies — we’re talking about State, we’re talking about the Pentagon, CIA — there’s a symbiotic relationship between these agencies and the drive-by media now, and they’re not going to let an election get in their way … They’ve got their own agendas. … If they have to destroy the policies of a particular administration, they’ll do it via leaks, and then when these criminal leaks are investigated, they don’t participate.” Source: The Gerstein Disclosures – January 11, 2007 – The New York Sun

A handy Cold War definition of Counter Intelligence.

Operations Branch—Formulates, promulgates, and supervises counterintelligence programs pertaining to the Army; establishes countermeasures against efforts to gain unauthorized access to classified information pertaining to plans, operations, and capabilities of the Army; and initiates, controls, reviews, and recommends final action on certain types of security investigations of military and civilian personnel connected with the Army.

Security of Military Information Branch—Formulates, promulgates, and exercises supervision over measures for censorship and for safeguarding classified military information; and promulgates and interprets policy on the disclosure of classified military information to foreign governments and their nationals, the United States Government, nongovernmental agencies, and individuals.

So the question is, exactly where is the Counter-Intelligence agency in regards to these leaks? Are not leaks such as those listed below exactly the sort of information they are supposed to be protecting?

Reports on the CIA’s secret prisons in Romania and Poland were known to have upset CIA officials.
This is a particularly amusing story since these ABC Reporters think releasing secrets makes them crusaders in the war against…no not Islamic thugs intent on murdering us all, but against a mythical Big Brother.
National Security Agency’s program to monitor calls of known terrorists and their cells.
Then we have the laundry list of leaks out of the CIA in what must be understood to be a war against the President of the United States. Laurie Mylroie was the first to notice that war and she was relentlessly attacked for her efforts. Her book Bush vs. the Beltway : How the CIA and the State Department Tried to Stop the War on Terror 2003 was so far ahead of its time that none of the right wing blogs or news sites gave it a mention. What a terrific shame since it was absolutely critical to understanding why we never found WMD’s, Links to Terror and other evidence of Saddams crimes.

If journalists are protected from being investigated by our Counter Intelligence agents does that mean that our enemies merely have to sign up all of their agents with the New York Times? That has been done before by our last great enemy, the Soviets. Whittaker Chambers an editor of Time magazine and self confessed Soviet Agent used the tactic of hiding inside of our press corps. So given that fact shouldn’t our counter intelligence agents be all the way around possible releases of our secrets to the Press?

This story by the NY Sun is extremely disturbing not because it causes me to lose faith in our Press corps. No instead I am terrifically worried about the competency of our Counter Intelligence agencies. How exactly are we supposed to be confident of their safeguarding our secrets if they cannot prevent secrets from being released to our own citizens who likely have not the training of a foreign intelligence service. And exactly how confident are we that agents of our destruction, foreign spies, have not already embedded themselves into our Press Corp? It has happened before…