Friday, July 21, 2006

Top-Secret World Loses Blogger

Top-Secret World Loses Blogger: "And it continued, she added, with something like this: 'CC had the sad occasion to read interrogation transcripts in an assignment that should not be made public. And, let's just say, European lives were not saved.' (That was a jab at Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's trip to Europe late last year when she defended U.S. policy on secret detentions and interrogations.) A self-described 'opinionated loudmouth with a knack for writing a catchy headline,' Axsmith also wrote how it was important to 'empower grunts and paper pushers' because, she explained in the interview, 'I'm a big believer in educating people at the bottom, and that's how you strengthen an infrastructure.'

In her job as a contractor at the CIA's software-development shop, Axsmith said, she conducted 'performance and stress testing' on computer programs, and that as a computer engineer she had nothing to do with interrogations. She said she did read some interrogation-related reports while performing her job as a trainer in one counterterrorism office."


One word: need-to-know.

21 comments:

buddy larsen said...

LOL--"one word: need-to-know".

Needling the old intellojence comunity, eh?

Charlie Martin said...

What am I missing in this story?

This sentence: She said she did read some interrogation-related reports while performing her job as a trainer in one counterterrorism office.

She either had NTK for these, in which case she was giving the impression she was revealing NTK information to people who didn't have it; or she didn't have NTK, in which case she was revealing that she'd violated NTK on what was at least SECRET-codeword information.

Ergo, they pulled her clearance; she needed a clearance for her job, so as a consequence they fired her. And they interrogated her sharply because we don't like unauthorized disclosures even within a classified network; if she was talking there, who else was she talking to?

gumshoe said...

just the WaPo pushing it's daily agenda...The Boston Globe is owned by Pinchy & Co.(NYT)...did they buy up the WaPo and the LA Times too,when America wasn't looking???

Re: Axsmith

i'd say this woman ..who *assigns herself* a role within a security-clearance organization ie:

"Axsmith also wrote how it was important to 'empower grunts and paper pushers' because, she explained in the interview, 'I'm a big believer in educating people at the bottom, and that's how you strengthen an infrastructure."

...was in over her head
to begin with.

buddy larsen said...

Yeh--she's from the Bill Keller "empower the grunts" school. She's lucky to live in these times, when there are no enemies except for Da Man.

Charlie Martin said...


The WaPo reporting on this is screwy. I still do not see, at least from their article, why they think anyone should care about this.


Oh, sorry, I misunderstood you. yeah, my reaction was "well, duh."

Syl said...

Just to let you know. Computer troubles.

Don't know what future holds.

Have a nice day.

Sigh.

buddy larsen said...

Cheer up, Syl! Things can always get woise!

Barry Dauphin said...

Syl

Axsmith is looking for computer work....were you thinking of giving her a call? ;>).

buddy larsen said...

She should start an advice column--she was born to--

"Questions? Axsmith!"

cf said...

Don't forget the author of this is Dana Priest accused of printing reports of secret prisons fed her by a leaker inside the CIA. Somehow, I think this is related to this otherwise goofy report.

buddy larsen said...

ah, yes, Dana Priest, the wife of Willian Goodfellow, the Director of the Center For International Policy, which among other (publicly-funded?) things does commercial PR for Joe Wilson.

buddy larsen said...

Joe Wilson, who literally--literally--can't shut his mouth.

cf said...

Could be PUK.In any event I'm sure this gal's fans and MOM's and Priest's overlap.

buddy larsen said...

Nothing wrong with an office room being frigid. You're there to work, after all, not to go shilly-shallying around.

chuck said...

"I'm shaking. I'm cold, staring at the wall,"

Sounds like she was coming off an adrenaline high.

vnjagvet said...

Pretty soon some dang lawyer will craft a "right to leak".

I wonder how Dana got this story.

Anonymous said...

syl:

I just put in a new modem. There was much screaming, crying, raving, cat kicking and when Gale tried to be nice and put his hand on my shoulder in an effort to "settle me down" I told him to get his effing hands off me.

But I am all better now. The modem is in and rather than no dial tone I am getting kicked off every 15 minutes.

I was on the phone begging for broadband and when I told the folks at SBC that there was broadband in Baghdad for Godsake, they just told me to have a nice day and hung up.

And then there are those socalled deals for new computers that are never what they say they are, etc.

As for this lady, who cares if she got her ass fired? One less whiney ass blabber mouth at the CIA.

brylun said...

"One less whiney ass blabber mouth at the CIA."

My feelings exactly.

brylun said...

And the New York Times picks up the story here.

buddy larsen said...

“I guess I’m just too much of a big mouth for that organization” says Ms Axsmith, in the NYT article. But, hey, now that she's internalized that concept, and, y'know, taken ownership of her actions, and all, maybe they can hire her back. Put her in counter-espionage or something.

buddy larsen said...

She'd be better than Joe Kennedy, who showed up at the Court of St. James in time to advise the Crown to surrender to Hitler.