Via Laura Rozen, a CIA contractor writes a post on her (literally) Top Secret internal CIA blog, saying "Waterboarding is torture and torture is wrong," and pointing out the continued relevance of the Geneva conventions. She is fired and threatened with prosecution for unauthorized use of a government computer. The CIA spokesman claims that the reason is that the post was not related to her official duties; unlike, presumably, her previous posts about bad food in the CIA cafeteria.
Apparently basic principles of morality are too dangerous even to be mentioned in today's CIA.
Posted by Matt Weiner at July 22, 2006 09:29 AMForget the whole suppression of morality and manufacturing dissent business, I mean that's hardly surprising at this point. What really kills me is that there are Top Secret blogs. This opens up a whole new world of questions. Do CIA employees sit around at work blowing off by posting comments on each others' Top Secret blogs? Do the commenters get into flamewars? Do they have to type the letters "FZWUR5" from a squiggly gif to prove they're a person before leaving a comment? Is the Washington Post endangering freedom by publishing the fact (if it is a fact) that the CIA cafeteria sucks? Wouldn't it be fun to call up a CIA spokesperson and ask if the cafeteria sucked, just to hear them say "I can neither confirm nor deny that"? Is it vaguely disturbing that somewhere inside the CIA's Top Secret computer network, hundreds of computers are running bloated, buggy blogware? I mean, jeezus christ, CIA employees aren't browsing their internal network with INTERNET EXPLORER, for God's sake, are they? The mind reels.
Posted by: Ben at July 24, 2006 06:03 PM