Friday, March 07, 2008

"NAFTAgate" Investigation Problematic

Evidently someone took a classified tel that had been written by a diplomat at the Canadian Consulate in Chicago and handed it over to some one in the CBC. The prospect of finding out who the person who gave it to the CBC is strikes me as rather remote. The tel characterized a conversation between a Canadian diplomat and a senior aide to Senator Obama. The distribution list on this sort of tel is very wide as it would be of such high interest to so many elements in the Canadian Government. Lots of people print these classified tels out instead of reading them off the screen of their computers. It is easy for any one of the dozens and dozens of people with access to take a copy of a classified tel out of their office in their briefcase. The system is based on trust. Someone has grievously violated that trust by handing a classified document over to someone without the appropriate security clearance. It is unlikely that such a person will be honest enough to come forward and admit that he or she made a serious error in judgement by revealing state secrets. Hope that I am wrong about this.

No comments: