It looks like some British government officials can’t keep a secret, or at least can’t hold onto secret documents. An embarrassing new story has emerged out of the UK. A “senior intelligence official in the Cabinet office,” who has since been suspended, apparently left copies of top secret documents on a commuter train. Passengers found the documents and brought them to the BBC, which then reported the documents to authorities. The BBC decided not to air the full contents of the documents citing legal concerns. But even absent legal concerns, the BBC was right not to publish the contents. The documents reportedly contained important assessments and secret intelligence reporting. Details are murky, but it appears that several pages were stamped “UK Top Secret” and contained a very recent assessment of al Qaeda’s strengths and weaknesses in Pakistan and Afghanistan as well as an assessment of Iraq’s security forces. The papers were authored by the UK’s Joint Intelligence Committee and the Ministry of Defense. In addition, CNN reports, “The al Qaeda report was commissioned by the Foreign and Home Offices.” Most disturbingly, “The assessments often include intelligence material gathered from agents on the ground.” That is, sensitive intelligence gathered from spies in harm’s way was floating around the British public transit system. This does not exactly inspire confidence, but at least the BBC decided not to publish the contents on air. Had the contents aired there is no telling what the ramifications could have been–assuming the intelligence was as sensitive as some reports make it out to be. I think all of our readers in the D.C. area should be on the look out for documents on their respective commuter trains home this evening. Something tells me I won’t find any on the NYC subway, however.
