11-12-2006, 06:15 AM
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Secret disservice </b>
The Pioneer Edit Desk
Must we squawk like chickens?
There's an apocryphal joke about what is described in ponderous terms as country's "official secrets". According to it, nothing can possibly constitute an intelligence leak in India because, for a leak to occur, there have to be secrets. Ergo, since nothing is secret in our corridors of power, there possibly cannot be any leak! For some strange and mysterious reason, the visible symbols of power periodically choose to reinforce such risible impressions. Levity aside, however, a few months ago, an official of the stature of the National Security Adviser needlessly told his television host that terrorists were planning to blow up India's nuclear installations. The NSA is not supposed to be available to the media to give them "stories". His brief is to obtain information and act on its basis in the most unobtrusive and quietly efficient way possible. For, the flip side of such alarming passion for transparency is that it sends out the wrong message to the intelligence community as a whole. Equally, it may or may not satisfy people's hunger for news and information; but it certainly gives terror-mongers an idea of where and how their own covers might have blown. Then, it's also not uncommon for former intelligence officials to write their 'candid' autobiographies. To what extent are a former spymaster's exchanges and interactions with those he served - may be a former Prime Minister or Home Minister - of any consequence to the public? <b>Shouldn't there be a clause in their contracts that discourages them from writing 'bare-all' tomes?</b> It is perhaps a result of such cavalier disdain for keeping secrets that we continue to hear of countrywide security alerts on news channels and papers. The reference is to the alleged threat of an Al Qaeda plot to cause explosions in airports in South India. Such information should, in the normative course, be considered classified. Government ought to be able to galvanise its security in all the airports without rushing with the information to mass media and creating scare scenarios.
The far greater danger in issuing 'security alerts' at the drop of a coin - usually it's a hoax phone call; in the latest instance the red alert was triggered by a sweeper in Thiruchirapalli picking up a letter carrying an anonymous threat - is that, sooner or later, these will cease to be taken seriously<b>. It also proves that Intelligence in India remains reactive; instead of sitting in judgement on such scraps of information and knowing about their worth from their own network and sources, they go into a huddle under what in psychoanalytical terms will be described as a "panic attack".</b> This would have been laughable were it not for its serious consequences in shape of threat to human life and public property. <b>Until the security establishment pulls itself up by its bootstraps, perhaps there ought to be television debates on whether India should replace it national bird, which is the peacock, with the chicken.</b>Â <!--emo&
--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' /><!--endemo-->
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The Pioneer Edit Desk
Must we squawk like chickens?
There's an apocryphal joke about what is described in ponderous terms as country's "official secrets". According to it, nothing can possibly constitute an intelligence leak in India because, for a leak to occur, there have to be secrets. Ergo, since nothing is secret in our corridors of power, there possibly cannot be any leak! For some strange and mysterious reason, the visible symbols of power periodically choose to reinforce such risible impressions. Levity aside, however, a few months ago, an official of the stature of the National Security Adviser needlessly told his television host that terrorists were planning to blow up India's nuclear installations. The NSA is not supposed to be available to the media to give them "stories". His brief is to obtain information and act on its basis in the most unobtrusive and quietly efficient way possible. For, the flip side of such alarming passion for transparency is that it sends out the wrong message to the intelligence community as a whole. Equally, it may or may not satisfy people's hunger for news and information; but it certainly gives terror-mongers an idea of where and how their own covers might have blown. Then, it's also not uncommon for former intelligence officials to write their 'candid' autobiographies. To what extent are a former spymaster's exchanges and interactions with those he served - may be a former Prime Minister or Home Minister - of any consequence to the public? <b>Shouldn't there be a clause in their contracts that discourages them from writing 'bare-all' tomes?</b> It is perhaps a result of such cavalier disdain for keeping secrets that we continue to hear of countrywide security alerts on news channels and papers. The reference is to the alleged threat of an Al Qaeda plot to cause explosions in airports in South India. Such information should, in the normative course, be considered classified. Government ought to be able to galvanise its security in all the airports without rushing with the information to mass media and creating scare scenarios.
The far greater danger in issuing 'security alerts' at the drop of a coin - usually it's a hoax phone call; in the latest instance the red alert was triggered by a sweeper in Thiruchirapalli picking up a letter carrying an anonymous threat - is that, sooner or later, these will cease to be taken seriously<b>. It also proves that Intelligence in India remains reactive; instead of sitting in judgement on such scraps of information and knowing about their worth from their own network and sources, they go into a huddle under what in psychoanalytical terms will be described as a "panic attack".</b> This would have been laughable were it not for its serious consequences in shape of threat to human life and public property. <b>Until the security establishment pulls itself up by its bootstraps, perhaps there ought to be television debates on whether India should replace it national bird, which is the peacock, with the chicken.</b>Â <!--emo&
--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' /><!--endemo--> <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->