Homeland security can’t even secure the White House

Rhonda Chriss Lokeman | 9th Oct 2005

It is inconceivable that an administration that seems defenseless against possible espionage and treachery seeks to be the guardian of national security for the rest of us.

As this White House aggressively polices citizens through such constitutional prohibitions as the USA Patriot Act, it has passively policed and protected itself. The consequence: a possible security breach of historic proportion.

If found guilty of charges and allegations against him, ex-Marine Leandro Aragoncillo may be the first known spy in the White House in modern times.

How could this have happened post-9/11 when the Bush administration purports to have learned the lessons of intelligence failures and abysmal interagency communication?

This White House uses homeland security as an excuse for knowing what library books you check out and what’s in your e-mail. Yet it cannot keep better track of its internal affairs, some of which affect us all.

It is comforting to know that Aragoncillo may have spied for the Philippines, a U.S. ally, as opposed to al-Qaida and other enemies. At least what was stolen were analyses of Philippine political developments, not blueprints for the war on terrorism. We should worry just the same.

What is disturbing is not what was stolen but that someone could penetrate the White House when the administration assures us that it has spared no resources to better secure the nation. How can the Bush-Cheney White House be counted on to secure the homeland when it cannot secure the nation’s home?

This was a serious wake-up call.

No one knows the real harm done from spying, except those who kept the secrets and those who profited from them. What we do know from this incident is that not only has Aragoncillo been accused of being an agent for a foreign government, but former Philippine President Joseph Estrada said he was among those on the receiving end.

Aragoncillo and a Philippine police official were arrested in New Jersey. They were charged with one count of conspiracy and one count of acting as an unregistered agent for a foreign government. Aragoncillo was arrested for downloading about 100 documents while working as an analyst for the FBI.

The Justice Department is investigating if in addition to the alleged theft at the FBI, Aragoncillo also stole classified documents from Vice President Dick Cheney’s office. Before becoming an FBI analyst and retiring from the Marines in 2004, Aragoncillo was administration chief for the vice president’s military security detail from 1999 to 2002. ABC News reported that Aragoncillo admitted stealing classified documents from Cheney’s office while part of his security detail.

This incident mutes somewhat the president’s call to Congress to send him a bill to reauthorize the Patriot Act. Lawmakers should be in no hurry to heed the call. Some in Congress may soon realize that the people in a glass White House are too willing to cast stones at others.

The misnamed Patriot Act expands the FBI’s surveillance powers and allows the government to spy on people, sometimes without probable cause. It allows a secret federal court to permit the FBI to monitor the Internet and listen in on conversations through roving wiretaps. That means if you are being tapped and use your neighbor’s phone, he gets tapped, too. Along with those broader powers, however, have come some mistakes.

CNN reported on an FBI memo, made public in 2002, in which an FBI official acknowledged the agency made on average 10 wiretap mistakes a year. Reportedly, the secret court approved 1,754 warrants for 2004. Of the 38,514 untranslated hours the FBI compiled, some included “collections of materials from the wrong sources due to technical problems.” The wrong people were tapped. There are mistakes we know about and mistakes we don’t.

Meanwhile, CIA chief Porter Goss said last week that there would be no disciplinary action against former director George Tenet and others for failures leading up to the Sept. 11 attacks. A joint congressional panel asked the CIA’s inspector general to review the events leading up to the attacks. Recommendations of the inspector general’s report weren’t made public, but among items leaked was a call for an accountability review for Tenet and others. Wouldn’t be prudent, Goss said. So Tenet gets to keep polishing that medal Bush gave him for good work.

Even though the public probably wouldn’t know who at the CIA got called on the carpet, Goss chose instead to sweep all things under the rug. So not only won’t the public know what was said, it won’t know about whom.

But we should all sleep better at night, right? Snug as a bug in Cheney’s rug.