I missed posting a story yesterday, not because there is a lack of material. I was going to write about salt crust, and the fact that my car is slowly disintegrating down in the garage due to the effects of the mountains of corrosive salt that was dumped on the streets of the capital to combat the ice.
The nasty stuff has become a destructive film on everything. To make the road treatment more effective in the bitterly cold temperatures, the traditional salt-and-sand mixture was replaced by a mixture of 100% salt, fortified with magnesium chloride. The new mixture has a particular fondness for things like brake lines on the cars.
I figured a story about that, and the fact that when I tried to get the car washed yesterday the traffic was backed up all the way out of the Mr. Wash onto Glebe Road, causing a horrendous (and hazardous) back-up. I had to go on, and the salt stayed on the car, eating molecule after molecule of the undercarriage, corrupting the wax on the paint, and inexorably turning the car back into the iron oxide from which it came.
Instead, I got off on what happens when you mishandle official government documents, and I just don’t think commentary regarding the astonishing events parading across the media are likely to be entertaining or particularly fun. Well, entertaining, probably, but not fun for anyone involved . Like watching other people hit potholes.
There are a host of examples.
Former Director of Central Intelligence John Deutch was stripped of his clearances for having official documents on his home computer in 1996. He later was pardoned by President Clinton.
On April Fool’s day 2005, former National Security Advisor Sandy Berger pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of “unauthorized removal and retention of classified material.” He was fined $50,000 and sentenced to serve two years probation and 100 hours of community service. He was also stripped of his security clearance for 3 years.
On February 7, 2014, State Department analyst Stephen Jin-Woo Kim entered a guilty plea to a single felony count of disclosing classified national defense information to an unauthorized person . Kim was sentenced to a 13-month prison term.
Former CIA Director David Petraeus, gave eight handwritten journals containing classified information to his biographer (and lover) in 2011 and then lied about it to the FBI. In a plea bargain, he agreed to accept a misdemeanor conviction, probation and a fine of $40,000.
There seems to be some precedent about what happens when you mishandle classified information, regardless of the excuse. I am going to be interested to see whether that standard is true for everyone, or just some people.
Aren’t you?
Copyright 2015 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
Twitter: @jayare303