The spy who came in from the rain
You know how it goes. You’re working in a highly sensitive position for the British Ministry of Defence (MoD). It’s been a long week. Your co-workers have been teasing you ever since one of them caught you listening to “I Ran” by A Flock of Seagulls when you were supposed to be using your “SECRET UK EYES ONLY” rubber stamp. The boss is a pig. So when “I Ran” shuffled around again on your iPod, you figured it was a message. So you stood up, grabbed a pile of documents from your desktop and slipped away quietly into the rainy afternoon.
You sat at the bus stop to await the 4:15 bus to Canterbury. It never arrived. Finally you said, “Oh, damn it all!” and started walking. Ninety minutes later, you arrived home. You threw off your soaked clothes, put on your robe and grabbed a pint. Well, maybe three pints. When your eyelids flew open, the apartment was dark. The clock read 4:15 a.m. “The papers!” you shouted. Fifteen minutes later, after trashing the apartment in a futile search, you remembered the bus stop. “Egad!” you said.
Then you called the boss and said, “The dog ate my homework!”
Sadly, I did not invent the foregoing tale. It happened two weeks ago in Britain and was reported widely at the beginning of last week. “Classified Ministry of Defence documents containing details about (the British destroyer) HMS Defender and the British military” had been found “… in a soggy heap behind a bus stop in Kent,” the BBC reported. Someone found the documents, realized their importance and called the BBC. Bit of a sticky wicket, eh what?
The documents contained a map showing two possible routes for a trip by HMS Defender through Ukrainian coastal waters in the Crimean Sea. One route was deemed safer; the MoD said the other would “provide an opportunity to engage with the Ukrainian government … in what the UK recognises as Ukrainian territorial waters.” Russia reportedly fired warning shots across the ship’s bow and dropped bombs into the water next to the ship. Britain denied any such action by Russia and claimed the ship was “conducting innocent passage through Ukrainian territorial waters.”
Yeah, right. All that was missing from the British “Love Boat”-style response were pictures of cute-as-a-button cruise director Julie and smiling bartender Isaac giving a thumbs up.
Analysts questioned Britain’s use of “gunboat diplomacy.” In layman’s terms, think of it as mooning your neighbors over the fence while they sit on their new patio.
But Britain is not alone. Not only has the U.S. had classified information stolen and sold to foreign countries since Revolutionary War times, but it also has, um, misplaced a few things: In 2002, the Department of Justice Inspector General reported that 212 functional weapons, 142 inoperable training weapons and 317 laptop computers were lost, missing, or stolen during a 28-month review period. But as far as we know, no one has ever carried off U.S. classified documents and forgotten them at a bus stop in the rain.
“The department takes the security of information extremely seriously and an investigation has been launched. The employee concerned reported the loss at the time. It would be inappropriate to comment further,” an MoD spokesman concluded.
But I think Q, the fictional quartermaster in Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels, might have summed up the entire debacle more succinctly.
“Really, 007! Look, I haven’t time for these adolescent antics!”