Morning Spy, Evening Spy

The story begins at the end of 2000 and ends on September 10, 2001.

It moves between Afghanistan, Pakistan, England, Africa, the Middle East and the U.S., steadily building in intensity and, with every apparent revelation, becoming more ambiguous.

Missed signals, purposeful compartmentalization on a "need-to-know" basis, ego, love, a refusal to believe what doesn't fit a preexisting theory, all the failings of everyday life, set in the context of the CIA's highest echelon.

A wonderfully told tale by someone who knows whereof he speaks: the author (click on "Back Flap") was chief editor of Middle East Executive Reports and lived in Iran, where he taught at Tehran University and the University of Jondi Shapur in Ahwaz.

One thing that struck me while reading this novel over the past couple weeks is that the much criticized territoriality of both the FBI and the CIA when it comes to sharing sensitive information is not as simple a thing as I used to believe.

So much that could have been synthesized from disparate, closely-held pieces of information might have prevented 9/11.

But consider that one of the reasons facts are classified is because once they're released or shared, where they go has nothing to do with where they're supposed to go.

To be specific: I have no doubt that both the FBI and the CIA consider each other to be fundamentally leaky and not to be trusted in terms of security.

Thus, sharing sensitive material becomes an exercise in calculated risk: how much of what is handed over will get to people other than those who will use it for the purpose intended?

So while putting all the pieces together might well yield a picture, by the time it's obvious what the outlines are, the details that matter may well have left the building — literally.

Consider Siobhan Gorman's article in yesterday's Wall Street Journal about Byzantine Hades (a program monitering cyberattacks on U.S. computer systems) and President Bush's proposal to spend "... an estimated $6 billion in 2009 [$30 billion over seven years] to build a secretive system protecting U.S. communication networks from attacks by terrorists, spies and hackers."

Gorman wrote, "Officials in Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell's office argued for a centralized approach.... But they appear to have lost the fight in favor of a structure that would dole out responsibilities... to individual agencies..... The CIA and Pentagon didn't want other agencies mucking about in their computer networks...."

Sound familiar?

I'd be interested to see what Cory Doctorow, author of the superb story "When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth," thinks about the new new thing in government network security.