Mission: confused

[CPEO Moderator <cpeo@cpeo.org>]

Maryland
BALTIMORE SUN
Mission: confused
Originally published December 31, 2003

LET'S TRY TO get this straight: the National Security Agency, in the
name of protecting national security, refuses to share with other
federal agencies information about toxic waste at NSA's Odenton
headquarters that may pose a direct threat to the security of local
residents. Huh?

We understand these are dangerous times, what with Code Orange and all.
But in its zeal to keep secrets about its physical plant, the super
spook agency seems to have lost sight of its larger mission to keep
Americans from harm.

What's more, according to reporting by The Sun's Rona Kobell and Ariel
Sabar, the global eavesdropping agency seems to be claiming for itself a
status above and apart from the rest of the federal government,
including the U.S. Army, with which it shares quarters at Fort Meade.

But waste is waste, and as a longtime tenant of what the Environmental
Protection Agency has rated as one of the most hazardous dump sites in
the nation, NSA has an obligation to make available to federal
regulators whatever information they need to make sure it gets cleaned
up.

No one's asking NSA to post its secrets on a public Web site or let nosy
citizens poke through its trash. All it has to do is share with the Army
and EPA regulators information about its buildings and their past and
present functions. Surely, their federal colleagues can be trusted.

Yet the NSA recently submitted to the EPA, then suddenly yanked back, a
report containing such information, contending it was too revealing.
Agency officials told The Sun they would edit out sensitive material and
return an unclassified version of the report to the EPA early next year.

This article can be viewed at:
http://www.sunspot.net/news/opinion/bal-ed.nsa31dec31,0,354089.story?coll=bal-opinion-headlines

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