Hard to Keep a Good Operation Secret Anymore

This BBC story says a lot about the difficulty of conducting operations using modern tradecraft. The operations hardly ever remain secret for long.

A former US Diplomat believes that the current spying scandal in Greece is a case of our own intelligence agencies not trusting others. While his argument might have some truth to it (namely, that some people within the intelligence community might believe that some foreigners are not trustworthy), I doubt that an operation of this size would be conducted solely because of xenophobia and sensitivity to terrorism. I imagine that nearly every intelligence agency in the world had its ears to the ground during the Olympics, listening for impending plots.

But, as with many things overseas, when you don't know whom to blame, blame the CIA.

He [former US Diplomat] argues American intelligence agencies would not have trusted the Greeks with the massive security operation surrounding the Athens Olympics in August 2004 set up to counter any potential terrorist threat.

"They believe you cannot trust foreigners, that foreigners are incompetent and of dubious trustworthiness," he says. "You owe it to yourself if you have the capability, to have an independent ear listening to them and I think that is what this was."