Damage From Nunes Memo

February 6, 2018 

 

I was a Navy Helicopter pilot from 1986-1995 with service during the Gulf War aka Operation Desert Storm. Following nine years of service with the Navy, I began a 20-year career with the FBI, from which I retired in October 2016. I spent my FBI career working as a Special Agent investigator and Supervisor. I was exposed to the FISA process from my very first day at the Washington Field Office which was conducting surveillance of CIA spy Harold Nicholson just before he was arrested at the Dulles Airport in November 1996. Over the next 20 years, I was involved in the FISA process from the Special Agent, FBI Headquarters Supervisor, and Field Office Supervisor perspectives.

As someone who spent 30 years working with classified U.S. Government information while serving both the U.S. Navy and the FBI, I was quite curious to see what was in the recently declassified House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence memo (the memo) regarding alleged Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act abuses by the FBI and others within the Executive and Judicial branches of the U.S. Government.

After reviewing the memo utilizing the U.S. Government classification definitions as a framework, I believe there are a number of sections within the memo that contain truly classified information for which the disclosure may very well lead to a high level of damage to the National Security of the United States. The most egregious disclosures of classified material include the naming of Carter Page, George Papadopoulos, Christopher Steele, Michael Isikoff, and Yahoo! News in their relationship to the FISA Court order.

Many may be asking, what’s the big deal since much of this information had already been leaked anyway? To answer that question, how about we turn to the numerous CIA sources from within the government of the Soviet Union whose identities were disclosed by CIA employee Aldrich Ames? Valery Martynov, for example, was one of a number of such sources who was executed by the Soviet Union due to the information Ames provided to his Soviet handler. Oops! I guess we can’t ask Martynov, can we?

All governments, throughout history, have relied on human sources inside other governments to provide intelligence that could be used in making foreign policy decisions and protecting the lives of citizens. The more solid the sources a country recruits, the better the information used in national security decision-making can be.

Now that the Legislative and Executive branches of the U.S. Government have determined it is appropriate to divulge the names of individuals associated with the classified collection of intelligence information on other governments, I ask what is the likelihood for successful human source recruitment going forward? Will identified potential sources be comfortable with U.S. Government assurances that their identities will be protected at all cost? These potential sources most often work for other countries. They don’t work for, or permanently reside in, the United States. Do we think they’re going to be willing to risk their lives for the United States if they don’t believe the United States will keep their identities confidential?

American citizens have now seen less than one percent of the FISA process, a process that has been relied on heavily for many years to protect the security of our Country and its people. Is having that knowledge shared in the public domain worth the severe damage that has likely been done? Perhaps it is, in the opinions of some or many, but that is a question We The People need to give serious reflection on before we choose this path of public disclosure again. After all, it is our Country and the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial branches work for us! If we don’t want our Government to protect us, that is our choice. Let’s make it wisely with full knowledge of the potential consequences.