Re: your mail

[Ed Carp <ecarp@netcom.com>]

On Fri, 8 Apr 1994 anonymous@extropia.wimsey.com wrote:

> Subject: NSA Security Manual
> 
> You realize, of course, that by posting the manual verbatim you have allowed 
> them to discover where the leak was.  They have the ability to change the 
> wording slightly on every document, so that when you quote the document they 
> can discover who gave it to you.  That is why newspapers no longer report 
> quotes from documents that they have, or never show pictures of secret 
> documents.  Then again, for something as simple as a manual, they may not 
> bother to change each one.  But the capability exists.

That only works for sensitive information that is likely to be leaked.  
The NSA doesn't do that for every FOUO and classified document it has - 
if it did, it'd never get anything else done, it'd be so busy doing that 
stuff.  Even with software to do the synonym sonkey-work, it'd take a 
massive amount of work to print different copies of every single document 
the NSA has.

I did find one interesting thing about FOUO documents mentioned, though - 
how can FOUO documents be exempt from the FOIA?  That doesn't make sense, 
unless it was either a deliberate evasion on the part of the NSA to 
attempt to mislead the innocent and naive.  Either a document is 
classified (and therefore subject to the standard classified document 
review process) or it isn't.  Sorry, but they can't have their cake and 
eat it, too.

Of course, I could be wrong.  Their SPOs carry guns, too...