A privacy-friendly system of monitoring communications was in place at the National Security Agency in the 1990s, but was shelved, the Baltimore Sun reports.

Four intelligence officials agreed to discuss the program called ThinThread with the newspaper if granted anonymity. In testing in 1998, they said the project succeeded at each task with high marks and was able to rapidly separate and encrypt U.S.-related communications to ensure privacy.

I think it is obvious that we are witnessing a lot of positives efforts from a counterintelligence program. And, do not get me wrong, in my opinion, we have the best intelligence agencies on the planet. Considering history, we might say in the history of the world. That said, we should always note that whatever heights we might achieve… it is generally just because the mountains are so low.

Seriously. Look at the various spies caught in the past ten years. Common denominator? Vast excess of cash. They didn’t even hide it. They just told their co-worker’s lies.

Simple forensic accounting, not lie detectors, would have caught these people.

Today, though, as in the past – mostly pre-Stalinist era – we have disloyal people who are commited to causes which are directly opposed to the basic ideals of what America is founded on. They do not do it for money. They do it because they have swallowed anti-American ideals hook, line, and sinker.

It is not even though that we might disagree on what those basic ideals are. These groups believe themselves to be in actual conflict with America as America is. Islamists want sharia and consider the US to be the great Satan. Leftists want totalitarian Communism – ultimately – and believe Democracy and the rights of man to be wicked lies of the wealthy useful for holding down the poor.

Let’s face the facts… our colleges indoctrinate a lot of these naive kids. These kids often then complete college and find themselves in sensitive positions. They pass all of the tests… because we can’t even ask the right questions. But, all along they hate their own work, they hate the agency they work for, they hate the ideals of most of their co-workers, and they hate their own country.

Other individuals find themselves in politics or other positions in power… and they use this leverage to exert control over these agencies.

We can argue as another poster does that everything is “okay” because we know these are genuinely failed programs, or can say as much… the Plame incident, Mary McCarthy… maybe even the NSA phone tap program (some might say)… or the foreign jailing of terrorists and terrorist suspects in secret prisons (again, some might say)… but, we also know from said silence of the failures that are present in such agencies.

Other failures… have been more widely exposed, such as the Lebanese attacks, which, really had a major impact on modern terrorism. As noted in a recent book made into a movie there was strong evidence Iran was behind these attacks. And, Iran, itself was a great failure.

Obviously, the bigger picture means that our various administrations have performed poorly. Pulling out of Beirut after the barracks bombing was the absolute worst idea. It sent a strong message to guys like Bin Laden that “terrorism works”.

Anyway… no offense. I can only hope some strong work is being done to prevent a major problem with Iran, and to a lesser degree, Venezula. Two nations whose leaders are ardently committed against us and who have the power to do something about this. Though, this said, this is really just the tip of the iceberg.

We can continue to underestimate our enemies… we can call them incompetent savages… we can call them political blowhards, like Chavez may appear to be. But, that hate we see on the streets? That is real.

Personally, for one, I would like to see more terrorists get killed. Maybe that is too radical of an idea. Two, I would like to see positive propaganda programs, such as in key areas like South America, especially Venezula. After the tsunami we gave a lot of aid – visible aid the people could see – to Indonesia. And we really saw public opinion there grow better of us.

We give a great deal of foreign aid… and I am sure some of this gains us ground. However, we do not do a lot of visible, cheaper propagandist aid programs that could win the masses of these foreign nations.

With a high hat-tip to Don’t Go Into the Light, AP reports on today’s briefing to Congressional Intel Committees, and it includes this gem:

USA Today reported last week that three of the four major phone companies provided information on the …

In that context, my perception is that most of the leaks we have seen over the last few years seem to be related to areas where our track record has been less than stellar.

For example if we have correct info that Ms. Plame was for a number of years supervisory related to WMD, then overall considering what happened on her watch, one could argue that should should have gotten less than satisfactory annual job evaluations. Similar logic could be applied to Mary McCarthy when she was in charge of Risk Assement of emerging threats during the Kobar Towers and Cole incidents.

Our intelligence agencies claim to push non-partisanship. But, if you are against Communists, Islamists, and other extremist radical groups — you are taking a core conservative stance… and opposing a core leftist stance.

Frankly, I think we should be agreed that Islamism, Communism, Nazism, and the like… are patently anti-American ideaologies which surpass any partisan stance.

But this is not the reality, and so we have some very serious problems.

Historically, I think, in recent history… for me the brightest example of a strong military with an intense cohesion was the Rwandan Patriotic Front. These guys were refugees with a strong central focus, they routinely kept themselves indoctrinated in their core purpose, they were entirely in agreement on these matters… and they took down a far superior force.

One might argue they were facing a very clear and present evil. But, if Islamism and modern radical Communism (and its’ variants) are not very clear and present evils… what is?

I do not see anyway to fix this problem.