Damn! That stuff tastes awful...

Having just returned from.... where the hell was I?

Oh yeah! Canadian Forces Base... (the location isn't important).

Funny how, for almost the past four decades, in two armed services, in two different governments, the protection of classified material has not changed. (Must be a NATO thing.)

As LuLu pointed out, there are certain specific requirements when transporting, transmitting and receiving classified documents, SECRET being a security classification of some signficance.

I would add to LuLu's accurate description to include the fact that the outside of the inner envelope requires a government approved security tape on the flap opening. The stuff is tough to open with a pair of sharp scissors and has a disgusting taste with an aroma not unlike an unwashed horse. (I know, I know... it's all in the glue).

Further, as CTV is reporting that Lisa Raitt or some "aide" left a file in which some pages were marked SECRET, then something is wrong. In any publication, regardless of the number of pages, if one page is classified SECRET then the whole publication is marked SECRET... on the outside cover, top and bottom, front and back. The cover page is also marked SECRET, top and bottom.

Not that the thing had any reason to be at CTV in the first place, but if it's not marked the way in which I described, somebody for whom Raitt is responsible has an abysmally poor security awareness. If it was marked correctly then only an idiot would leave it laying around.

I too know my stuff. I teach it.

Stockwell Day: BEADWINDOW ZERO TWO

I don't know if BigCityLib has an armed services background or whether there is a formal communications security awareness there, but M.J. certainly picked up on the breach committed by Stockwell Day in his latest bit of self-serving blather.

Machine gun barrels close to my head didn’t detract from the fact that sunrise in Kandahar felt a bit like sunrise right here in the constituency.

Being on the far side of the planet in Afghanistan, my body’s ‘awake’ system kicked in fully at 3 a.m.

How poetic. Except that if Stockwell Day's "awake" system kicks in at 3 a.m. Afghanistan time, given that he was 11 1/2 hours ahead of Pacific Daylight Time, that would suggest that he's not fully awake until 3:30 p.m. PDT and 6:30 p.m. when he's in Ottawa. He wasn't there long enough to adapt to the time zone. But that's minor stuff. We already know Day is off in his own world most of the time. He goes on to advise us all of the security awareness he possesses.

For security reasons I can’t give you a lot of detail about the Canadian Forces camp out there on the outskirts of the ancient city of Kandahar.

No kidding! So why then go into, you know, details?

The full moon was lighting up the desert floor and the lookout towers on the walls at each corner of the large compound were casting long shadows across the camp.

I could make out the silent silhouettes of two guards in each turret.

“Great time for early morning chat” I said to myself as I headed towards the nearest tower. I made sure to make the appropriate noises as I climbed the rusty steel ladder to the platform of the sentry post.

As I pulled myself up through the trap door I was greeted curiously by the two armed guards, machine guns and all.

That, Mr. Day, is known as a disclosure of "Essential Elements of Friendly Information" (EEFI) and is a communications security breach. Where I come from, that gets you a nasty little rebuke called a BEADWINDOW, as described in the current version of Allied Communications Publication, ACP 124(D), paragraph 103. From the EEFI list:

Friendly or enemy capabilities or limitations.

No, it's not a significant breach, but given Day's role, he shouldn't be saying anything at all. And every little bit of information gets swallowed up by the opposition. To suggest otherwise is to have lax communications security awareness.

Day's column goes on with some information which is, in fact, worth advising his constituents about, but his need to wax poetic and demonstrate his affinity for things military actually makes the whole thing a classic Day washout. Towards the end he links everything but Ogopogo to the prime minister and the Vimy Ridge Memorial. And then he wrote this:

At the recent student Vimy send off from our local Legion, a misty eyed veteran whispered hoarsely to me, “They really are taking up the torch, they really will remember when we’re gone, won’t they.”

Ah... the ever present "misty eyed veteran". Unnamed, unknown and unreported anywhere else. Convenient, but unverifiable. A name, Stockwell, a name. Lest we come to believe that it is just another bit of literary license being taken to make your prose more poetic.