CIA chiefs more negligent on intel security than thought: Report

Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)’s directors have been far more inconsiderate in protecting US sensitive information than it was previously assumed, reports suggest.

On Wednesday, the whistleblower website WikiLeaks published a data dump from CIA Director John Brennan's personal AOL email account after it was hacked.

The huge pile of data included some social security numbers, government phone numbers, and draft recommendations about CIA interrogation methods, as well as details related to Iran.

Brennan's negligence, however, pales in comparison to one of his predecessors’ careless ways of accessing classified information, The Slate reported over the weekend.

John Deutch, an emeritus chemistry professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, assumed the post in mid-1994 and led the spying agency for a year and a half until December 1996. Upon his resignation, officials began looking into the personal computers which he had used to access confidential information.

The CIA Inspector General published a report of the investigation's findings in 2000.

“Former DCI John Deutch was specifically informed that he was not authorized to process classified information on government computers configured for unclassified use. Throughout his tenure as DCI, Deutch intentionally processed on those computers large volumes of highly classified information to include Top Secret Codeword material.  ... all classified information on those computers was at risk of compromise. ... Further, [Deutch] took no steps to restrict unauthorized persons from using government computers located at his residences,” the report concluded.

Deutch, who was deputy secretary of defense from March 1994 to May 1995, also had cyber security faults at the Pentagon. Six months after the CIA's final report, the Department of Defense Office of the Inspector General published a similar report about the former CIA director.

"In particular, Dr. Deutch maintained a daily journal containing classified information that was almost 1,000 pages in length, on computer memory cards, that he reportedly transported in his shirt pocket," the report noted.

Deutch had opened and modified the journal on a number of computers not approved for those purposes.

CIA computers used for watching porn

More evidence in 2000 showed that somebody had accessed pornographic websites on the home laptops that Deutch was already improperly using to view and store classified documents.

Deutch denied that he had visited the sites, suggesting instead that "someone else" in his family did, thus further incriminating himself by acknowledging that he had allowed his family members to access extremely sensitive information stored on those computers.

Former CIA Director David Petraeus, whose career was destroyed by an extramarital affair with his biographer, is another prime example of the agency’s failure in protecting sensitive information.

Earlier this year, Petraeus admitted that he gave eight "black books" containing "Top Secret" and "national defense information" to his mistress and biographer Paula Broadwell when he was the top commander in Afghanistan, according to the US Justice Department.

The new reports come amid former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s email scandal. She had used a private server in his home to send and receive thousands of emails that contained classified information.

Press TV’s website can also be accessed at the following alternate addresses:

www.presstv.ir