If you’re in the business of talking with terrorists and trying to figure out their motivations, sooner or later someone from US intel will come knocking at your door. Not that I have anything secret to tell them. Anything juicy and interesting I’ve already put in my books, and anyone can read them.

            But I have been invited to Washington to lead seminars on how to understand the world views of people in outfits like al Qaeda and ISIS. And I’ve been asked to comment on various topics as a matter of scholarly opinion.

While I don’t support any of the nefarious activities attributed to the intelligence agencies, I do think that government policy is best served with the best information possible. So I would join some of these events with the hope that my small insights would give a different perspective on the more simplistic assessment of security threats.  

None of these were classified discussions. I have not then, or ever, received clearance to know or discuss classified information.

            But even so, the very fact that these were meetings with intelligence agency personnel meant an extraordinary amount of security. Often just getting into the room would be a challenge. Computers, of course, were not allowed. Nor were thumb drives, so I couldn’t show powerpoint. Cell phones were confiscated at the door (but returned at the end of the session). The name tags of most of the participants gave only their first names; the full names were not disclosed.

            When for a year or so I served on a panel of scholars asked to provide insight on various global issues as they came up, we had to follow strict security procedures. During this period I went to Moscow State University for a meeting of our global studies consortium. But the intel people forbid me from taking my cell phone along, since even when it was not on, apparently it sent tracking signals. Maybe there was some other way it could be scanned while it was in my pocket, God only knows.

            But this was just me. An ordinary run-of-the mill academic.

            When I read about nineteen high level administrative principals (well, eighteen plus a journalist by mistake) on a group chat discussing an ongoing military operation on a commercial app, I was blown away.

“What the…?” was my first response. One of the principals was even in Russia at the time, presumably chatting away – on their personal cell phones? In an insecure location? This was not clear. But I was told that even me, a lowly non-clearance academic, would be monitored in my hotel room in Moscow so watch out, buddy. I wasn’t even supposed to take my laptop with me.

            My only answer to my “What the…?” question is that US security right now is in the hands of amateurs. They either don’t know or don’t care how proper procedures are supposed to work. Our allies, I’m sure, have given up on sharing any confidential information with the US, and our potential enemies are ecstatic.

            The rest of us, however, should be worried.