[jimtorr]

Yes, he just walked out of "secure" areas carrying documents. These days, there is nothing to stop anyone from doing the same. Security has become terribly lax over the past ten years.

Twelve years ago, I sometimes asked people walking out of the area I worked in to turn out their pockets. People were not allowed to take a newspaper out the door, much less classified stuff. If papers really needed to be removed, they were subjected to a technical review by two cleared persons and then a security review. After that, there was a 48-hour cooling off period.

This was all very burdensome, but government investigators never found a single leak over a ten year span, from a facility where 1,200 people worked.

I'm not advocating going back to such extreme security measures, but the security posture in the nations secure facilities desperately needs to be tightened up.

[PhiKapMom]

I am for going back to extreme security measures when you could actually track who had access to Top Secret information by the form they signed on the front of the document! Ditto hand receipts for Secret!

When Clinton loosened the security requirements, this was destined to happen.

[HenryLeeII]

You're exactly right. I worked in the same building as Regan at Westfields, at around the same time, and I entered and left everyday with a closed bag and was never asked by a guard to open it. It happened to contain my lunch and a copy of The Washington Times, but security was assuming that everyone is honest. BIG MISTAKE...

[lelio]

People were not allowed to take a newspaper out the door, much less classified stuff.
How do you enforce that today when you could bring in something like an Apple iTunes and use it as a data storage device? I suppose you could try and stop those devices from coming in.
What about telecomuters? Didn't John Duetsch have a laptop full of sensitive information? What about offshore projects for the Pentagon? How safe is that information?