Message posted by Metro on October 24, 2008 at 14:14:54 PST:
Hi. This story doesn't sound plausible to me. If the package he held was so important that he had to carry it with him his whole life in a locked briefcase, then why wasn't it simply kept on a secured base or site somewhere, locked in a vault? Security on a military base, for example, would be far stronger, not to mention far less stressful for the individual needing to carry the briefcase around all the time. Additionally, a man carrying around a locked brief case draws attention to himself, which is a security problem in and of itself. People who might want to get their hands on government secrets are essentially being told that the man has something important if he's carrying around a locked briefcase. And it wouldn't be too much trouble for a foreign intelligence agent or agents to figure out who the man with the briefcase is, and that he has a military background. (I'll grant you that the briefcase may not be noticeable or in any way unusual, yet if even ONE person from a hostile nation or group gets an intelligence report that this one man has this package on him, the briefcase will stand out, and thus, become a security risk to itself.) Furthermore, it makes no sense for the government or military to entrust secrets to one individual who holds the secrets in some tangible form in a weakly secured manner. If something were to happen to this man, the package could have been lost, making it an unacceptable security risk to entrust the package to one person. Again, it would make far better sense to just lock the item up in a secured military base or other site -- no one would even have to know the package even exists in the first place that way, and there's no risk of losing the package because the single custodian of it was killed or otherwise became incapacitated. Lastly, if the package was of such a sensitive nature that the government or military had to come retrieve it upon his death, then why let him have the materials in the first place? If the government can have custody of the materials and secure them themselves, why not just do that at the outset and avoid all the complications and security risks I mentioned above? Basically, I would say that this story sounds like a Hollywood or popular culture idea of how "secret agents" operate or of what government secrecy looks like. In reality, it makes little sense to operate this way and I doubt the government or military would do so. Although I've never been in the military, I have a background in federal facility security (I provided security for Treasury Department sites), and thinking about such matters as risk and loss prevention was part of my training. Just my opinion though -- I could be wrong.
In Reply to: Strange story posted by Jeffro on October 23, 2008 at 20:09:45 PST:
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