SCANDAL - AT 8:13 A.M. ET:  This is a scandal, and should be treated as such.  We'll see if much of the mainstream media is as interested in this as it is in the winner of the next American Idol contest.  From the Washington Times:

The Pentagon may have issued top-secret clearances last year to as many as one-in-four applicants who had "significant derogatory information" in their backgrounds, including a record of foreign influence or criminal conduct, a little- noticed government audit says.

Flaws in the system for granting clearances to Defense Department staff and contractors pose a risk to national security, and the right tools to measure how well the process works are essential, said Rep. Anna G. Eshoo, California Democrat and chairman of a House intelligence subcommittee that oversees personnel and management issues.

"At present, we're basically operating on faith. This shouldn't be a faith-based process," Ms. Eshoo told The Washington Times.

Pentagon bureaucrats immediately disagreed, but consented to implement reforms.  We have no idea what information, if any, was compromised.

But, in another blunder, some in high-security positions seem to feel that it pays to advertise:

The U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO) published last month a detailed 268-page dossier disclosing the addresses and specifications of hundreds of U.S. nuclear-weapons-related facilities, laboratories, reactors and research activities, including the location of fuel for bombs.

The document, which was removed from the Web on Tuesday, is a draft declaration of facilities to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the U.N. nuclear watchdog, required under agreements that the United States signed in 2004. It is considered highly sensitive though technically not classified.

The vice chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Christopher S. Bond, Missouri Republican, said the disclosure revealed "a virtual treasure map for terrorists."

COMMENT:  It's been eight years since the 9-11 attacks, and we're getting lax in a number of areas.  The sense of urgency we had for the first few years has faded away.  We'll be woken up.

June 4, 2009