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The Internet is a wonderful repository of information that spans such a wide array of topics that one could literally browse it for hours upon hours discovering new information, including apparently, information on CIA agents. The Chicago Tribune has an article on how the Tribune found some rather delicate information.

When the Tribune searched a commercial online data service, the result was a virtual directory of more than 2,600 CIA employees, 50 internal agency telephone numbers and the locations of some two dozen secret CIA facilities around the United States.

Only recently has the CIA recognized that in the Internet age its traditional system of providing cover for clandestine employees working overseas is fraught with holes, a discovery that is said to have “horrified” CIA Director Porter Goss.

Now call me crazy but shouldn’t the Director of the CIA have better knowledge of something like this? I mean to have been “horrified” at learning that this type of information is available out there through readily available sources such as Google, LexisNexis, and other information sites both public and commercial is a little disconcerting when it comes from the Director of the CIA!

Then to further read that when

Asked how so many personal details of CIA employees had found their way into the public domain, the senior U.S. intelligence official replied that “I don’t have a great explanation, quite frankly.”

The official noted, however, that the CIA’s credo has always been that “individuals are the first person responsible for their cover. If they can’t keep their cover, then it’s hard for anyone else to keep it. If someone filled out a credit report and put that down, that’s just stupid.”

So basically the CIA is saying that when it comes down to it they are not responsible in any way for an agent’s safety because it is the agent’s responsibility? I understand that to a certain extent it is the agent’s responsibility but when the information that is available is so broad, how can the agency not be partially to blame?

I don’t know, perhaps I am missing something here, but in this day and age where there are so many terrorists attacks something like this has me a more than a little concerned.

A few years ago I received my first debit card, and I remember thinking “I’ll never use this thing” when I got it. Now a day rarely passes when I don’t use it. As such this article about debit card thieves circumventing the need for a PIN number to used debit cards at ATM machines really concerns me. The article speculates that thieves aren’t actually circumventing the PIN requirement, but are obtaining the PIN through other means. It also explains that some retailers store PIN numbers even though they are not supposed to, stating that it is not necessarily the retailers fault, it is due to software in use. The article does suggest that one way to help protect yourself from having your PIN stolen is to use your debit card as a credit card and not use you PIN in that way, but to only use your PIN when dealing with an ATM, which has much stricter security measures. No matter what your decision, the article is an interesting read.

Kirby Puckett died today at the age of 45 after suffering a stroke yesterday in his Arizona home.

Puckett died at St. Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center in Phoenix. He had been in intensive care since having surgery at another hospital following his stroke Sunday morning.

This is just one of many articles to be found detailing some of the Hall of Fame outfielder’s life. Kirby Puckett had an impressive 15 year career with the Minnesota Twins.