Hightower Lowdown

Until about three years ago, John Deutch was head spook at the CIA—the man in charge of our nation's spy secrets. But the boss turns out to have been careless, violating his own agency's security rules and the law.

It seems that Deutch transferred onto his home computers some 200 of America's secret documents, including highly sensitive memos to the president and reports of covert ops. He kept his home computers linked to the Internet, meaning the classified information was readily available to hackers operating from anywhere in the world. You don't have to be James Bond to know that the computer of an ex CIA chief is likely to draw some prying eyes.

Did Deutch get prosecuted for recklessly endangering of our secrets, as any other agent would have been? Hardly. Top CIA officials apparently tried to slow down any investigation into the Big Boss' illegal security breaches. But the truth came out, so Plan B was initiated. Its essence was to "punish" Deutch by revoking his top secret security clearances. George Tenet, the current CIA chief, announced that he had taken the "tough decision to indefinitely suspend" his former boss' clearances. Sounds tough, except that others have received far harsher punishment for doing the same thing. Also, the security suspension turns out to have a fat loophole in it. Deutch was allowed to keep what officials call "industrial clearance."

The former chief spook now is a well paid consultant to corporate military contractors, so his government pals allowed him to continue peeking at national secrets, enabling him to cash in on his years at the CIA.