WWJJAD?*

Bob Drogin reports in today’s Los Angeles Times that there have been attempts by individuals with alleged terrorist connections/sympathies trying to gain employment within the U.S. intelligence community.

U.S. counterintelligence officials are increasingly concerned that Al Qaeda sympathizers or operatives may have tried to get jobs at the CIA and other U.S. agencies in an effort to spy on American counterterrorist efforts.

So far, about 40 Americans who sought positions at U.S. intelligence agencies have been red-flagged and turned away for possible ties to terrorist groups, the officials said. Several such applicants have been detected at the CIA.

"We think terrorist organizations have tried to insinuate people into our hiring pools," said Barry Royden, a 39-year CIA veteran who is a counterintelligence instructor at the agency.

This is disturbing, but by no means should it have been a surprise. Our open society ensures that our enemies will attempt to use such openness against us in jujitsu-like ways. We should be vigilant against such attempts but we need not be paranoid. As the founder of the FPRI, the late Ambassador Robert Strausz-Hupe, liked to say: How can an intelligence agency have a future if its people have not had pasts?

* What Would James Jesus Angleton Do?