An updated internal policy on news media contacts may require every National Security Agency employee to stop working on their core missions and spend time on looking instead for employees who might be talking to the press.

Which, of course, is the most important thing for them to be doing. After all, there aren’t any terrorists to be found.

The new policy, which was obtained by theBaltimore Sun, directs employees to “actively monitor the media for the purpose of identifying unauthorized disclosures” of classified information, the newspaper reported.

Such directives create pressure to identify more leaks, said Matthew Aid, a former NSA analyst who is writing a multivolume history of the agency.

“Instead of hunting for spies within the agency, now you’re hunting for disenchanted employees who may know somebody who knows a reporter,” he said. “It’s bound to divert resources and focus.”

Some NSA veterans and security analysts said the policy imposes new responsibilities on employees.

“‘Actively monitor’ means they’re supposed to go out, surf the Web and look for classified information, not report it when they find it,” said Steven Aftergood, a government secrecy expert at the Federation of American Scientists. “That amounts to a new tasking of every part of the organization to hunt for unauthorized disclosures.”

One former NSA official called the directive “bizarre.”

“We’re going to turn all of NSA into a vast media monitor? That just strikes up these images of people with visors on reading the newspaper,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to protect business relationships. NSA employees “have got to have something better to do.” — Baltimore Sun

I suggest that NSA employees carpool so that they can all (except the driver) read the day’s newspapers on the way to work, looking for classified information.

Oh, wait, the NSA’s manual for new employees says not to do that: “Your home, car pool, and public places are not authorized areas to conduct classified discussions — even if everyone involved in the discussion possesses a proper clearance and ‘need-to-know.’”

Better not read theWashington Post on your way to work, then. There might be a classified program described in there. Keep it covered until you get to a secured area…

This policy completely misses the big picture: There’s far too much secrecy in the intelligence community, and much of it, perhaps as much as 90 percent, is being misused not to cover up national security secrets but to protect bureaucratic turf and to cover up illegal activities.