Irwin Rovner: Security matters

The Feb. 8 letter “Bad choices for Democrats” by NCGOP Chairman Hasan Harnett betrayed an appalling and dangerous ignorance of national security. As a retired Navy cryptologic officer and past commanding officer of Naval Security Group units requiring a top secret-special intelligence clearance, I claim expertise in all phases of security.

Basic procedures prohibit calling attention to sensitive information already in the public arena. Shining a spotlight for the “other side” to see validates its importance and selects the good stuff from the mass of garbage, insignificant verbiage and, yes, deliberate misinformation. Above all, never “retro-classify” something already exposed.

Clinton’s messages were not classified when received. Classification can then require encryption giving the “other side” a potential break into our otherwise unbreakable codes.

A recent movie related the World War II story of how Alan Turing used his primitive computer to break the unbreakable German Enigma Code after learning many messages ended with “Heil Hitler.” It was enough to break the entire system.

Using today’s high capacity computers, codebreakers thrive on this kind of ignorance.

Tawdry partisan politics is no justification.

This story was originally published February 13, 2016 at 1:00 PM with the headline "Irwin Rovner: Security matters."