Compromised: Incoming MI6 head Sir John Sawers in a picture his wife published on her Facebook profile page
Posted on 07/05/2009 10:39:37 PM PDT by Pontiac
The wife of the new head of Britain's spy agency has posted pictures of her husband, family and friends on internet networking site Facebook, details which could compromise security, a newspaper said on Sunday.
In what the Mail on Sunday called an "extraordinary lapse," the new spy chief's wife, Lady Shelley Sawers, posted family pictures and exposed details of where the couple live and take their holidays and who their friends and relatives are.
Publishing the story on its front page and the pictures on a double-page spread, the Mail on Sunday said the information "could potentially be useful to hostile foreign powers or terrorists."
(Excerpt) Read more at australianit.news.com.au ...
So Britain needs a new M?
Shouldn’t be a problem. 007 introduces himself as “Bond, James Bond” in darn near every movie.
Yeah but he is a lowly field officer.
No, heavens no!
They can do a little plastic surgery on him and his family. Relocate them, changer their names and give them new identities.
Then it will be like it never happened.
What should he expect when he told his wife he sells insurance?? :)
I wonder how the Queen feels about this?
He probably had to tell her that he sells horse manure because he works for a Labor government ;)
We are not amused!
Compromised: Incoming MI6 head Sir John Sawers in a picture his wife published on her Facebook profile page
but then he is part of the aristocracy.
One wonders how anybody could be so stupid. Maybe it wasn’t an accident. Maybe she doesn’t want her husband to have the position.
Weren’t the ‘double naught spies’ under MI5, not MI6?
I think you are correct. Bond was a Naval Officer if I remember correctly.
lol internet
Remember she is part of the upper class.
Most likely she saw the page of one of her friends and decided that her family had to have a bragging page too.
I wouldn’t be surprised if she hired someone to build the page for her.
she is the brains of the family too
Spies shouldn’t marry blondes.
Looks like his front four upper teeth are caps.
It does not diminish the major boo-boo of posting his information online, but it is more of a faux pas than a 'now we darn need to appoint another M since this one has been busted up all over the net.'
Now, if he was an active agent in the field ...that would be life threatening. But a chief ...even well-heeled Oligarchs have the resources to easily find that out, and to be honest with you those resources would only enable them to find out a couple of weeks before I personally could.
It's not a big deal from a security point of view (but a big deal from a faux pas aspect, and it would be a great deal if he was an active agent outed).
I have to agree with you. The other intelligence agencies already have extensive files on this man.
The real danger in having his life spead all over cyberspace is that the kooks who think counter intelligence is evil now know where he and his family live and what they look like.
Now it is only a matter of time before they are camped on his lawn.
Any chance he had at a quite weekend is long gone. I will lay odds that with in a fortnight he will have a bucket of blood poured out on his front porch.
I see what you mean.
They seem to be a shade whiter than the others.
Bond bump
Oh, I'm sure you're right. Upper class people are lazy braggarts as well as being stupid, and they never do a lick of work. /s
What are you, a socialist? How many upper-class English people do you actually have in your personal circle of acquaintance?
Brave New World and Orwell. Privacy isn’t what it used to be. Apparently neither is secrecy.
Nope I just like to read about them in the news media.
They are always good for a laugh. I like dark humor, don’t you?
Most people are completely ignorant of the workings of the internet.
They never give it a thought that there are people out there in the world that may use the info they put on their webpage to do very unkind things to them.
People in general are lazy ignorant cows that go through life learning only just enough to survive.
Going out of their way to learn about the dangers of this new information environment before putting their entire life story out there for anyone and everyone to read just would never occur to them.
I'll let you in on a little secret. Upper-class people are just like middle-class and lower-class people. Some of them are good, some of them are bad, most are average. Some of them are smart, some of them are stupid, most are average. Some of them are talented, dedicated, hard-working, altruistic, kind, patient, honorable, and decent; others are selfish, lazy pigs, most are average.
But when they do something wrong their misdeeds are covered in the press, while you and I can be foolish or wicked and no one will pay much attention. So people get the impression that members of the upper class are snobbish, worthless idiots, even though there are just as many snobs and idiots in the other social classes.
The difficulty is that when we laugh at or otherwise show contempt for the upper class, we're playing into the hands of the Left. As the Left wants to tear down the successful and/or rich, it encourages envy and contempt for them.
It is an open secret.
I was attempting to be humorous. (I think you knew that)
The difficulty is that when we laugh at or otherwise show contempt for the upper class, we're playing into the hands of the Left.
I would also say that when we make it unacceptable to laugh at the foibles of our fellow humans of any group we are falling in to the trap of the politically correct Left who wishes to play on our fears of be ostracized for being insensitive bigots. In so doing they divide us in to competing groups and build their base of power.
I laugh at my own faults and failures. Why would I not laugh at the faults and failures of the rich? When did the rich become a protected minority immune from derisive humor? I thought the social police had given carte blanche to make jokes about the rich.
I will not accept the notion that making generalizations about the upper class in the midst of humor is engendering contempt for the upper class. I love the rich, I want to be rich. But if someone rich does something glaringly stupid I and many others are going to laugh and joke about it. When someone rich does something smart and make a lot of money I will say that was really smart, I wish I had thought of that. Guess what I say the latter remarkably more often than the former.
I know nothing more about Sir John Sawers than is published in this article. Hopefully for Britain’s sake he earned his position. That said his wife made a mistake worthy of gentle ridicule. During that I took a few potshots at the stereotypical British upper class twit image.
This would engender contempt for the upper class only those who already hold those views. Perhaps some of those who responded to my post hold those views, I hope not, but that is more human nature than my attempt at humor.
Me? I am not willing to let the social police kill the last vestiges of humor.
In short, it's a fantastically indiscreet thing to do. Were it me I'd strongly consider changing residences, automobiles, and the kids' schools. Their relatives may wish to consider similar security measures. I'm sure they're all being advised by people who know one heck of a lot more about these things than I do.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.