CIA realizes it's been using black highlighters

[Brickbat]

LANGLEY, VA—A report released Tuesday by the CIA's Office of the Inspector General revealed that the CIA has mistakenly obscured hundreds of thousands of pages of critical intelligence information with black highlighters.

According to the report, sections of the documents— "almost invariably the most crucial passages"—are marred by an indelible black ink that renders the lines impossible to read, due to a top-secret highlighting policy that began at the agency's inception in 1947.

CIA Director Porter Goss has ordered further internal investigation.

"Why did it go on for this long, and this far?" said Goss in a press conference called shortly after the report's release. "I'm as frustrated as anyone. You can't read a single thing that's been highlighted. Had I been there to advise [former CIA director] Allen Dulles, I would have suggested the traditional yellow color—or pink."

Goss added: "There was probably some really, really important information in these documents."

When asked by a reporter if the black ink was meant to intentionally obscure, Goss countered, "Good God, why?"

http://www.theonion.com/articles/cia-realizes-its-been-using-black-highlighters-all,1848

[99th_Monkey]

1. That is hilarious - Intel-bots running amuck blacking out everything in sight.

reminds me of when J. Edger Hoover assigned an entire team of agents to
"decipher" the "real meaning" of the words to the hit tune Louie Louie during
the 60s.

[Egnever]

2. um onion

Just saying

[99th_Monkey]

3. Doke!! `

Well, they didn't have an Onion in the 60s and I don't think Mad Magazine ever did a piece
on the Hoover incident; but it really did happen.

Thanks for tipping me off on that this black-marker piece IS from the Onion though.

[Renew Deal]

5. I'm not usually fooled by these

But this one got me. I never looked at the URL.

[zeemike]

8. That is a sign of really good satire.

Where if you don't know where it came from it still sounds believable

[adirondacker]

13. Yes it is. I have a feeling many more will fall victim to belief, disbelief, then laughter. :) nt

[Coyotl]

9. Congrats on winning the Poe Award.

Your duty, per DU ***** official tradition (don't believe me, just ask Hugh), is to post another satire piece and pass on the award to the next person who comments w/o realizing the satire.

[99th_Monkey]

17. uh? ok. I'll try to keep it going.

thanks ...uh, I guess.

[msanthrope]

15. Thread win on the first post!!!! Congratulations!!! Woosh!!! nt

[Wounded Bear]

4. Now that's funny...

[louis-t]

6. Aw jeez, that's funny. I needed that.

[awoke_in_2003]

7. An Onion classic. nt

[AtheistCrusader]

10. FFFFFF damnit

Had me going for 3 paragraphs

[Denzil_DC]

11. Not usually a fan of Onion reposts on GD,

but that's frikkin hilarious, and very well done.

[PrestonLocke]

12. The Onion nails it!

[rocktivity]

14. Remember when there was a leaked document during the Bush regime

that was covered with blacked out lines that turned out to be easy to remove in Microsoft Word?


rocktivity

[pinboy3niner]

16. And this: The Pentagon's Report On The Importance Of Not Classifying Everything Is Redacted

DISCLAIMER: This is NOT satire:

By Brian Jones | Business Insider – Fri, Oct 25, 2013 5:49 PM EDT



Can the Pentagon Inspector General investigate irony?

After the Pentagon released a report on over-classification and saw fit to redact portions of it, it may be time to launch an official inquiry.

...


The irony wasn't lost on the foreign affairs community either, but not much gets past Noah Shachtman, Foreign Policy's executive editor:

The Pentagon's internal review of over-classification is redacted. Of course. http://t.co/cKalaCrPjY

— Noah Shachtman (@NoahShachtman) October 25, 2013

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/pentagons-report-importance-not-classifying-214921752.html

[Jim Lane]

18. My excuse for not immediately spotting the satire

It sounded sort of like something that actually happened at my law firm. We were redacting documents to be produced to the other side (they were entitled to the documents but not to all of the information). We discovered that, with the particular copying equipment we were using, stuff that was highlighted in the traditional yellow was blacked out on the copies. for a moment, reading the OP, I thought maybe the CIA had encountered some similar reversal of what you'd expect.

Has anyone else ever seen this -- yellow highlighted material not appearing on photocopies?