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Sunday November 12 1:22 PM ET Secret Chat Room Found in CIA Computer System

By Tabassum Zakaria

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The CIA (news - web sites) is investigating a secret chat room created within its classified computer system by some employees at the spy agency to trade off-color jokes, musings and observations that went undetected for more than five years, an intelligence official said on Sunday.

About 160 employees involved in the by-invitation-only chat room were informed about the investigation in May and between five and 10 employees were placed on administrative leave with pay for six months while the inquiry was conducted, the official said.

The men and women involved were from all sections of the agency, including some senior officials, but did not involve the highest echelon of Central Intelligence Agency management.

``It's a problem because it was a willful misuse of government computer systems and done in a way to try to hide from system administrators,'' CIA spokesman Bill Harlow said. ''We have determined it does not involve the loss of classified information,'' he added.

There was no pornography posted, but there were offensive jokes and comments, and some e-mails that said if management discovered the site they would be fired, an intelligence official said. ``It was clear to people who were doing this they knew what they were doing was wrong. They thought they could outsmart the system, wrong again,'' the official said.

The chat room, first reported by The Washington Post in Sunday's editions, was discovered during routine security checks. Some of the employees were involved very tangentially in that they were aware of it and may have posted one message or were able to read the messages.

``It was a secret chat room, the people who set it up selected who might be in it,'' the intelligence official said. They would vote on whether to include a new member and then swear them to secrecy not to reveal its existence, which included requiring them to sign secrecy agreements, the official said.

Many of the participants had jobs at the CIA that involved running and maintaining the computer system, and created the chat room ``probably to prove they could,'' the intelligence official said.

The chat room existed between five to 10 years and evolved over time with many different reincarnations, the official said.

The spy agency, which considers deception an art form when trying to extract information on foreign targets, does not take lightly being deceived internally. ``We insist on their honesty and candor in dealing with agency management,'' the intelligence official said.

Disciplinary actions were pending the completion of the investigation. The employees involved were given five days to respond in writing to the accusations in September, and the majority of them have continued working in their jobs.

The issue of misuse of computers by CIA officials has been in the spotlight since the revelation that former CIA Director John Deutch wrote classified material on non-secure home computers that were also used to connect to the Internet.

That put the information in danger of being accessed by outside hackers. The CIA has found no evidence to indicate that material was compromised, but has not been able to fully rule it out either.

Deutch, who left the agency at the end of 1996, has apologized for his actions.

-- Rachel Gibson (rgibson@hotmail.com), November 12, 2000