The NSA's 'How to delete a memo' memo

Sploid
Jan. 24, 2006

The NSA has released a technical guide on deleting or editing sensitive material from classified files stored in Word or PDF documents after suffering through some rather embarrassing incident over the past year.

The document, "Redacting with confidence: How to safely publish sanitized reports converted from Word to PDF," (PDF) warns that "(t)here are a number of pitfalls for the person attempting to sanitize a Word document for release. This paper describes the issue, and gives a step-by-step description of how to do it with confidence that inappropriate material will not be released."

Both types of files are "complex, sophisticated computer data formats," which "contain many kinds of information, such as text, graphics, tables, images, (and) meta-data."

Metadata is information about the information, like its author or the date the file was created.

The need for the new guidelines was highlighted by several embarrassing revelations last year due to improperly edited documents.

In researching "National Strategy for Victory in Iraq," reporters discovered that Duke Professor Peter Feaver was the author.

Feaver's work for the White House as a pollster flies in the face Bush's famous declarations that if "(I)f you're sick and tired of the politics of cynicism and polls and principles, come and join this campaign."

Even worse was the memo of April 30 of last year in which Military officials tried to remove all the details leading to the death of Italian special agent Nicola Calipari.

In the version that was posted on the web it was possible, with a few clicks of the mouse, to restore the truth about the standard operating procedures at checkpoints when Calipari was shot to death by US troops while escorting an Italian journalist who had just been liberated from Iraqi kidnappers.