The CIA's Black Highlighters

From America's finest news source:

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?"

Goss lamented the fact that the public will probably never know the particulars of such historic events as the Cold War, the civil-rights movement, or the growth of the international drug trade.

"I'm sure the CIA played major roles in all these things," Goss said. "But now we'll never know for sure."

And I suppose the documents that give the reasons for black highlighters have been obscured by - what else - black highlighters.

Of course, we can easily say it's typical government incompetence. But here's another idea - that the government uses "incompetence" as an excuse that disguises something far more sinister. Maybe the government doesn't want us to know about what it is doing in the first place. Think about it. What if the CIA does some things that would make the American people angry and ashamed? The black highlighters, which at first glance just seem dumb, are perhaps actually "blacking out" damning material so that the American people will never know of the CIA's crimes.

I know, I know, maybe I'm just a conspiracy nut. This is America, after all. A nation of freedom, governed by law, not by criminals. The CIA would never behave like that. Still, it strikes me as a possibility. A remote one, maybe, but a possibility nevertheless.