The C.I.A has sent an unclassified email with the names of all employees hired by the agency over the last two years. The list was sent in order to comply with President Trump’s policy goals of shrinking the federal workforce.
The unsecured forwarding of the list has raised significant concerns among security experts, as countries with an adversarial relationship to the United States, like China and Russia, could have gained access due to the lack of security surrounding the communication. Current C.I.A officials told the New York Times that the list sent to the Office of Personnel Management only included the first names and first initial of the last names of agents, but former officials with the agency said that this did little to conceal the identities of the agents, as the information could be easily cross-referenced with other data to identify them. Another source speaking to CNN stated that some employees’ “unusual” first names also made them easy to match with publicly available information. On social media, vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee Mark Warner (D-VA) called the move “a disastrous national security development.”
The move also comes after the agency sent out a mass email to its employees offering them a “buyout” similar to that sent out to the rest of the federal workforce through the Office of Personnel Management, whose civil servants said has suffered a “hostile takeover” from Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency. DOGE’s buyout offer had exempted workers with national security roles; however, CIA director John Ratcliffe told the White House to extend the offer to his agency as well, with a spokesperson claiming that the move was part of a broader effort to “infuse the agency with renewed energy.”
According to the Times, the list of recently-hired analysts and operatives likely included a large contingent focused on China, a result of former C.I.A. Director William J. Burns’ renewed emphasis on countering America’s rival, which doubled the budget allocated to it by the agency. Cutting of new recruits across the board, or compromising their work with unsecured communications, could have a negative impact on America’s operations in this regard. Ratcliffe had confirmed the agency’s focus on China during his confirmation hearing last month, indicating that he would make more use of covert actions and aggressive techniques. “To the brave CIA officers listening around the world, if all of that sounds like what you signed up for, then buckle up and get ready to make a difference,” he said at the time. “If it doesn’t then it’s time to find a new line of work.”
