Rented Wheels, Forgotten Secrets

The CIA tries to keep secret the names of its agents, evidenced most recently by special counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald 's investigation of the exposure of agent Valerie Plame , which has landed New York Times reporter Judith Miller in the slammer in Alexandria.

You have to wonder sometimes if they might need to try harder. Take our friend, call him Loop Fan X , who recently rented a cheapo car at Dulles airport for his vacation and noticed some odd strips of paper stapled together in the recess of the driver's door. They appeared to be cables, with acronyms such as "COS Amman."

The papers referred to recent travel arrangements for a certain person. On occasion the person blacks out his name. Sometimes he neglects to do so. We can't reveal his name, so let's just call him John Doe.

Doe "is currently manifested," one strip says, "on the [code-named] flight out of Baghdad to Amman." The agency has a regular flight. "It is required that passengers on all flights wear shoes (No open toe shoes) and slacks (No shorts)," the cable says.

(Not sure what this is all about, maybe for safety in case of a crash or something. The agency was not being helpful when we called yesterday.)

"COS [chief of station] Amman welcomes ref [referenced] travel of [Doe] to Amman," another strip says. "Hotel reservations have been made at IDEN A" for two nights. "Station POC [point of contact] will be IDEN B, and embassy telephone numbers are listed in IDEN C."

The "IDEN" stuff is standard procedure. Pieces of secret info are put in different cables, so if one cable is captured by especially canny enemy agents -- or left in a rental car -- it won't be useful without the others.

"Request that [Doe] does not change hotel arrangements," the cable continues. "This is to insure that station can contact officer in case of an emergency. Meet/Assist [apparently the car service] has been arranged for flights in/out of Amman."

Now our favorite: "Please note that commercial expediter [apparently the driver] is uncleared and unwitting. Expediter will pick [Doe] up in front of the hotel" to go to the airport there for a flight out of the country. Doe made special note of that information.

There's also a Post-it note on one strip with the telephone number, we are told, of the CIA station in Amman. On the back, there are three first names and their phone numbers in Amman.

The last strip of paper, for when Doe arrives at Dulles and picks up his rented car, has detailed directions to the CIA's university -- location classified -- in Northern Virginia.

So please, please remember: Don't hit the "Reply to all" key on e-mail. Don't leave originals on copiers. Don't leave confidential papers in a Starbucks. And never, ever, leave secret information in a cheap rental car. At least Avis would try harder to clean it.