Okay, by now pretty much everyone knows that there was a boo-boo involving some high-security, well, security plans, the Salt Lake Olympics, and the safety of our rarely-seen but much-discussed Vice President, but I for one was unaware that a story was circulating that claimed that a couple of Secret Service guys had left these important papers on a gift shop counter after buying themselves a couple of souvenir hats.

If doing personal shopping on company time is your idea of fun, you probably shouldn't apply to the Secret Service. Stories like this one are pretty much guaranteed to tarnish that Tall, Tough, and Deadly image those guys have.

Also, maybe I missed this one on CNN's Headline News alerts, but did Clinton really finish a meeting in 1999, and get up to leave, absent-mindedly forgetting to take that big ol' briefcase containing all of those Really, Highly, Top-Secret nuclear launch codes with him?

Kids today. No sense of responsibility.

More seriously, a long article on the build-up of events to September 11 reveals that the combined U.S. intelligence agencies knew that something was up with the Al-Midhar terrorist cells and that at least three of the hijacked plans carrying terrorists also had anywhere from three to eight Federal Agents on board. The Agents were apparently following the terrorists in expectation of rounding them all up when their flights landed on the West Coast that day.

According to this article, he Agents on the first United flight had no chance to act before their plane plowed into the WTC but by the time hijackers were in control of United Flight 93, the seven or eight agents on board knew what was happening. Too late to save themselves or the plane, but in time to divert the flight away from its target and crash it in an empty field.

What did they know and when did they know it?

The intelligence community knew who, had a good idea of what (they were expecting the Newark to San Francisco flight to be hijacked to L.A. for some reason), and why was obvious. Only when and where were missing and at least 19 intelligence agents are named among those who lost their lives that day.

Hmmm….