I really cannot believe the stupidity of people.
Secret terror files left on train
This sort of fuckwittery just makes my life more difficult.
I've heard rumours of the grapevine of Whitehall Village* that all writable CD/DVD drives, memory sticks etc have been disabled as a proportionate and appropriate over-reaction to the HMRC-Child-Benefit-Discs-to-NAO scandal. The only commensurate control against this incident is to ban all public servants from travelling on public transport. Or else to prevent anyone from taking any pieces of paper out of any Government building.
I could recount numerous anecdotes from the past of people making silly mistakes and leaving documents where they shouldn't. I had a manager who managed to leave a signed account in a pub, which is just really embarrassing. Someone I worked with trained with someone who was reading clients' papers on a train; someone from the client was on the same train; the trainee became very sacked in just a few days.
I had great fun reading a counsel's opinion on a contract on the Heathrow Express a few months ago. Eventually, the woman reading it, and discussing it on the phone, cottoned onto to her indiscretion and put it away.
A former colleague on a train was becoming increasingly irritated by the annoying loud conversation from the party across the aisle. He realised they were in the same professional institute, and told them that as they were discussing the private business of their employer in public, if they didn't shut up, he would report them to the institute for gross professional misconduct
A former colleague took home a 'confidential' report which was tantamount to an Idiots' Guide to Fraudulently Claiming Agricultural Subsidies. Our manager had been reluctant to let him take it, but agreed. Sod's Law, his morning train was really crowded, so he put the report on the overhead rack, and forgot it until he had got off the train and the train had begun its next journey. It was several hours before he was able to retake ownership of his locked briefcase.
I remember all those years ago when I started in this business, nothing with a marking, even restricted, was supposed to be carried in anything but a locked briefcase. These standards have slipped - just look around any bus or train and spot the paucity of briefcases compared to rucksacks and shoulder bags - but there again, most of us don't even have access to 'Top Secret/UK Eyes Only' files, let alone the ability to remove them.
It's easy enough to do, I suppose. I have often had meetings in another building and rather than go out of my way to return to the office, I have gone straight home carrying papers. I once went to the Barbican carrying 'Confidential' papers for a meeting the next day and was very relieved when they didn't order me to leave my rucksack in the cloakroom, as they had done in the immediate aftermath of the July 2005 bombings.
* unattributable, non-departmental specific, as always;-)
