Government inaction

I don't know about you, but this report isn't restoring my faith in the ability of our government to find and process accurate information about the world in which we live:

When the State Department recently asked the CIA for names of Iranians who could be sanctioned for their involvement in a clandestine nuclear weapons program, the agency refused, citing a large workload and a desire to protect its sources and tradecraft.

Frustrated, the State Department assigned a junior Foreign Service officer to find the names another way -- by using Google. Those with the most hits under search terms such as "Iran and nuclear," three officials said, became targets for international rebuke Friday when a sanctions resolution circulated at the United Nations.

[...]

None of the 12 Iranians that the State Department eventually singled out for potential bans on international travel and business dealings is believed by the CIA to be directly connected to Iran's most suspicious nuclear activities.

"There is nothing that proves involvement in a clandestine weapons program, and there is very little out there at all that even connects people to a clandestine weapons program," said one official familiar with the intelligence on Iran [ed: emphasis mine]. Like others interviewed for this story, the official insisted on anonymity when discussing the use of intelligence.

You mean the Iranian government isn't keeping information on their alleged secret nuclear weapons program on-line in an easy-to-search format? I'm shocked, shocked!, I tell you.