According to published reports, the CIA has not provided any details about Prouty's work at the agency, or what classified material she had access to and may have passed on to terrorists. Some anonymous agency officials have suggested Prouty's troubles have more to do with a simple paperwork problem than a serious penetration of U.S. Intelligence.
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| Logo: CIA |
An unnamed intelligence official, who was authorized to speak about the case, told United Press International: "There's no reason at this point to treat this as a counter-intelligence case. There's no allegation that she herself had anything to do with Hezbollah."
Paul Sperry, author of Infiltration: How Muslim Spies and Subversives have Penetrated Washington, thinks the Prouty case is about a lot more than someone taking a shortcut to citizenship.
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| Book cover: Infiltration: How Muslim Spies and Subversives have Penetrated Washington |
"It's another example of the shockingly lax background checks the government has been conducting on Arab and Muslim appointees and applicants in the war on terrorism," Sperry told Crime Library. "You'd think U.S. security agencies would be extra cautious about hiring after 9/11, but the case of this Hezbollah spy shows background investigations are nothing short of a joke."
Prouty is just the latest, although perhaps the most serious, in a string of security lapses in the post-9/11 FBI, Sperry said. In its effort to fight terrorism, the FBI has rushed to hire Arabic speakers without conducting proper background investigations of them.
"Prouty infiltrated both the FBI and CIA," Sperry said, "even though she lied on her application(s)."
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