YOURSAY | ‘Or is Najib disowning Hasanah and the actions of her spy agency?’
Hasanah wants cops to probe who leaked CIA letter, cites security concern
Anonymous_1371465729: One can cry foul over breach of intelligence if the information leaked is detrimental to national interest or threatens national security.
The letter to the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) does not fall into this category, so the argument that its leakage undermines trust in the Malaysian External Intelligence Organisation (MEIO) is just a ruse to deflect culpability from the letter writer to the source of the leakage.
In fact, the person who leaked the letter should be commended for exposing an attempt at subverting Malaysia's sovereignty.
If former prime minister Najib Abdul Razak has nothing to do with this letter, then former MEIO director-general Hasanah Ab Hamid must be held responsible for it.
Rick Teo: Without the leak, the secret letter would not have been revealed and the writer would escape punishment. We thank the person who leaked the information without which the culprit would go unpunished.
The police should not pay any attention to the police report filed by Hasanah but instead question her motives and whose instruction did she obtain to write the letter.
Green Penang: Hasanah claims the leaking of the letter demoralised Malaysian spies worldwide. Najib denies any knowledge of the letter.
Is Najib disowning Hasanah and the actions of her agency? And was the letter treacherous? Certainly, since it was asking a foreign country to intervene in the domestic affairs of our country.
We should just disband this crowd of sorry excuses for spies and use the money saved to pay off the national debt.
Rupert16: If anything, it is Hasanah who should be investigated for writing a treasonous letter asking for foreign interference in our country’s political affairs.
The person who leaked the letter should be rewarded for his or her patriotic act.
Vijay47: Hasanah claims that the letter to the CIA was the “sharing of intelligence”. For crying out loud and heaven’s sake, it was unabashed begging for Najib’s good friend Donald Trump to help out in case the election results were not as glorious as Umno and the Elections Commissions chairperson had hoped to engineer.
And to make things even worse, you add that 10 “senior officers” from MEIO had vetted the letter. Why? Is that the standard operating procedure in Hasanah’s spy agency, 10 for 1? Does it prove that the letter was a carefully-crafted document?
In any case, usually it takes only four persons to change a light-bulb. I note also that Hasanah has, like Bersatu member and former minister Rais Yatim, changed her mode, as she no longer denies the letter’s existence and instead proudly passes it off as a piece of poetry.
Luckily for her, the recent brouhaha has left her only shaken, not stirred. Just like Bond, James Bond.
Anonymous_1527925538: The immediate security concern to our country is the rogue staff who send letters out to the CIA without Najib's knowledge.
The police should go after that and not the whistleblowers. Otherwise, who knows whether she may have sent out many more unauthorised secret letters to CIA and to other countries.
The Mask: Hasanah, don’t try to wiggle your way out of this. The issue is not the leakage. The issue is the content of the letter and who authorised you to write it. So stick to the point.
CIA letter nothing to do with Najib, says ex-intelligence DG
Quo Vadis: "Najib later said he was unaware of the letter." There are claims and counterclaims, and the veracity of these assertions need to be established.
One of the questions to be answered is: "Can an officer in the civil service write a letter such as this to a foreign government on his/her own initiative?”
Where does the foreign minister stand in a matter such as this is? Is it the case that the previous administration had fallen apart, the centre had lost or abdicated control, and anarchy was allowed to reign supreme?
I think answers to these concerns must be forthcoming without pussyfooting. Also it needs to be said and said often, that matters of this nature are properly a matter of serious public concern.
We expect the Pakatan Harapan government to address this matter after due investigation. Having said this, it is also necessary to affirm that there should be an appropriate way forward.
Civil servants who have failed in their responsibility or have acted beyond their authority in this manner have to be removed either by direction or made to do so voluntarily.
This, however, cannot be reduced to a personal vendetta where denigration, belittling, crude personal abusiveness, and four-letter words become an option. Sure, anger may be righteous, even intense, and needs to be expressed in no uncertain terms without dilution.
However, the practice of abuse and name-calling is neither a solution nor a responsible, helpful way forward. Certainly it provides no solution. It is unacceptable, and smacks of arrogance taking refuge in anonymity.
Perhaps, just perhaps, Malaysiakini could address this developing phenomenon, please? Abuse diminishes both the accuser as well as the accused and is most exasperating to readers.
Kangkung: Hasanah, if you have not done anything wrong then why the need for your photograph be pixelated?
Hasanah, is it in the scope of your job to write letters with such adulation for Najib and asking a US spy agency to support him? How can you seek a foreign intelligence agency's help without Najib's knowledge?
Anonymous 7478653098613829: Whether Najib is involved or not is for the police to investigate and for the court to decide.
So, what is she trying to do or prove by filing a police report? We have seen many police reports made on many issues. We have seen many court cases involving various frivolous issues.
Under the new Pakatan Harapan government, a lot of the court cases have been withdrawn as these cases are frivolous and meant to intimidate certain parties by using government authorities.
I see this latest police report as yet another frivolous attempt at deflecting the issue. If she wrote the letter, she will need to face the consequence.
If someone else asked her to write the letter, the person giving the instruction is in trouble as well. We are talking about treason against the king and country, are we not?
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