However, she should be reminded that where there is smoke there is always fire. Reports about interns and security lapses at the ministry cannot just spring from nowhere. It is a wake-up call to tighten systems. At the very least, the ministry needs to get to the bottom of the matter and plug the holes that might allow unauthorised people access to confidential information. It is easy for the less discerning to dismiss reports that mere interns could be compromising the country's security given their positions in the government hierarchy. But in the covert world of espionage, it is a time-honoured tradition to use subordinate staff like interns, waiters, security guards, house-helps, sweepers and secretaries to ferret out vital information from the sanctum sanctorum. Such staff are usually a minefield of information about what goes on in an organisation or a household.
They are the unobtrusive and silent watchers of what is happening where they work. Perhaps that is why whenever there are leaks, the focus is usually on the high and mighty or those authorised to have access to vital information. The subordinates are likely to be suspects in petty theft and other minor offences at work, while in reality, they could be the channels that the vital secrets of an organisation - even a country - are being accessed by rivals and hostile forces.
