CIA Scandals: Blame the Bureaucrats

Among the "family jewels" -- documents detailing illegal and scandalous activities by the CIA -- set for release next week, are papers detailing a 1969 program to infiltrate antiwar groups in the United States and monitor their activities. Under the program, 10,000 American names were collected. Why did the agency not only gather but hang onto all of this data? Here's former CIA Director William Colby's explanation, as reported in the Washington Post: "the tendency of bureaucrats to retain paper whether they needed it or acted on it or not."