The Foreign Service Journal, April 2007

CRR context is defined in any section of the FAM, including the presumably authoritative “Definitions of Diplo- matic Security Terms” (12 FAM 090): • “communist-governed/allied coun- try” (3 FAM) • “criteria country” (3 FAM) • “designated country” (12 FAM) • “critical threat (counterintelli- gence) post listed on the department’s Security Environment Threat List” (12 FAM) • “critical human intelligence (HU- MINT) threat post” (12 FAM) • “country considered to pose an exceptional counterintelligence threat to the U.S. according to the composite threat list” (95 State 93112) Do these terms (e.g., the second, fourth, fifth and sixth) refer to the same grouping of countries? Even DS doesn’t seem to know. In the absence of any definitions, how would the aver- age employee know? And here are some other terms (from 3 FAM), all vital to an accurate understanding of the CRR, that cry out for precise definition, particularly in the Internet age: • “equivalent bonds” (a term in the very title of the 3 FAM CRR that has no self-evident or readily understood meaning outside the fields of chem- istry and finance) • “relationship” (Does a “one-night stand” constitute a “relationship” in the CRR context? What about an e- mail exchange?) • “contact” (Does an e-mail ex- change count as a contact?) • “romantically intimate” (Does a date or two constitute a “romantically intimate” relationship? And who makes that determination?) • “sexually intimate” (Does kissing, or writing a flirtatious or erotic e-mail message, constitute a “sexually inti- mate” relationship?) • “reportable relationship” (As noted above, an employee’s career can hinge on the interpretation of this term, but it is not independently defined in the FAM.) Solution: Reformulate the CRR to define all terms critical to an accurate understanding of its provisions. Key provisions of the FAM employ grammar that is amateur- ishly imprecise, confusing and sometimes misleading. For exam- ple, 3 FAM requires employees to “report any relationship (not only con- tinuing relationships) with a national 16 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / A P R I L 2 0 0 7 S P E A K I N G O U T