Washington Whispers

Langley types with a penchant for history are digging through the 800 pages of The Secret History of MI-6: 1909-1949, the first authorized history of the British Secret Intelligence Service, written by Keith Jeffery. Think the CIA is tight-lipped? MI-6 only admitted its existence publicly in 1994. "I got through 150 pages last night," says one senior spook. "Couldn't put it down." Among the revelations: the average life span for a spy inside Nazi Germany was a paltry three weeks; that the real SIS has never issued a "licence to kill" (sorry, 007); and the Brits aggressively spied on Washington until 1938. Eventually, the CIA and MI-6 closely collaborated, for instance, against the Communist government in Albania in 1948 (though the U.S. government still denies it). MI-6, it turns out, was also wary of sharing too much with the CIA through 1949 because of a propensity for leaks, especially of intelligence about the Soviet Union.

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Since the country's housing market plunged off a cliff two years ago, "debt resulting from job losses and home foreclosures have had a devastating effect on people holding national security clearances," contends Virginia-based national security attorney Sheldon Cohen, who compiled data released by the Department of Defense Office of Hearings and Appeals. It's the only one of the country's 11 clearance boards that makes data available to the public. The total numbers are secret but, based on his research, foreclosures "more than any other factor today, [are] causing the revocation or denial of security clearances, resulting in the loss of good paying jobs, and putting skilled workers further and further behind in their effort to dig out of debt."

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Education isn't always a top national concern for voters, but schools consume so many state and local tax dollars that it is impossible to ignore in individual races. Just ask Adrian Fenty, the Washington, D.C., mayor ousted in a primary this month, due in part to his controversial schools chief Michelle Rhee. That notoriety is a shame, says Department of Education Secretary Arne Duncan. "Education has to be the one issue where we put politics and ideology to the side," he told reporters this week, adding that he's trying to get Rhee to stay on under the presumptive new mayor, Vincent Gray. Duncan's plans for October? Hitting the campaign trail and fundraising circuit for Democrats, naturally.

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While the United States isn't imposing a French-style ban on burkas or forbidding the construction of minarets à la Switzerland, "Muslim-Americans continue to struggle for acceptance in many communities," Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez told the American Constitution Society this week at a Capitol Hill event. "It is a sober reminder that there are those in our nation who have not yet realized the full promise of equal opportunity and equal justice." The Justice Department's Civil Rights Division has handled 18 separate federal cases of discrimination against Muslims since the 9/11 attacks. But eight of those have been opened in the past six months alone. While issues like the Park51 project near ground zero in Manhattan or the planned torching of a Koran in Florida made headlines, Perez said a more insidious manifestation of anti-Muslim attitudes comes in the form of discriminatory land-use and zoning policies from town and city governments.

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