You never really know…do you

On July 18th Leandro Aragoncillo, 48, was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison for espionage charges in connection with stealing classified national defense documents from the White House, the FBI, the Department of Defense, and the U.S. Department of State. This is surprising because Leandro Aragoncillo was a former U.S. Marine and FBI analyst. Aragoncillo’s case marks the first time in modern history that someone has been charged with spying out of the White House The man who was a career Marine and had served under two vice presidents (Cheney & Gore) in the White House had pled guilty to stealing information in an attempt to foster a political coup in the Philippines, his ancestral home country. Aragoncillo was brought to justice using the same tools he was using for his treasonous activities, text messages, Web-based e-mail accounts and database queries.
There are many aspects of this case that are interesting, from his motivation to his religious affiliation to his career highlights. But what has prompted me to write about this is the aspect dealing with security and self-defense. Even though this story covers a big topic it has lessons that we can learn at a much more personal level. Most people tend to accept certain positions as trustworthy, and because of this, assign an inherent trust to people holding these positions. Examples abound, police, clergy, teachers, fellow parents all are positions we assign trust and responsibility to yet are the individuals filling these roles responsible and trustworthy? In this case, no. To often our self-defense is breached because we relax or rely on the trust of a position and not the individual. Trust should be earned regardless of the position. As a parent this is more true then ever. I trust no one with my children that hasn’t earned that trust. Even after earning my trust, when it comes to my children I am ever critical of motives and actions. Remember that self-defense starts with awareness and vigilance. Luckily the Federal government was vigilant in this case. But if we apply a personal tone to this story the damage is done because the crime has already happened. The difference is that in our personal life, concerning our personal safety we do not have to wait for a crime to be committed to change the course of events. So be aware and pay close attention to motive. There are a lot of nice, kind hearted people out there but there are also a lot of wolves pretending to be the same. Can you tell the difference? Train hard and stay safe.
Read about the Aragoncillo case here

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