If you're spying on Vladimir Putin, you don't want Putin to know how you're doing so.

I note that in light of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence's newly released report on Russian interference in the 2016 election. This volume four of the report reviews the Intelligence Community's 2017 assessment of Russian operations. Much of the media is predictably obsessing over the report's affirmation that the intelligence community rightly assessed Russia's intent was to help elect President Trump. Equally predictable is the fact that the media are generally ignoring that Putin's central strategic intent was to undermine U.S. democratic civil society.

Personally, however, I'm struck by the 100% redaction of the report's 15 pages corroborating Putin's direction of the active measures effort. While the report is too redaction heavy in general, including mass redactions on open source (information freely available to the public) intelligence reporting, the Putin redactions make a lot more sense. Because what's behind those blacked out sections are some of the most closely guarded intelligence sources and methods in the U.S. government.

First off, there's the National Security Agency effort to intercept communications between Putin's person, office, inner circle, and other elements inside and outside of Russia. Actively supported by Britain's NSA counterpart agency, GCHQ, this effort involves targeting the encrypted communications of top Russian officials and those around them. It also involves more boutique efforts to infect Russian telecommunications with unique "bugs" or "backdoors," sometimes physical, that allow the United States to hear what's being said in positions where it would otherwise be impossible. Of course, the Russians know this and so actively take steps to mislead listening ears. Their politicians practice better security than ours, here. Russian officials have a particular penchant for saying things on encrypted telephone lines that are untrue. Their intent is to amuse themselves while muddling the U.S. Intelligence Community's assessment of what they are up to.

Out of the 15 relevant report pages here, we do get a little hint of the NSA's role. On pages 71 and 72, footnotes reference Senate interviews with the National Intelligence Officer for Cyber Issues and an interview with NSA officials.

The CIA is the other standout agency in the 15 blacked out pages.

Responsible for recruiting Russian government officials and those with access to the levers of power, the CIA was instrumental in the intelligence community's original 2017 assessment of Putin's role in the election interference effort. It was a personal mission for Putin, who sees the U.S. as an intrinsic enemy and seeks to undermine our global influence. But while Russia is an exceptionally hard target for the CIA, the agency's officers have managed to recruit a number of very high value and active sources. Maintaining these sources' secure ability to provide timely information requires great diligence and skill. And sometimes the Russians take grotesque actions to disrupt the effort.

But the CIA gets it done. Indeed, the agency's success here is likely a motivating force behind recent constitutional changes proposed by Putin to prevent top officials from having foreign residences and dual citizenship.

As with the NSA, then, the CIA-related redactions are understandable. The Russians apply an almost pathological outlook to counterintelligence efforts, often killing, with varied success, those they deem to be traitors. So were the Senate reports to identify even only from where and when a CIA source provided information on Putin; the Russians would backtrace the logs of whoever was in meetings that day. Consider that if, for example, the report says "an asset reported that on x date, GRU director Igor Korobov attended a meeting with Putin and returned to brief his staff that Putin said, 'do y to the U.S. election,'" the Russians would be able to see who attended that staff meeting. The source might get caught.

In short, intelligence operations toward Russia are always complicated and fraught with risk. And while the public deserves more insight into the origins, actions, and rationales behind the U.S. investigation into Russian election interference, these Putin redactions are eminently justified.