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The fact that the names of all 10,000 Northern Ireland police officers have been revealed in a glitch is an “invitation” for terrorist groups.
The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) has found itself in the worst crisis of its 22-year history – after the catastrophic disclosure of data. Republican terror groups such as the New IRA and the Continuity IRA are said to have got hold of all the data and are now planning targeted attacks on members of the PSNI
According to reports in the Irish media, individual police officers have already fled their homes with their families to settle elsewhere in the province. Others have moved within the police force to protect themselves. The police headquarters is primarily trying to bring “specialists” from the PSNI to safety.
who work closely with the British secret service MI5 – and for whom absolute anonymity was always a prerequisite for their work.
The police panic was sparked by a “monumental” oversight in which the names of all 10,000 Northern Ireland police officers and PSNI civilian staff, along with their ranks and duties, were posted online for a period of two and a half hours, rendering them illegal for After this enormous glitch, Northern Ireland’s chief of police, Simon Byrne, had to admit that as early as July, 200 to 300 names had fallen into the hands of unknown persons when documents were stolen from a police officer’s private car.
The reason for the fears of Northern Ireland police officers is that they were always one of the first targets for terrorist attacks during the bloody Northern Irish unrest. Back when the police force was still called the Royal Ulster Constabulary and was almost entirely Protestant, the IRA saw it as a “legacy representative of the Crown and a legitimate target”.
