In the spirit of last night’s Vice Presidential debates and the Presidential debates to come, it’s only appropriate to talk about foreign policy.

Not the United States’ foreign policy… but the “foreign” policy of the friendly Brits across the pond.

This past Sunday, a laptop computer was reported stolen from a home in Greater Manchester. The article by the Telegraph tells that the home is currently rented by MI5 security services. Though the article reassures, “Police said the files were encrypted — making them impossible for anyone to access,” it’s nonetheless easy to worry about the machine falling into the wrong hands: the MI5 laptop contained anti-terror files, after all. Even the remote chance of nefarious folks gaining access to these files summons the specter of irreparable damage befalling any anti-terror knowledge the UK has already gained.

Thankfully, police believe this act was an “opportunist theft” and that the house and laptop were “not targeted.”

To their detriment, the Ministry of Defence recently admitted that 658 laptops have been stolen over the past four years. Most recently, however, an MI6 agent sold a digital camera on eBay that contained not only images of potential terror suspects, but their names, fingerprints, and, furthermore, images of rocket launchers and missiles.

It seems the UK needs to tighten up security measures in its government. Even with simple registration on the MyLaptopGPS website, all of this sensitive information could be recovered.