Look, whether you believe Secret, Top Secret, Classified, Sensitive or FOUO information should be broadcast publicly or not doesn’t matter. You don’t decide. I don’t decide. These people are entrusted with sensitive information and, with seemingly increasing regularity, they run out of high level meetings and divulge all levels of details regarding sensitive or classified information. What do they get out of this? Hopefully after the poor, POOR handling of the Bin Laden mission information someone will crack some heads and start enforcing the OPSEC and classification guidance that we all agree to when we accept clearances or are privy to sensitive information.
The clearance system has become a fuckin joke in the last decade. Does it not bother the avg citizen when they see classified information divulged by anonymous sources like this or are you just glad to get the low-down on whatever you read? Aren’t you concerned that someday the wrong insider is going to divulge the wrong info and will seriously compromise our national security?
Oh wait, I guess Bradley Manning already has tried that.
Honestly, I usually assume that “anonymous sources” get a wink wink authorization to go leak to the press stuff the gov’t wants public but doesn’t want to have to stand by.
Just to confirm what others have said, these are almost all “authorized” leaks. “Those familiar” are possibly not authorized, but probably. “An anonymous official” almost always is.
Yeah, I remember reading an article about how the SEALs were getting angry at all the public attention to the operation, how everyone was so desperate for details of the raid that it was putting them at risk. They were basically begging everybody to stop being interested and just let it go.
Well, best of luck to them with that, but Team 6 did something significant and it’s human nature to want details and to share them.
I’m comforted that this challenges all the various conspiracy theories - if there’s a secret about something important, it won’t stay secret for long. Somebody will blab sooner or later.
The fact that humans are curious and bragidocious (sp?) does not make this acceptable. People (myself included) in sensitive or classified areas/jobs see and do significant things every day that would wow your socks off and make headline news nightly. It’s not okay for us to discuss them just because it’s human nature. As trusted agents we (they) are expected to resist our human nature and keep secrets secret.
Braggadocious. Although it’s not a “real” word, so spell it however you like.
If classified information is being leaked all the time, the fault is with the people granting clearance. Don’t give top secret clearance out to every Tom, Dick or Sarah working a receptionist’s desk if you don’t want people to find out about your top secrets, as it were.
Frankly, the difference between the extremely well-kept secret of bin Laden’s whereabouts until the raid and the poorly-kept secrets after the raid is too great to be an accident. Most of these leaks are probably intentional-- things that the administration wants the public to know but believes would reflect badly on if directly stated to the media.
How’d you find out about how the SEALs are feeling? Did the story quote human beings with names? Or “sources familiar with the special forces community”?
Are there any actual examples of meaningful security leaks regarding the Osama raid? Be a little easier to discuss some sort of concrete case.
“Sources not authorized to speak” reporting annoys me not because I think classified stuff is getting out that way, but because it lets gov’t officals get information out without having to stand by it in any way. This gets pretty comical sometimes, as it gets attached to information that there isn’t really a conceivable reason not to have a name attached to, but the source insists anyways to ensure they can never be called on it.
I didn’t say it was okay, just that being annoyed by the method of promulgation is pointless. I assume it was never intended that the killing of Bin Laden be kept secret, so once it was done, who cares how it gets blabbed?
Granted, blabbing before the fact is quite different.
And I’ve held a Top Secret clearance, too, so the playing of the “wow” card has limited effect.
How would the knowledge of the fact that the SEAL team wore helmet cams compromise anything? Or even the type of weapon they used?
Have Team 6’s names been released? If so,* that’s* a big deal. Otherwise…meh.
It was known from almost the beginning that the people in the situation room were following a live feed of the operation as it was in progress. Where did people think that feed came from, magical elves?