Wikileaks publicly disclosed a lot of classified info, and regardless of whether you agree with it or not, the damage is done, and the info is publicly available. But the government still asserts “even though the documents were publicly revealed, they’re still classified” and instructs all military and federal government employees to not read wikileaks.
But like it or not, the wikileaks cables are undeniably public now, so what possible reason is there to prevent US military and federal employees from reading them?
The ‘bad guys’ already read them, and all possible damage is already done, so how can anyone claim that preventing our own ‘good guy’ people from reading them could possibly cause any harm? In fact, letting our own people read them might conceivably help – for instance, knowing that the US secretly sold weapons to Libya in 2009 could definitely be useful to a CIA agent planning anti-insurgency plans for Libya now, if only to know what we’re up against.
Given that the wikileaks articles are (like it or not) already widely published, is there any logical reason for the US government to prevent its own employees from reading them? Or is this just one of those stupid policies of ignoring reality? I want to believe the government has a reason, but I honestly can’t think of any possible way this policy would help anyone. Am I missing something?
Allowing gov’t employees to read them would be tantamount to declassifying the leaked documents. Doing so would be an admission of defeat. It’s about not losing face, as little as they can now.
How does the US government prevent its own employees from reading Wikileaks? Even if their home internet use is closely monitored, there are always public library computers.
There might be a logical reason for not wanting gov’t employees – and more particularly, most military personnel – from reading this. How they could ever enforce this (as heathen earthling asked about) is a separate problem.
For a crew of soldiers – a squadron, a platoon, whatever – to function well, they must work as a TEAM, as if they were one organism (like those fried-egg creatures in that Star Trek episode). For the team to function optimally, it’s not necessary (any may not even be desirable) for each individual to act individually optimally, but rather for every member to act predictably – thus, for example, the heavy emphasis and training on predictable team behavior, such as marching in cadence, shining those shoes, saluting officers, etc. And, as well, a great emphasis on placing the same well-controlled thoughts into every soldier’s head. Thus, a great emphasis on information control from the higher ranks toward the lower. You can see how soldiers who do some extracurricular reading like WikiLeaks could acquire some very disfavored ideas of their own, and might in some way try to “improve” the team results with some “individually more optimal” choice of their own.
It’s all abstract any hypothetical of course, but such is the working of the governmental bureaucratic – and especially military – mind.
There are any number of laws and rules that are difficult to enforce; this is just one more.
As difficult as it is to enforce, they still feel it’s important to minimize the propagation of that classified info. FWIW, in the current case this is not a new order, it’s just a reminder: government employees without security clearances have always been prohibited from reading or distributing classified information. However, the authorities don’t shout this out every day of the week, so when they do, it makes news.
There are two things interacting here. One is that if classified information is leaked, it is still classified. So let’s say I work on some weapons program for the government. One day, I open the Washington Post and see and expose’ on the program. I can’t just say “Well, it’s out in the open, so I can call up the press and talk about what I know.” because it’s still classified. This makes sense because talking about it can leak additional info, confirm something that was just speculative, or even simply call more attention to the leak.
The second thing is that those with clearances are forbidden to access classified information that they don’t need to know. That basically counts as spying. This is why the government has compartmentalized information in the first place. It’s also good for the general public because it prevents, say, an FBI agent from building a dossier on his feuding next door neighbor or looking up his daughter’s new college boyfriend’s criminal history.
So when you put those two things together, it’s illegal to look at Wikileaks unless it pertains to your job and you have a need to know. It doesn’t matter that it’s on the internet; it’s still classified and therefore, those with clearances aren’t allowed to intentionally access it.
This is probably the biggest part. Interestingly enough, often the most important piece that could be turned over is that it is actually classified and that the revealed information is true and accurate. Sometimes, a lot of leaked information is just classified because it was never unclassified and may be outdated information and thus is useless garbage at this point, but even if I don’t reveal anything additional about the leaks, by doing anything to confirm it, it now validates or invalidates the source of those leaks and other associated information.
The compartmentalization is an important part of the security. Let’s say, for instance, that I’m working on a top secret weapon design. I may only have need to know on the targetting system because that’s the part that I’m working on. Now let’s say that part isn’t compromised but some other portion of the project is. There was already some incentive that I may have betrayed that trust before, but it was a mitigated risk because it would have required several people from several parts of the project to all betray; however, with other parts of the project compromised, it would take fewer people, and so suddenly the value of the information I have is increased. If I don’t know how the value of the information I have might be affected by other information that has been released, I’m not any more likely to be persuaded to give it up than I was before.
And, in the end, this is enough. We’ve made a promise to follow a set of rules about that information and we need to follow it. If we can’t be trusted to follow it, even in such a case as a leak where others can, how can we be trusted to follow it when that information may still have some real value to our nation’s enemies?
The government limits the number of people who may legally release classified info. This number is far lower than the number of folks who may view or use that same info.
Just because a piece of info got made public doesn’t mean that suddenly you’re authorised to release that info, and even confirming info is similarly restricted.
Part of training/orientation for receiving clearance was proper document/information handling. Among that was the admonition that if we saw a classified document or folder that was improperly left in the open we were not to read or look at it, but to find its owner and have them take care of securing it. Even if the safe/cabinet was right there, we were not to even handle it. I’ve assumed that the policy the OP is asking about is also rooted in this (in addition to what’s already been mentioned).
Note: training I received was conducted by my private-sector employer in accordance with the Department of Energy. In-government training may be different.
The official instructions we get at our agency if we receive an email with classified information in it are to (1) delete it immediately, and then (2) tell IT everything you can remember about it. My guess is that those instructions were formulated by a committee.
In theory, the point of getting a security clearance is that someone is trustworthy enough to follow procedures and instructions on how to deal with sensitive information.
It is entirely possible that a government worker would find ways to covertly read Wikileaks information. It is also entirely possible that a government worker would find ways to leak classified information to people who aren’t allowed to know it. Both of those situations are very difficult for the government to actively prevent, therefore it is important not to give security clearances to government workers who ignore the rules on how they are supposed to handle classified information.
To use an analogy, how is a wife supposed to prevent her husband from having an affair? The husband could sneak out during work hours, take bogus business trips, etc. The answer is that the wife should “prevent” affairs by only marrying a man who is trustworthy.
ETA: and if he proves untrustworthy, kick him to the curb.
The biggest issue is that reading wikileaks involves “transmitting” and or “processing” Classified data over an Unclassified network. It gets transmitted from Wiki to your computer. Then the computer processes it to display on your monitor. Equipment must be rated to transmit, process, or display Classified material.
I could read Wikileaks cables if someone handed them to me on a burned CD or Secret thumb drive that I could then put into a Secret laptop to display the information and read away. Or, I suppose, if someone were to hand me a stack of it all printed out.
I have not been told that I cannot “read” them. I just cannot access or download Classified material through an unsecure network, or display it or process it on an unsecure computer. And since wikileaks servers are unsecure, I couldn’t even use a secure classified network like SIPRNET to access the information. So for all practicle purposes, I “can’t read wikileaks”.
It’s unenforceable, really, but the policy with any kind of classified document is that even if you have the appropriate clearance, there’s still the “need to know” factor.
For example, I held a Top Secret clearance many, many years ago. Never used it, my company was encouraging people to get cleared so they’d have them ready to go if they got contracts at a specific client.
Say the plans for a particular nuclear missile were classified as readable only for Top Secret clearances. That didn’t mean I had any right to look at them - even if I’d been pulled to work a project for the client, such missile plans wouldn’t have been pertinent to anything I was doing. If someone had plunked a printout of the plans on my desk, my requirement would (I believe) to look just enough to determine it wasn’t my business, then to escalate the documents up to whichever supervisory body handled such breaches, saying “inadvertently disclosed to me, what do I do now”.
In addition, I was not supposed to go looking for things not in my job description. I assume that if I’d been found in possession of something like that, I’d have been in pretty deep doo-doo even if I had no intention of doing anything wrong with it.
And if I had NOT had a clearance, the same would have applied. Anyone who works for the government, especially in any remotely sensitive area, has annual reminders about computer security etc. and what to do if we get hold of not-our-bizness stuff. The “don’t look at wikileaks” edict is just more of the same.
The real question is, can the government enforce this? And I don’t honestly see how they can.
This reminds me of my older brother who had a job with Lucky Supermarkets and they were told if they shopped at a non-union supermarket they would be thrown out of the union. And of course, if you didn’t belong to the union you couldn’t work for Lucky. At least as a bagger.
I always wondered if union people followed others around to make sure they never went to a non union market. I loved the union newsletter he used to bring home. Lucky sure hated Piggly Wiggly
