Generation Talk

[TheCurmudgeon]

You mention responsible media. That brings up the quesiton of what is really secret. The location of the drone base in Saudi Arabia was secret until the New York Times felt it was an an important part of a story:

DEYOUNG: Well, we and others did report that there was a base that had been built in the Arabian Peninsula, but we didn't say Saudi Arabia. That was at the request of the administration, which had argued that it was a national security concern. The New York Times decided that this was an important fact for a story that they were doing leading up to John Brennan's confirmation on Thursday, and once it was out there, it was kind of out there for everyone.

http://www.npr.org/2013/02/06/171310...n-saudi-arabia

So how much is really secret and how much is simply FMUO - For Media Use Only

I would also argue that much of our problem comes from the laziness of the G2 types, who don't want to actually analyze what might be secret or not and simply classify everything as secret with no expiration date on that classification. If they were to create a system where operational information in general remained classified for 72 hours after the operation and specific portions of the operational information (like sources, TTPs, etc.) remained classified until released, that might make more sense from the end users perspective. But right now, Secret just means "don't tell the enemy, but anyone else is OK".