Efing Wikileaks

[SWJED]

Via Ex at Abu Muqawama - Noah at Wired's Danger Room - Wikileaks Posts Secret Bomb-Stopper Report — Did It Go Too Far?.

In July, 2005, I asked a member of a Baghdad-based military bomb squad about the radio-frequency jammers his team was using to cut off signals to Iraq's remotely detonated explosives. His response: "I can't even begin to say the first ####ing thing about 'em." A few days later, one of those jammers seemed to save me and him from getting blown up. Months after that, David Axe was thrown out of Iraq by the U.S. military, for a blog post which mentioned the Warlock family of jammers.

So I was more than a little surprised, when I saw that Wikileaks had posted a classified report, outlining how the Warlock Red and Warlock Green jammers work with — and interfere with — military communications systems. The report, dated 2004, gives specific information about how the jammers function, their radiated power and which frequencies they stop. That Baghdad bomb tech would've put his fist through a wall, if he saw it out in public...

[Schmedlap]

I am extremely encouraged that Aftergood of FAS did not approve of this. At least there is some sanity coming from the other side of the fence on this issue. In any case, I agree with most of the comments in the article and at Muqawama's site - this is very dated information of little to no value. In that regard, I am confident that friends of mine are in no more danger than they were before.

On the other hand, I don't understand how people get away with this crap. Classified information is not for the public domain and I have received a fair amount of briefings that warned me about possible jail time if I were to do something like this. Why do the powers that be seem to ignore this stuff? Is it simply because the information (in this case) is harmless? This seems like a pretty straightforward case of breaking the law. I am reminded of the drug legalization thread where there was discussion about soft drugs as a "gateway" to hard drugs. Likewise, it seems that stealing FOUO is a gateway to stealing Secret, which is a gateway to stealing Secret with various caveats, and so on.

[Fuchs]

There's in big letters written "UNCLASSIFIED" in the document.


It could be disinformation anyway.

[SWJED]

There's in big letters written "UNCLASSIFIED" in the document.


It could be disinformation anyway.

The overall classification of the document - in big bold letters - is:

SECRET//REL TO USA, AUS, CAN, GBR, AND NZL//X1

You were most likely looking at either the individual page or paragraph markings.

[Schmedlap]

There's in big letters written "UNCLASSIFIED" in the document.

What document are you referring to? This one, linked to in the Wikileaks article, is classified "SECRET//REL TO USA, AUS, CAN, GBR, AND NZL//X1"

[Ken White]

classified data that were marked 'UNCLASSIFIED' in a total document whose contents and most pages were marked 'SECRET//REL TO USA, AUS, CAN, GBR, AND NZL//X1'

I've seen US civilians get confused by that practice, no matter how logical it is...

[John T. Fishel]

in the government hierarchy, there is no penalty for releasing classified info - unless you are Scooter Libby and lie about it to the FBI. When I was a junior officer assigned to the Army's current intel shop, I would often roll my eyes when reading Joe Alsop's column in the Washington Post where I would see half of a SECRET NOFORN cable that I had read yesterday! Clearly, the Administration was leaking classified - we used to jokingly ask who Alsop had lunch with. I would also often see - several days (or weeks) later - in the press stuff that I had seen in classified form. Note that the original messages were still classified but the information had moved into the open source literature.

Later in my career, I saw classification from the other side - that is plans that were classified TS but once executed should have been UNCLAS but somebody forgot to declassify - in other cases they were declassified. So, one issue here is proper classification or its lack. Another is the appropriate response to Adminsitration leaking of only part of the story - is this disinformation? A third, is declassification - what and when? Our system has problems with all of these. IMHO many of those problems could be addressed simply by using some "common sense" and people doing the jobs they are paid to do. Unfortunately "common sense" is uncommon; people don't always do their jobs; and other people want to play the system for their own political ends.

Cheers

JohnT

[Rex Brynen]

When I was a junior officer assigned to the Army's current intel shop, I would often roll my eyes when reading Joe Alsop's column in the Washington Post where I would see half of a SECRET NOFORN cable that I had read yesterday!

I've seen that too (well, not NOFORN, obviously)—although in some case it is the result of the embassy (or whoever) classifying information that is already circulating in the field.

On the issue of wikileaks and the capabilities of Warlock Red/Green et al, there's good reason to keep data on this sort of stuff classified even after the system has passed out of widespread US usage—allies or locals may still be using older systems (or might be in future). I certainly used to use comms stuff in the 1980s that Ken would have remembered from "a generation" earlier

[Ken White]

..........

[Schmedlap]

On my last deployment, there was 30 GB of pornography on the SIPR network, iPods hooked up to secret computers (I guess it was just to charge it; you can't download stuff from iTunes - but still a blatant OPSEC violation), and I stumbled upon a site on the SIPR that had information that had no business being accessible to just anyone with a Secret clearance (not sure if it was S or TS, but I do know that it was, in layman's terms, "need to know" information). After a few months of continually raising these issues, the latter one was solved. I guess batting .333 ain't bad?

There is also the problem of overclassification. Most of the stuff that occurs on the SIPR network is not of a classified nature. Some that occurs via NIPR is. Much of the stuff on SIPR has no business being there, because we don't know where it originated from. Likewise with NIPR, for the opposite reason. It's a weird over/under situation that few people take seriously, including, unfortunately, many commanders.

[Stevely]

On my last deployment, there was 30 GB of pornography on the SIPR network, iPods hooked up to secret computers (I guess it was just to charge it; you can't download stuff from iTunes - but still a blatant OPSEC violation), and I stumbled upon a site on the SIPR that had information that had no business being accessible to just anyone with a Secret clearance (not sure if it was S or TS, but I do know that it was, in layman's terms, "need to know" information). After a few months of continually raising these issues, the latter one was solved. I guess batting .333 ain't bad?

Geez. We took Ft. Drum off the network during a Unified Endeavor exercise due to the presence of reams of porn on their SIPR that just so happened to carry lots of malware (imagine that!).

[Rex Brynen]

iPods hooked up to secret computers (I guess it was just to charge it; you can't download stuff from iTunes

Pretty much every iPod doubles as a USB (or, in the earlier models, Firewire) hard disk. Indeed, its not at all unusual for them to be used by academics to carry sensitive interview notes across borders in places where border guards don't know this (but otherwise do examine or seize laptops, USB keys, CDs, etc).

[Stevely]

On the other hand, I don't understand how people get away with this crap. Classified information is not for the public domain and I have received a fair amount of briefings that warned me about possible jail time if I were to do something like this. Why do the powers that be seem to ignore this stuff? Is it simply because the information (in this case) is harmless? This seems like a pretty straightforward case of breaking the law. I am reminded of the drug legalization thread where there was discussion about soft drugs as a "gateway" to hard drugs. Likewise, it seems that stealing FOUO is a gateway to stealing Secret, which is a gateway to stealing Secret with various caveats, and so on.

And yet at the same time, we have people here being put on administrative leave and under investigation for sticking a thumb drive into their NIPR. I am not condoning the practice mind you, but I have seen similar laxity in enforcing the rules on handling classified information, so this sort of thing puzzles me.

[Cavguy]

Good question for JMM - what is the law for disclosing classified information?

I know it is murky since the 'Pentagon Papers' were released.

[patmc]

West of Balad in FEB 06, a reporter embedded with a unit we were providing convoys for was kicked off the FOB for mentioning electronic warfare details in one of his articles. We, the Soldiers, were given many warnings on not discussing any systems or capabilities that we may or may not have had. Later in the deployment, it was more than a little annoying to read a multi-page spread in newsweek discussing the counter IED battle with diagrams and such. DOD and government don't take INFOSEC seriously, except for making an occasional example. Sadly, so many people are sloppy that a good percentage of leaders would be out of positions if it was fully enforced.

[KAckermann]

What's to classify? They know the freqs they are transmitting on. The second time one didn't go off, a quick sniff with a spectrum analyzer would show that, sure enough, that freq was saturated after they signaled.

We are just damn lucky they haven't discovered the wonders of the $4.00 DSP chip yet. You wouldn't want to be driving around with one of those jammers on if they did. They wouldn't even need a spotter. All they would have to do is plant a bomb that waits for the loud thing to drive by. They already know how to turn the jammer on.

All of this has to be known stuff. It's very basic.

[John T. Fishel]

It is interesting that the law refers to defense information, not classified information. Is that because the documents authorizing classification are all Executive Orders of the President, not public law (but with the force of law until overridden by a new EO or legislation)?

JMM, you say that the govt could have won on the Pentagon Papers case. I presume you mean the prosecution of Ellsburg - had they not engaged in gross misconduct, etc. I believe you are right but I would raise the possible exception of fact: The Pentagon Papers contained no information "the improper release of which would damage [seriously or otherwise] the security of the United States" - the operative wording of the classification EO. My statement is an educated opinion of a current intel analyst on active duty at the time (1971) with access to all kinds of classified info at the time. I suggest that Ellsburg could have domostrated that the Papers had been improperly classified and, therefore, there was no crime. (The Problem of Over/Improper Classification.)

Cheers

JohnT