Post-Wikileaks, White House Pushes Government to Batten Down the Hatches
EmailThe White House today instructed federal departments and agencies to take immediate steps to try to prevent any future Wikileaks-like disclosures.
“The recent irresponsible disclosure by WikiLeaks has resulted in significant damage to our national security,” wrote director of the Office of Management and Budget Jack Lew, in a memo posted this morning at the OMB website. “Any failure by agencies to safeguard classified information pursuant to relevant laws… is unacceptable and will not be tolerated.”
Each federal department and agency that handles classified information is being instructed to create a “security assessment team” to review the implementation of procedures to safeguard such information, a review to include making sure that no employee has access to information beyond what is necessary to do his or her job effectively.
The instruction seemed a reference to US Army Private Bradley Manning, an army intelligence analyst arrested who was stationed in Iraq and is thought to be the source for the hundreds of thousands of documents leaked to Wikileaks. Manning was arrested in May and is awaiting court martial.
You can read the memo HERE.
It was unclear why this memo is being released now, after the third Wikileaks document dump, instead of after the first one.
-Jake Tapper
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One would think that as gov’t administrators go, they felt the first WikiLeak was a fluke, and didn’t feel the need to safeguard against another one happening. Half the problem with our government and many corporations is the reactive mindset vs. proactive.
Posted by: mike | November 29, 2010, 11:03 am 11:03 am
“It was unclear why this memo is being released now, after the third Wikileaks document dump, instead of after the first one.”
Now let’s see if anybody else picks up on this?
Posted by: Dell | November 29, 2010, 11:35 am 11:35 am
“Half the problem with our government and many corporations is the reactive mindset vs. proactive.” – mike
Yeah mike, but remember Bush got reamed for being Proactive.
Posted by: Noz | November 29, 2010, 11:36 am 11:36 am
Batton down the hatches and gird our loins?
Posted by: Bo, PWD | November 29, 2010, 11:43 am 11:43 am
Dell,
This was my first thought as well.
Suddenly obama see’s these dumps are not
serving his objectives.
Posted by: J2 | November 29, 2010, 12:19 pm 12:19 pm
I recall some leaks a while back -maybe on cryptome- about Wikileaks (the funders, motivations, backers, etc.) Interesting that wikileaks is so secretive about its/their motivations, funding, backers, etc. But mainly this latest leak shows two main things:
1) the post 911 rush to consolidate, streamline, share, and “intranetize” data is misguided. Yes, we must share but we still need secrecy and security.
2) the “dont ask, dont tell” policy was ridiculous and calls in question why the military is hiring people of this type (Lady Gaga CD should be a redflag!)
Posted by: Ed | November 29, 2010, 12:38 pm 12:38 pm
If we had a real president and a real attorney general, Julian Assange would long since have been indicted for espionage by a federal grand jury, and would be a fugitive from American justice at this moment.
Posted by: Fascist Hyena | November 29, 2010, 8:37 pm 8:37 pm
Too bad that they aren’t requiring IT to be a part of the Security Assessment Team. People with access to secure information should not be able to copy or duplicate it via USB or Optical device. This is Security 101 and our government is Epic Fail in that regard.
Don’t blame WikiLeaks. I’d rather have them publish the information rather than having it in the hands of a group that is openly hostile to the US.
Posted by: Kilroy | November 30, 2010, 12:00 pm 12:00 pm
This must be accepted that any US administration should change their policies towards world community and so called allies. There should be no double faces, no games with friends and with American nation. Policeman of the World style should be changed. But unfortunately we are talking about punishing Wikileaks and not the fact that US has so many faces when it can have one face and can earn respect among world community. Unfortunately hatred, and shame is what is written due to politicians who are bent on making this world a hell.
Posted by: Jim | December 2, 2010, 3:25 pm 3:25 pm