Defense Department Blocks Access to Guardian to Prevent Viewing of NSA Leaks
dissenter.firedoglake.com
dissenter.firedoglake.com
Note that it's not the classified systems they are worried about, but the boring unclassified ones. There are separate systems for classified and unclassified information, and there are rules to make sure that stuff doesn't move from the classified systems to the unclassified ones by accident. One of those rules, very sensibly, is that classified information shouldn't be on the unclassified systems.
Again, this has nothing to do with stopping public spread of the documents, and everything to do with trying to keep "clean" systems clean, as they explain in the article.
I disagree that this is about keeping "clean" systems clean. That is the justification for the block. The implied task, which typically carries tremendous latitude, is in this clause:
> Leadership must establish a vigilant command climate that underscores the critical importance of safeguarding classified material against compromise.
Officers will discuss this in an email, maybe during a routine brief, and issue intent (maybe guidance) to the NCOs. That clause about the vigilant command climate being underscored is where the NCOs will be interpreting the implied task(s). Somewhere, for some units, this will be similar to the way alcohol and pornography is handled. There will be an amnesty and then there will be barracks inspections. Platoon and team leaders will treat any device used to access an unclassified system as though it were a thumb drive. Most of the lower enlisted depend heavily upon their Defense Knowledge Online (DKO) portal and webmail. Many use personal computers to access from their barracks. Medical records, address books, professional development, college coursework, all are accessed through the portal. If you have been keeping up on the Snowden leaks on your personal laptop and you are caught with that material on your personal laptop, which you use to access DKO, you will be charged with a security violation. Your clearance will be revoked. You will lose your job and there will be a criminal investigation. If you sync your phone with your laptop, that will be inspected, as well. Your phone might as well be a thumb drive. If you have an email with Snowden material attached to it in your GMail Inbox, and that is pushed to your phone but you fail to report and scrub it, you will be charged.
These are marching orders. Soldiers will feel the squeeze from this.
Yes, as is the same with all other classified information. How else should the government deal with it? De-classify the information? If you have a security clearance you should know that you should never have classified information on a un-classified computer system. There's nothing new about this.
Not every soldier is familiar with handling classified information. Their ignorance is bliss. They do not have access to classified systems. Now, though they have no access, they are to be treated as though they mishandled classified information because they visited a public domain website on their personal computer. They had to be told the information was classified because they otherwise could not be certain.
This is new enough. I do understand your position about data at rest. But I believe there is a difference based upon where the classified information was encountered and how it got there. If it is on an unclassified system, and it got there via communication with an unclassified system, I fail to see the soldier's violation. When the soldier's mother expressed outrage over the leak or details of the leak is the soldier supposed to report her and cease contact?
The block is one thing. The bit about leadership and climate is another.
It´s just trying to grab a pint of water with your hand, no matter how hard you try and how many rules you set, it´s not going to work.
It is to avoid situations like: "this document says it needs to be handled as if it is classified but I am pretty sure it leaked last week so I will treat it as unclassified which is easier..."
My guess is that that info is still classified, even though it's public, and accessing it might be a technical violation for those without clearances.
For the second, honest question: does published information actually retain its classification?
What prevents people to use their 3G network to fetch up the article ? Public is public, it's too late for clearance.
This isn't that big a change.
'The Court, in a unanimous opinion written by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., held that Schenck's criminal conviction was constitutional. The First Amendment did not protect speech encouraging insubordination, because, "when a nation is at war, many things that might be said in time of peace are such a hindrance to its effort that their utterance will not be endured so long as men fight, and that no Court could regard them as protected by any constitutional right."'
So, precedent: freedom of speech doesn't apply if it impairs the ability of the state to wage war.
The next step was the gradual institutionalization of a permanent on-going state of war. This has been sliding into place since WW2, from the early days of the Cold War onwards, by way of the gradual militarization of the federal system; from the outside, the USA of today looks like an Imperial colossus, out-spending the rest of the planet on weapons (and out-deploying it, too).
Where you have a permanent state of war you have a permanent justification for emergency authority (as Orwell observed in 1984 -- what did "We have always been at war with EastAsia really signify?"). So wartime regulations overriding normal constitutional protections become embedded.
Finally, we have the virtualization of the permanent state of war: from a war stance pointed at a concrete enemy with tanks and nuclear missiles, to a war on an abstraction, "terror", which is drawn so widely that it leads to officials making statements like this: "We take water quality very seriously. Very, very seriously ... But you need to make sure that when you make water quality complaints you have a basis, because federally, if there’s no water quality issues, that can be considered under Homeland Security an act of terrorism."
Source: http://www.alternet.org/environment/tennessee-official-says-...
It's a slippery slope, but the USA is already surprisingly far down it -- the bottom is within reach already!
Following that logic, why aren't leaked docs simply declassified? The cat is out of the bag...
Just because a set of documents are leaked, exposed, stolen, published by someone or handed over to people who are not authorized to view it, it does not automatically reset their classification label.
Now you might say "so what this is dumb". And it is and it has nothing to do with you unless you have a clearance. People with a clearance have signed contracts and other documents that say "there are penalties involved if you commit a security violation". One such security violation is "copying or accessing classified information on unclassified systems". That's it. You see where I am going hopefully.
You are a grunt on some army based working with crypto radios. You have a clearance. You hope to work for the CIA or NSA maybe when you go back to civilian life. News about leaks comes out. You browse HN or Reddit at work during lunch. See news about leaks. Click and oops! you have just committed a serious security violation. You are accessing classified information on an unclassified system. This _could_ get you into trouble. If anything at least when you are polygraphed if you apply to work at the 3 letter agencies later.
So think of this filtering as a "courtesy" to help them inadvertently break some serious rules.
Now, does it sound silly and pedantic? Yes. Do I personally agree with this interpretation? No. But that is how it is. And I think this is the reason for filtering not that it tries to prevent oh I don't know an armed rebellion.
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