WikiLeaks about to hit the fan

The lesson is clear, and soldiers take note: You're better off committing a war crime than exposing one.

Hugh Thompson, Jr.

When news of the [My Lai] massacre publicly broke, Thompson repeated his account to then-Colonel William Wilson [13]and then-Lieutenant General William Peers during their official Pentagon investigations.[14] In late 1969, Thompson was summoned to Washington DC and appeared before a special closed hearing of the House Armed Services Committee. There, he was sharply criticized by Congressmen, in particular Chairman Mendel Rivers (D-SC), who were anxious to play down allegations of a massacre by American troops.[15] Rivers publicly stated that he felt Thompson was the only soldier at My Lai who should be punished (for turning his weapons on fellow American troops) and unsuccessfully attempted to have him court-martialed. [16] As word of his actions became publicly known, Thompson started receiving hate mail, death threats and mutilated animals on his doorstep.[2]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_Thompson,_Jr.

The pilot is right. Pilots should now be terribly remorseful (sic) for not playing nannies from 35,000 ft? What next?!

New interagency governance structures to coordinate information sharing have been developed, including those focused on sharing with state, local, and tribal governments, as well as with foreign partners. In keeping with the first main challenge, these new structures should maintain or increase their focus on defining the content to be shared and protected as well as on the technology by which it is shared and protected. Each agency must be confident that security processes and procedures are applied in a uniform and consistent manner in other organizations. In addition, it must be understood that material originating in one agency will be treated by other agencies in accordance with mutually understood handling instructions.

The State Department shares information with the intent of providing the right information to the right people at the right time. We will continue to share this reporting appropriately so that we can continue our diplomatic mission as well as our role in the national security community. We recognize the imperative to make diplomatic reporting and analysis available appropriately with the interagency community. We continue to review how our information is disseminated at other agencies.

Statement of Ranking Member Susan M. Collins:
“Information Sharing in the Era of Wikileaks: Balancing Security and Collaboration”
United States Senate, March 10, 2011

Effective information sharing among federal law enforcement and civilian and military intelligence agencies is critical. The 9/11 Commission found that the failure to share information across the government crippled efforts to detect and prevent the attacks on September 11th.

The WikiLeaks breach should not prompt a knee-jerk retreat on the sharing of information and its use by those analysts who need it to do their jobs. We must not let the astonishing lack of management and technical controls that allowed a Private in the Army allegedly to steal some 260,000 classified State Department cables and 90,000 intelligence reports to send us back to the days before September 11th. , 2001. Improving this communication was a critical part of the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act that Senator Lieberman and I authored in 2004.

Unfortunately, we continue to see agency cultures that resist sharing information and coordination with their law enforcement and intelligence counterparts. Almost 10 years after 9/11, we still witness mistakes and intelligence oversights reminiscent of criticisms predating our reforms of the intelligence community. Among those cases where dots were not connected and information was not shared are: Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the so-called Christmas Day bomber, and Nidal Hasan, the Fort Hood shooter.

At the same time, there have been several cases that underscorce the incredible value of information sharing. An example is the case of Najibullah Zazi, whose plans to bomb the New York City subway system were thwarted.

As such successes remind us, we must not allow the WikiLeaks damage to be magnified twofold. Already, the content of the cables may have compromised our national security. There have been news reports describing the disclosure of these communications as having a chilling effect on our relationships with friends and allies. More important, they likely have put the lives of some of our citizens, soldiers, and partners at risk.

Longer lasting damage could occur if we allow a culture to re-emerge in which each intelligence entity views itself as a separate enterprise within the U.S. counterterrorism structure, with each attempting to protect what it considers its own intellectual property by not sharing with other counterterrorism agencies.

Such a step backward would run counter to the policy goals embodied in the Intelligence Reform Act, articulated by law enforcement and intelligence community leadership, and underscored in multiple hearings before this Committee; that is, to effectively detect and interdict terrorists, the “need to share” must replace the “need to know.”

I also would like to hear about the possible technological solutions to this problem. For example, my credit card company can detect out-of-the-ordinary charges on my account almost instantaneously. Yet, the military and intelligence community were apparently unable to detect more than a quarter million document downloads in less than nine months. Surely, the government can make better use of the technology currently employed by the financial services industry.

It is also notable that the intelligence community was already required to install some audit capabilities in its systems by the 2007 homeland security law, which could have included alerts to supervisors of suspicious download activity. Had this kind of security measure been in place, security officers might have detected these massive downloads before they were passed on to Wikileaks.

Technology and innovation ultimately should help protect information from unauthorized disclosure, while facilitating appropriate sharing of vital information.

I also would like to explore the implementation of “role-based” access to secure classified information. Instead of making all information available to everyone who has access to classified systems, under this model information is made available in a targeted manner based on individuals’ positions and the topics for which they are responsible. Access to information not directly relevant to an individual’s position or responsibilities would require a supervisor’s approval.

We must craft security solutions for the 21st Century and beyond. We are in a world of Tweets and instantly viral videos on YouTube. We must strike the proper balance that protects classified and sensitive information with ensuring the sharing of vital data. We can use the most cutting-edge technology to protect the traditional tools of statecraft and intelligence – relationships and information.

DOD Taking Steps To Prevent Another Cablegate
(By Elizabeth Montalbano, InformationWeek, March 15, 2011)

The Department of Defense (DOD) is taking decisive action to secure department networks so a leak like last year's Cablegate scandal doesn't happen again, new DOD CIO Teri Takai said last week.

Speaking to the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs committee, Takai -- who recently took her position after serving as California CIO -- said the DOD is currently in the midst of deploying new security technology to the DOD classified network, SIPRNet, to prevent future insider breaches.

"The unauthorized release of U.S. information by WikiLeaks has adversely affected our global engagement and national security and endangered the lives of individuals who have sought to cooperate with the United States," she said. "It is of vital importance to DoD and the entire U.S. Government that we keep our sensitive and classified information secure, while at the same time ensuring that the right people have the timely access they need to help keep our country and its citizens safe."

Indeed, the DOD had a rough year last year in its ongoing fight with Wikileaks, which posts classified documents from a number of organizations, including the federal government.

In late July 2010, Wikileaks released thousands of classified DOD documents related to the war in Afghanistan, then followed that up by publishing 400,000 classified Iraq logs in October.

But it was the release of thousands of classified U.S. embassy cables in late November that spurred the international incident that became known as Cablegate, which caused many to seriously question security at the DOD. Army Private First Class Bradley Manning was arrested last June and is suspected of leaking the information after removing it from SIPRNet.

After conducting studies on how it can improve network security, the DOD has begun to implement a Host Based Security System to all of its workstations to prevent people from removing large amounts of data from SIPRNet by rewriting it to a removable storage device, Takai told the committee. Her testimony is available online.

Takai described how the system works. She said it provides "very positive technical control" over the machines and provides reports on workstation configurations that can be monitored centrally.

Although the system will allow the removal of data from some machines, HBSS will report in real time each operation, Takai said. It also will report every unauthorized attempt to move data and rewrite it.

The DoD also has a back-up plan to ensure another Cablegate won't happen while it waits for a full deployment of the new system, she added.

"Where HBSS is not yet fully deployed other means are used to disable write capability, such as removing the software used to write to CDs, removing the drives themselves from the machines, or blocking access to external devices in workstation configuration files," Takai said in her testimony.

The DOD also has started issuing Public Key Infrastructure (PKI)-based identity credentials on smart cards to people who have access to SIPRNet users, with a plan to issue 500,000 cards and equip workstations with accompanying card readers and software by the end of 2012, she said. This will replace the password-controlled system users utilize now to access SIPRNet, which does not provide adequate access control.

The new system "will provide very strong identification of the person accessing the network and requesting data," Takai said. "It will both deter bad behavior and require absolute identification of who is accessing data and managing that access."

perhaps inevitable forces of technology - innovation continues to speed up

in reaction to Wikileaks

Tensions arise over revised intelligence measure
(By Chris Strohm, National Journal, March 16, 2011)

House and Senate lawmakers are moving legislation forward that would authorize programs and spending for U.S. intelligence agencies for the current fiscal year -- even though it is nearly half over.

Notably, the House-version of the fiscal 2011 intelligence-authorization bill would require the Obama administration to develop a uniform system across intelligence agencies to detect the unauthorized release of government secrets. The requirement was put in the bill in response to the leaking of secret government documents to the whistleblower website WikiLeaks.

But the process of putting together the bill has sparked partisan tensions in the House. Democrats argue that the legislation -- which authorizes the spending of tens of billions in taxpayer dollars -- was not considered under regular order and that Republicans are rushing it.

It marks the first public dispute between House Intelligence Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Mich., and ranking member Dutch Ruppersberger, D-Md., since they took over the committee.

"Eight of the 20 members on the Intelligence Committee are new to the committee this year," Ruppersberger said in a statement. "They were asked to vote on something they had barely seen." He said no hearings were held on the bill in the current Congress.

"In fact, the final classified annex which contains the figures for the budget was only provided to members the morning of the markup proceeding," Ruppersberger added. "Members were asked to vote on a bill that authorizes tens of billions of dollars without having a chance to even read it."

The House Intelligence panel approved the bill last week, and the Senate Intelligence Committee gave the bill its nod on Tuesday.

Rogers defended the decision to go forward with the bill.

"We decided in a very congenial way that we're going to go ahead with the '11 budget so that we can reestablish the committee [and] so the intelligence community has the resources it needs for the rest of the fiscal year to initiate programs which [were] really already approved last year," Rogers told National Journal Daily.

"There are programmatic things that need to happen around the world that are classified that need steady streams of funding for the remainder of the fiscal year," Rogers added. "This should have been done last year. It wasn't done. I think it's important that we do this so we can give [intelligence agencies] the certainty they need to keep America safe."

Rogers said that House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, is looking for time to bring the bill to the House floor for a vote.

A Republican aide on the House panel said that work went into crafting the bill during the last Congress and that the GOP majority made "an aggressive effort" to bring all panel members up to speed.

"This wasn't something that was done at the last minute," the aide said.

Lawmakers have decided to strip the bill of most controversial provisions in order to ensure that it advances.

"If this committee can't pass authorization bills ... which give the scope and force of law to what we do, we are in fact a paper tiger," Senate Intelligence Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., said in an interview.

"We have preconferenced with the House and I think we are in relatively good shape," Feinstein added. "We know the only way we can do it is get it through unanimously, which means there isn't going to be an overridingly big issue in it this year."

She noted there "are issues that need to be resolved" in the classified portion of the bill but would not discuss them.

In response to the disclosure of thousands of secret documents by WikiLeaks, the House version of the bill would require the director of national intelligence to create "an effective automated insider threat detection program for the information resources in each element of the intelligence community in order to detect unauthorized access to, or use or transmission of, classified intelligence."

"We need to make sure we learn the right lessons from WikiLeaks," Rogers said. "The road to achieving smart access begins with the insider threat detection system described in our bill. It includes tools like auditing controls to detect the misuse of our sensitive data, similar to the systems credit-card companies use to detect fraud."

He added: "The provision in the committee's FY11 bill sets a deadline for establishing both an initial and full operating capability for this system, and is a part of my larger efforts to achieve smart access."

VIENNA – Washington's differences with Mohamed ElBaradei over his Middle East views and his handling of nuclear investigations in Iran and Syria persisted into the last months of his tenure as head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, according to a U.S. diplomatic cable released Friday on the WikiLeaks website.

The cable, written Jan. 13, 2009, indicates that tensions continued after the U.S. government formally gave up its efforts to unseat ElBaradei.
It also reveals ElBaradei's preoccupation with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and his belief in the need for democratic change in the Middle East, long before he recently became a driver of Egypt's political reforms and a potential presidential candidate there.

On the Middle East, ElBaradei, an Egyptian, "said the situation is terrible, Arab governments (i.e. Egypt and the Gulf states) lack credibility and there is a growing gap between rich and poor," said the cable, written by Gregory L. Schulte, then chief U.S. delegate to thee International Atomic Energy Agency.

Arab governments "need to work on 'internal reform, not just foreign policy,'" Schulte cited ElBaradei as saying in a private meeting.

[...]

His independent streak led to attempts by Washington to have him removed from office. That push was abandoned just before ElBaradei won the Nobel Peace Prize and U.S. officials publicly praised him as he left office last year. But the cable published Friday shows continued differences simmering outside public view.

"Unfortunately, ElBaradei is likely to remain part of the problem, rather than solution, if he becomes increasingly unwilling toward the end of his term" to rein in his views on the Middle East and other issues that hew closer to positions held by developing countries than the U.S. and its allies, wrote Schulte.

Quoting ElBaradei as saying that the IAEA will "go through the motions" of trying to probe alleged secret nuclear work in Iran and Syria, the cable suggested the agency chief was remiss, adding he "seems poised to continue to place the onus on the U.S. and others to 'solve' the Iran and Syria issues."

lack credibility and there is a growing gap between rich and poor.

Appeal to keep Twitter data from WikiLeaks probe
(By Glenn Chapman, Associated Foreign Press, March 26, 2011)

Internet rights attorneys appealed a US judge's order that Twitter must hand over data of three users in contact with the controversial website WikiLeaks.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) challenged the March 3 ruling on behalf of Icelandic parliamentarian Birgitta Jonsdottir, one of the Twitter users targeted by the decision.

The EFF and ACLU want Magistrate Judge Theresa Buchanan's decision overturned and WikiLeaks investigators to reveal any similar requests for information from other Internet firms.

"Except in very rare circumstances, the government should not be permitted to obtain information about individuals' private Internet communications in secret," said ACLU staff attorney Aden Fine.

"If the ruling is allowed to stand, our client might never know how many other companies have been ordered to turn over information about her, and she may never be able to challenge the invasive requests."

Besides Jonsdottir, the Twitter accounts belong to US computer researcher Jacob Appelbaum and Rop Gonggrijp, a Dutch volunteer for WikiLeaks.

The government request for information from Twitter became public because the California-based microblogging service notified them, according to the EFF.

In her decision, Buchanan rejected arguments that the grab for Twitter information violated freedom of speech and privacy.

She said the three "already made their Twitter posts and associations publicly available" and voluntarily provided information to Twitter pursuant to the website's privacy policy.

Buchanan also dismissed the argument that the order violated the Fourth Amendment to the US Constitution, which protects people against "unreasonable" searches.

When the trio relayed information to Twitter, they gave up "any reasonable expectation of privacy," she said.

"Services like Twitter have information that can be used to track us and link our communications across multiple services including Facebook and Gmail," said EFF Legal Director Cindy Cohn.

"The Magistrate's ruling that users have no ability to protect that information from the US government is especially troubling."

President Barack Obama's administration obtained a court order last year seeking information from the Twitter accounts as it considers action against WikiLeaks, which has released a flood of secret diplomatic documents.

WikiLeaks, which has strongly criticized the order, said that three Twitter users never worked for the site but that two helped make public a video that showed a 2007 US helicopter strike in Baghdad that killed several people.

The footage appeared to show the Apache pilots mistaking a camera carried by an employee of the Reuters news agency as a rocket-propelled grenade launcher.

WikiLeaks has since angered US authorities by posting secret documents on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and releasing a slew of internal correspondence among US diplomats around the world.

PBS 'Frontline' Tonight on 'Private Life of Bradley Manning' Sure to Spark Debate
(Greg Mitchell | The Nation | March 29, 2011)

This morning, PBS Frontline scooped itself, posting online its promised ten-minute segment for tonight’s show on Bradley Manning’s early years, or as it’s billed (wink, wink) “The Private Life of Bradley Manning.” Also posted are a timeline, never-before-seen photos, part of an interview with his father and a 911 call from a heated dispute with his father and stepmother in 2006—the only fresh revelation in the entire segment.

The segment closes with a title card that simply reports that Manning is currently being held in the brig at Quantico—without describing the conditions he is held under, or mentioning that this has been roundly denounced by human rights organizations and even Hillary Clinton’s top spokesman at the State Department (who lost his job after protesting). In fact, the top story relating to Manning yesterday was that spokesman, P.J. Crowley, repeating his protest—and Shep Smith at Fox News agreeing with him.

Frontline says it will continue its report in May in a one-hour program which will, again, focus on Manning’s personal life and how this “led” to his alleged leak, and his new outbursts, this time in the Army (all reported elsewhere)—and how the Army still gave him access to top-secret documents.

While tonight’s segment focuses on his personal problems, and “aimless” life before joining the Army, it makes no mention whatsoever of his political or philosophical views (he was against the Iraq war, attended a gay rights rally and wore a “humanist” dog tag after joining Army).

What has already drawn the most attention is that one “scoop”—that Manning, after moving back home with his father (with whom he’d always had a difficult relationship) and stepmother in Oklahoma, got into a domestic quarrel with them one day in 2006 and apparently took out a knife. The 911 recording finds the woman reporting that Bradley had a knife and that his father was down, although it turned out he had fallen and Bradley is soon heard inquiring if he is okay.

Police did arrive, no charges were filed, and Bradley left home the next day. Later, urged on by his father (according to the elder Manning) he signed up with the Army. The segment closes promising more of the same in the coming report, focusing on problems in his personal life inspiring his alleged leaking. Again, this has already been widely reported (by myself and others), including being demoted from specialist to private first class after allegedly punching a fellow soldier.

The overall tone of tonight’s report is sure to spark debate. Consider that MIlitary Times opens its report today with this: “Could the global turmoil sparked by Wikileaks have started with a son’s anger for his father?”