When Is A Secret Not A Secret?

06/26/2006

Paul Munnis

When handling secret information it is the responsibility of the originator to take the appropriate security steps to protect the information. These steps can take many forms.

One form is that the information can be encrypted. Another is that the scope of knowledge concerning the existence of a program can be severely limited.

One thing that people who originate classified information know is that the information will eventually become known. The issue therefore is to choose a format and manner for information protection that will provide the proper needed time delay so that the information, when disclosed, is too late in the discovery cycle and that it’s either useless information or is discovered too late for actionable intervention.

Thus when the NY Times gets wind of a secret program to track and follow money transactions that may have terrorist connections and they then publish the details of the program, we must ask who is at fault—is it the discoverer or is it the information holder?

The VP has accused the NY Times of giving away State secrets. But, did the State do all it could to keep the program covert and unknown to the public? Did the U.S. Government do all that it could and should do to protect the sensitive nature of the program or did it just settle for cosmetic stamps on the documents and hope that would suffice? Something went wrong and the first suspect is the program originator for not properly classifying and protecting information concerning the covert program.

This is an especially important question where the Bush Administration is concerned. They have been accused of taking anything unflattering about their governing and stamping it Secret and Confidential in order to prevent publication of their gaffes—the bigger the gaffe the higher the classification. That just begs the media to disclose what they learn about.

We pose this mainly as intellectual observation. We have no knowledge of the Bush Administration and their management of covert programs. But, we do think that the Oversight Committees of Congress, responsible for Intelligence, should hold hearings, determine why the information is being leaked, who is doing it, how much real damage is being done as a result and if prosecution is warranted then to take legal action.

On the other hand, if the Bush Administration is not properly processing intelligence information and not keeping it secure using ‘Best Practices’ then there are heads that should roll within the Agencies.