Keeping US National Security Secrets: Why Is This So Hard?
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Association of Former Intelligence Officers The Intelligencer Journal of U.S. Intelligence Studies 7700 Leesburg Pike Ste 324, Falls Church, VA 22043. Volume 22 • Number 2 • $15.00 single copy price Fall 2016 From AFIO's The Intelligencer Web: www.afio.com. Email: [email protected] Journal of U.S. Intelligence Studies Volume 22 • Number 2 • $15 single copy price Fall 2016 information—nearly all of it highly classified. Possibly © 2016 AFIO - Association of Former Intelligence Officers, All Rights Reserved 200,000 of these documents have been leaked to the AAcAcAcAcAcctctctctttiiiivevevevevevevvveeMMMeeeeeeaeaeaaasssssuuurrerererereeeeesssss press so far; and all those taken are presumed to be CoCoCouunntnttteerinringg FFFaaalsselsehoodslsehohooooododsss,,, DDiissttotoorrtrttteeedd Meeesssssaaaggeesess,,, GUIDE TO THE STUDY OF INTELLIGENCE and PrPProrooppapagaaggananddaa now in the possession of Russia and China. InInformation Wnfoformrmaattion WaWaarfare/Activerrfafarere/e/A/AcAccttiviveve Measures Measasurerees— — OverdueOverduerdrdue OvOveve ••• Countering CouCounterntnteterring thetthe VirtualVViirtrtutuaal CaCaCaliphaliphaattete •A• SA StratStrtrarategyratatteegyegy forgy foforr WinninWiWinningnningg WoWoWWorldorldrrldWWWaWaar ar IVIVIVV••• StSSttalin'staalialin'sn's's DiDiscDisciplissciplplee: Ve:Vladaddimimir VladVl ir PPutin andaandnd We"WPututin """WWeeett Affairs"AAffffafairAffairs"rs"s" ••• CIACIAIACIA ClandestineClandClandestineeesstine BroadcastingBroBroadroadcastingaddccasassting•• • Early EEaEaarlyrrlyly WWaWaarningarningtornrningo tot The staggering scale of Snowden’s theft is PoPoland TeTe•eaching acachingTPoland Intelligence: Intntetelligencce: Five FivFiveiveve Course CCoursrsrsese GuidesGGuuididesees •••KeKeepeping Keeping SecretsSSecSecrecrereetstss•• • CCCompeetCompetitivepetitiveititiviveve IIntelligencentntetelligencce • PProrootetecProtectionction ofo SourcesSourcrcees & MethodsMeetthods • HomeHomeland Homelanandd SecuritySeSecurcurritityty IntntetelligencceIntelligence • EvEvevennttstsEvents and ChappteterChapter NewsNewewsws • Extensive ExExtxtetensnsiviveve ProfessionalPProroofefeesssiosionalnal ReReReadadaddinngsgsgs unprecedented. But the means of doing this, i.e., massive electronic downloading to thumb drives and small portable media, had only one precedent—Army Private First Class Bradley (now Chelsea) Manning. Manning provided roughly 750,000 classified docu- Keeping U.S. National ments to WikiLeaks, run by fugitive Julian Assange Security Secrets whose avowed mission is the large-scale exposure of classified information.3 Today, Manning is serving a Why Is This So Hard? 35-year sentence in a federal prison. Snowden defected to Russia. And as of July 2016, Assange has been holed up more than four years in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London where he took refuge in 2012 to evade James B. Bruce, Ph.D. criminal charges in Sweden, Britain, Australia, and the United States. f someone wants to protect a personal secret, he Yet much of the publicity surrounding mega-leak- or she only needs to exercise restraint and tell no ers Snowden and Manning, and WikiLeaks founder Ione. If no one else is told, the secret is safe. If the Assange, portrays them as heroes and whistleblow- US Government wants to protect a national security ers, press-freedom fighters combating governments’ secret, restraint is not enough. The government is excessive secrecy practices to reveal alleged wrongdo- huge, so keeping secrets requires rules, regulations, ing. Their declared aim is to expose US intelligence, and laws; added safeguards, such as classifying military, and diplomatic secrets. information; physical, personnel, information, and The favorable press coverage afforded these operational security for the secure use, dissemination, leakers demonstrates the power of the one-sided argu- storage, and retrieval of protected information; and a ment. While the government has, for the most part, counterintelligence capability to thwart spies. taken a low profile and constrained its public commen- Despite an elaborate edifice of protection, the tary, supporters of Snowden in particular, and those of government is not good at keeping secrets.1 As a con- Manning and Assange, have succeeded in controlling sequence, foreign governments and terrorist groups the public narrative. And their polemic plays well to exploit disclosed secrets: They thus expand their abil- sympathetic press elements that tout unrestrained ities to neutralize, defeat, or deceive US intelligence. First Amendment freedoms and often encourage Diminished intelligence results in diminished military leakers to circumvent government rules.4 For exam- and diplomatic capabilities. The net result of poor ple, the Washington Post editorial board explains: “As secret-keeping is the diminution of American power. a newspaper, The Post thrives on revelatory journalism There are many threats to government secrets. and often benefits from leaks, sometimes inspired Leakers and spies represent the greatest threats. What by dissent and other times by spin.”5 Bill Keller of the leakers have demonstrated over time—and dramati- cally of late—is that for all its power and resources, Snowden’s Heist a Foreign Espionage Operation?” Wall Street Journal, May 9, 2014. Views sympathetic to Snowden are in James Bamford, the US Government is unable to stop the leaking. The “The Most Wanted Man in the World,” Wired Magazine, Sep 2014, most notable recent disclosures are those of Edward 78-85; and Glenn Greenwald, No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, The NSA, and the US Surveillance State (New York: Holt & Co., 2014). Of- Snowden, a contractor for the National Security Agen- ficial views in the Intelligence Community are in Office of the Director cy.2 In mid-2013, he stole 1.5 million files of classified of National Intelligence, IC [Intelligence Community] on the Record, at http://icontherecord.tumblr.com/tagged/statement; and http://iconthere- cord.tumblr.com. 1. James B. Bruce and W. George Jameson, Fixing Leaks: Assessing the 3. For Manning and WikiLeaks coverage, see Steve Fishman, “Bradley Department of Defense’s Approach to Preventing and Deterring Unautho- Manning’s Army of One,” New York Magazine, July 31, 2011; and arti- rized Disclosures (Santa Monica: The RAND Corporation, 2013), 11-16. cles by Nakashima, Tate, and Londono in the Washington Post, May 4, 2. See Peter C. Oleson, “Assessing Edward Snowden—Whistleblower, 2011 and July 30, 2013. Traitor, or Spy?” The Intelligencer 21 (2), Spring/Summer, 2015, 15-24; 4. See Paul Pillar, “Leaks and an Irresponsible Press,” The National David V. Gioe, “Tinker, Tailor, Leaker, Spy: The Future Costs of Mass Interest, December 26, 2013. Leaks,” The National Interest, Jan-Feb 2014; Edward Jay Epstein, “Was 5. Washington Post Editorial Board, “Not Every Leak Is Tantamount to Fall 2016 Intelligencer: Journal of U.S. Intelligence Studies Page 47 New York Times has written frequently of the Times’s tion sensors, platforms, systems, and architec- putative right to publish leaked classified information. tures; and And Washington Times writer Bill Gertz often publicly • Operational activities such as covert action. trolls his readers for classified leaks as grist for his Department of State: articles and books. Quite apart from the supportive public narrative, their successes highlight numerous • Diplomatic discussions and protected commu- vulnerabilities in the US Government framework nications; and for information protection. When seen against the • Foreign policy deliberations and initiatives. long history of successful leaking of secrets, these Department of Energy: vulnerabilities reveal a fundamentally flawed system of preserving secrets, suggesting the need for a new • The safeguarding of nuclear materials, facilities paradigm for secrecy protection, or at least a signifi- and sensitive technologies; and cantly more effective one. • Weapons design data. Other departments and agencies: Why Is Secrecy Important? • This includes many governmental organiza- In general, the US Government classifies infor- tions who must protect sensitive information mation it wishes to protect from disclosure at three related to homeland security, law enforcement levels: Confidential, Secret, and Top Secret. These investigations, proprietary intellectual prop- ascending levels of classification assign relative erty, individual’s private data, or other infor- importance and increased protection to discrete pieces mation that is restricted by law. of information. Executive Order (EO) 12356 states The rationale for such secrets is not to keep the that compromised Confidential information would American public in the dark or to hide official wrong- cause damage to US national security; if information doing. It is rather to deny sensitive information to for- is Secret, its compromise would cause serious damage; eign enemies and adversaries and, in cases of privacy 6 if Top Secret, exceptionally grave damage. Additionally, data, protect individual citizen’s rights. some information of great sensitivity may be further categorized as “sensitive compartmented informa- tion” (SCI—usually identified by a codeword), and Threats to Secrecy and Why That Matters afforded greater protection from disclosure than other Disclosures of classified information can be classification levels. authorized or unauthorized.7 Authorized disclosures The secrets that the government wishes to protect entail foreign intelligence sharing; use of sensitive can involve the following organizations and