WikiLeaks: Why classify mundane data?
When the secret information publisher WikiLeaks released some 92,000 classified documents related to the war in Afghanistan Sunday, the response from the US government was harsh. White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said the leak 鈥渉as a potential to be very harmful to ... those that are working to keep us safe.鈥�
President Obama echoed Mr. Gibbs Tuesday. 鈥淚鈥檓 concerned about the disclosure of sensitive information from the battlefield that could potentially jeopardize individuals or operations,鈥� he said.
But just after that, he added, 鈥淭he fact is these documents don鈥檛 reveal any issues that haven鈥檛 already informed our public debate about Afghanistan.鈥�
To listen to Mr. Obama at one moment, WikiLeaks is damaging security. But seconds later, it sounds as though WikiLeaks鈥檚 information is far less exciting than the fact that it was leaked.
The true state of affairs lies somewhere in the muddled middle, say security experts.
"You can鈥檛 exaggerate this,鈥� says Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. 鈥淚t鈥檚 not something that poses an immediate, desperate threat to our forces.鈥�
In the wake of The Washington Post鈥檚 report on 鈥淭op Secret America鈥� last week, which highlighted redundancies and a trend toward 鈥渙verclassification鈥� in the intelligence community, many have wondered why the information given to WikiLeaks needed to be secret at all or whether this incident amounts to a 鈥渟erious鈥� leak.
There may be more sensitive material that WikiLeaks decided not to publish, but analysts have mocked some of the exposed files marked 鈥渟ecret.鈥� Andrew Exum, a fellow at the Center for a New American Security, commented on his blog that if he read further, he expected to learn such 鈥渟coops鈥� as 鈥� 鈥楢fghanistan鈥� has four syllables鈥� and that the Boston Red Sox won the 2004 World Series.
The public impulse is toward greater openness, but there are legitimate reasons for keeping even mundane intelligence classified, some say. Especially in a war zone like Afghanistan, too much intelligence is flowing in to make immediate judgments about classification, says Mr. Cordesman, a former official at NATO and the State and Defense Departments. Making that decision for each report on the spot would create a logjam, he says.
鈥淵ou cannot sit around and evaluate real-time reporting for classification,鈥� Cordesman says. 鈥淵ou feed it into the classified system so you can get immediate feedback without having to fight over the classifications.鈥�
A basic level of secrecy also allows analysts a degree of candor and freedom in evaluating intelligence. This is a subtler but still-important reason to classify low-level intelligence, says Gary Schmitt, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington. If documents can be leaked without punishment, analysts may hold back from attaching their names to provocative opinions.
鈥淵ou do want the government to be able to talk fairly freely,鈥� Mr. Schmitt says. 鈥淵ou get a classified jumble, but you also get candor. That鈥檚 the price you pay.鈥�
Then there is the matter of protecting human sources working on the ground. 鈥淥ne official reason may not be substance but sourcing,鈥� says Schmitt. 鈥淚f it is connected to some level of human intelligence ... it can still have to be classified.鈥�
In the latest leak, news organizations focused on accounts of collateral damage and reports speculating that elements of Pakistani intelligence were supporting the Taliban. The WikiLeaks papers were also filled with battlefield reports much like those in the news every day. Those reports, however low-level, reveal enough 鈥� specific details about personnel and location operations, for example 鈥� that it is uncomfortable having them out in the open, Cordesman and Schmitt say.
鈥淚t鈥檚 too easy to dismiss that it鈥檚 all low-level and you can鈥檛 do anything with it," Schmitt says. "You鈥檇 be surprised what people can get out of low-level intel with enough of it,鈥� he adds.
The concentration of those reports in one place is what troubles Cordesman. 鈥淎 lot of it is familiar,鈥� he says, 鈥渂ut now it is in one place for Al Qaeda and whoever else to review.鈥�
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