[ExI] Who is safe?

[Keith Henson]

On Mon, Dec 13, 2010 at 5:00 AM,  Dave Sill <sparge at gmail.com> wrote:

My point was that *reading* the Wikileaks documents may (for some
people) badly damage their faith in the goodness of the current US
government.

Openness and transparency are not a good idea when you are trying to
look good and are not.

Keith



> On Sun, Dec 12, 2010 at 3:05 PM, Keith Henson <hkeithhenson at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> I don't have a security clearance, never have had one. ?I do know a
>> number of people who have security clearances, including some who are
>> currently under orders not to access Wikileaks. ?Was talking to such a
>> person not long ago and mentioned how silly such orders seemed to me.
>> The orders have backed off to let people in the government read the
>> NYT Wikileaks based stories.
>
> Some of the wikileaks documents are (supposedly) classified. Public
> disclosure of a classified document doesn't automatically make it
> unclassified. We were warned against accessing wikileaks from work
> computers because it could potentially result in classified documents
> on a system not cleared for them, which, if you've ever worked in
> environments that process classified information, you know is a Big
> Deal, requiring a careful and expensive clean-up.
>
> Furthermore, everyone with a clearance knows that being cleared at the
> appropriate level is necessary for access for classified information,
> but it's not sufficient. You may be cleared for access to Secret
> documents, but if your job doesn't require accessing diplomatic
> cables, you have no business reading them, and could certainly lose
> your clearance for doing so. Not to mention that if you need access to
> diplomatic cables, you need to do it through approved channels on
> equipment approved to handle classified information--none of which
> involves wikileaks.
>
> -Dave