The Obama Administration’s Solution To The Wikileaks Problem: Gov’t Employees Can’t Look

by John Hawkins | December 6, 2010 5:29 am

The only thing worse than the Wikileaks spy disaster has been the Obama administration’s flaccid response to it. Julian Assange is doing everything he can to humiliate and damage the United States. So, what is the Obama administration doing about it? Has someone walked up to Assange, stuck a pistol in his mouth, and introduced the back of his brains to a nearby wall? No. Has a CIA squad kidnapped him and brought him back to the United States for trial? No. Have they done anything that seriously inconveniences Assange at all? No.

So, what has the Obama administration done?

Well, they are making Drudge[1],

(Hillary) Clinton said she found it extraordinary to greet so many talented people. She then said: `I am writing a cable about it, which I’m sure you’ll find soon on your closest website.”

That’s hilarious. She should quit her job and get on the comedy circuit. Of course, that joke’s not quite as funny as this[2],

In a classic case of shutting the barn door after the horse has left, the Obama administration and the Department of Defense have ordered the hundreds of thousands of federal employees and contractors not to view the secret cables and other classified documents published by Wikileaks and news organizations around the world unless the workers have the required security clearance or authorization.

“Classified information, whether or not already posted on public websites or disclosed to the media, remains classified, and must be treated as such by federal employees and contractors, until it is declassified by an appropriate U.S. Government authority,” said the notice sent on Friday afternoon by the Office of Management and Budget, which is part of the White House, to agency and department heads, urging them to distribute it to their staff.

The directive applies to both government computers and private devices that employees or contractors might have, as long as they are accessing the documents on nonclassified government networks. It does not advise agencies to block WikiLeaks or other websites on government computer systems, a White House official said Saturday. And it does not prohibit federal employees from reading news stories about the topic. But if they have “accidentially” already downloaded any of these documents, they are being told to notify their “information security offices.”

The Department of Defense, in its own directive to military personnel and contractors, says that simply viewing these documents, without proper authorization, will violate long-standing rules even though they are accessible to the public at large on Internet sites.

“Viewing or downloading still classified documents from unclassified government computers creates a security violation,” a spokeswoman said in a statement on Saturday.

So, this scumbag can post these documents in an attempt to do as much damage to the United States as humanly possible, but if a U.S. government employee happens to read the same stories tens of millions of people worldwide are reading today, they could go to jail.

Wow, great job, Obama. Maybe they give you another Nobel Prize for coming up with that.

Endnotes:
  1. making Drudge: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101205/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/us_clinton_wikileaks_1
  2. funny as this: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/05/world/05restrict.html?hp

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