The Existential Threat of Investigative Journalism Against National Security and Secrecy

With the developments regarding Julian Assange and Wikileaks, I thought that a look back to a WikiLeaks release in 2009 was timely.  In the October 2009 release, WikiLeaks posted a previously unpublished and classified (RESTRICTED) 2389 page document from the United Kingdom's Ministry of Defense dated October 2001 called the Defense Manual of Security Volumes 1, 2 and 3 Issue 2, a document that provides instructions on how the United Kingdom government should deal with leaks of data and groups of people or individuals that would seek to expose government secrets.  Note that the contents of the document are covered under the Official Secrets Act 1911-89.

Here is the title page of the document:

In Defense Manual of Security, we find the following five threats to security and their definitions:

"1.) Espionage

Espionage is defined as "Attempts to acquire information covertly or illegally in order to assist a foreign power". Foreign intelligence services are continuously collecting information for intelligence purposes. They: a. Work mainly through agents who are either introduced into a country or recruited locally. Such agents in their search for targets may be expected to seek out those with human weaknesses who can be exploited particularly through corruption or blackmail. b. Mount technical operations such as eavesdropping, including telephone interception, interception of radio communications (SIGINT) and surveillance. No establishment is immune from attack. No one with access or potential access to protected assets is too unimportant to be cultivated either as a useful contact or possible agent. Definitions of levels of espionage threat, including from SIGINT and extremists, are at Annex C.

2.) Sabotage

Sabotage is defined as "An act falling short of a military operation, or an omission, intended to cause physical damage in order to assist a hostile foreign power or to further a subversive political aim". The following should be noted: a. Although sabotage on a major scale is likely only in the period immediately before or after the outbreak of war, it can be used as a means of advancing political causes. b. In peacetime agents of foreign intelligence services may select targets for future attack by trained, experienced saboteurs. c. Saboteurs may be capable of using highly sophisticated methods and their aim will be to disrupt essential communications, damage vital military installations, impede industrial production and lower national morale. d. In acts of terrorism, sabotage may be used for widely differing purposes ranging from attacking unimportant targets with the object of attracting publicity to the terrorists' cause, to damaging important installations as part of a major terrorist campaign.

3.) Subversion

Subversion is defined as "Action designed to weaken the military, economic or political strength of a nation by undermining the morale, loyalty or reliability of its citizens". The threat from subversion stems not only from foreign intelligence services but also from members of organizations such as those based on anarchism, religious fanaticism, and extreme left and right wing ideologies. Organizations with these ideologies may try to acquire protectively marked information, not necessarily to give to a potential enemy, but to use it in a way that would bring the government in general into disrepute.

4.) Terrorism

Terrorism is defined as "The unlawful use or threatened use of force or violence against individuals or property in an attempt to coerce or intimidate governments or societies to achieve political, religious or ideological objectives". It represents a world-wide threat and is characterized by sudden and violent attacks. Terrorist methods include murder, kidnapping, hostage-taking, hijacking of air, sea, road and rail transport, and attacks on people, buildings, aircraft and vehicles by small arms, mortars, bombs and mines.

5.) Non-Traditional Threats Posed by Other Individuals or Organizations

 Government assets are under threat from a variety of sources beyond those traditionally regarded as hostile or otherwise of significance in terms of national security. The responsibility for providing advice to counter non-traditional threats will not always lie with the security staff and may often be provided by the appropriate Service, MOD or civil police agency. The main threats of this type are posed by investigative journalists, pressure groups, investigation agencies, criminal elements, disaffected staff, dishonest staff and computer hackers." (my bolds)

Here is a list of the types of threat from these sources can be categorized in seven broad groups: 

"1.) Confidentiality

Compromise of politically sensitive information. This threat is presented by: (1) Pressure groups and investigative journalists attempting to obtain sensitive information. (2) Unauthorized disclosure of official information (leaks).

2.) Exploitation of Sensitive Information

Debt collection agencies and investigation agencies are known to attempt to obtain personal information held in confidence by government. Investigative journalists have exploited personal tax information; they also target commercial and financial information as do criminal elements seeking financial advantage. 

3.) Theft, Burglary and Fraud

There is a growing threat of theft, particularly of IT equipment. Arms, ammunition and explosives are always at particular risk. Theft may occur through burglary or the actions of dishonest staff. Establishments responsible for the collection or disbursement of public funds are prone to fraud and there is an increasing threat of fraud through the manipulation of IT systems. 

4.) Corruption, Destruction, or Unauthorized Access to Computer Data

The integrity of data held on computer systems is under threat mainly from disaffected staff. Existing levels of programming expertise, the ready availability of malicious software, e.g. viruses, and the ease with which they can be deliberately or accidentally introduced, combine to create a substantial threat. It is apparent that some staff misguidedly interfere with or compromise systems. There is also a level of threat of damage resulting from the actions of hackers - either those with legitimate access to systems or those without such access. 

5.) Pressure Groups

Pressure groups for such causes as animal rights, nuclear disarmament and the environment will sometimes carry out demonstrations against MOD policy and activities. Although often confined to peaceful demonstrations, extremist elements can cause violent attacks on individuals and property, which can pose a threat as significant as terrorism. 

6.) Criminal Damage

Employees, dependants, visitors or intruders can carry out criminal damage. 

7.) Natural Disaster

Natural disasters are risks to the integrity or availability of facilities, buildings or equipment etc caused by such incidents as fire, flooding, subsidence, or lightning strike."

It is fascinating to see that, in adjacent paragraphs, the MoD is lumping spies, saboteurs, subversives and terrorists with investigative journalists since all five of these groups pose a threat to government security.  It is also lumping together the activities and goals of investigative journalists with theft, destruction and criminal damage to government databases and data infrastructure. 

Here is what the document has to say about "Leaks of Official Information":

"Leaks usually take the form of reports in the public media which appear to involve the unauthorised disclosure of official information (whether protectively marked or not) that causes political harm or embarrassment to either the UK Government or the Department concerned. Such disclosure may have been made either orally, whether deliberately or carelessly, or following the unauthorised sight or passage of a document. Information that is formally reported as lost to a security authority, and subsequently appears in the public media, should not be treated as a leak but judged to be a compromise of lost information and treated as a loss.

First news of a leak may come direct from a journalist attempting either to verify the information obtained or wishing the Department or agency to know what access to official information has been gained. In the rare cases where this occurs prior to publication, it may be possible to seek an injunction to prevent publication."

You will notice that, once again, the United Kingdom government and its Ministry of Defense are vilifying the public media as a whole and journalists in particular.

While this document is from the United Kingdom and represents its viewpoint on security threats, my suspicion is that the British government and its war machine do not stand alone when it comes to its views on the threats posed by investigative journalism and the media as a whole.  After all, the last thing that governments around the world want is for the light to shine on their secret activities, secrets which are under threat from investigative journalists and organizations like WikiLeaks.

The High Cost of Secrecy in Washington - Who is Protecting Whom?

Back in September 2014, then President Obama made the following promise about open government:

Screcy in government is largely what allows it to do pretty much whatever it wants behind closed doors and it is this secrecy that often leads to abuse of power.

While most of us are aware of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) which was enacted in 1967 which allows citizens the "...right to access information from the federal government...", most of us are unaware of how much it costs Washington to keep its behind-the-scenes activities from seeing the light of day.  A recent study by the Information Security Oversight Office (ISOO) released on the National Archives website provides us with data showing how much U.S. taxpayers spent in fiscal 2016 to keep federal government secrets from hitting the cold, hard light of day.

The ISOO Report to the President is required by Executive Order 13526, "Classified National Security Information" and contains an analysis of the federal government's security classification system, the National Industrial Security Program and the Controlled Unclassified Information Program based on data collected from executive branch agencies and departments.  In this report, ISOO includes the cost of security classification activity.

Let's start by looking at the two main program activities:

1a.) Classification:  Original classification authorities are those individuals who are designated (in writing) by the President, agency heads or senior agency officials and are authorized to determine what information could be reasonably expected to cause damage to national security if specific information is disclosed.  Here is a graphic showing how the number of original classification authors has declined over the past decade:

Here is a graphic showing how many classification decisions were made for each year over the past decade:

In fiscal 2016, 1,850 Top Secret, 27,133 Secret and 10,277 Confidential decisions were made with each decision involving the date or event when the information will become declassified.  Of the classification decisions in 2016, 30 percent were determined to be declassifiable in 10 years or less compared to 15 percent in 2015 but down from 74 percent in 2010.

1b.) Derivative Classifications:  We also have to keep in mind that there is other classification activity occurring.  Derivative classification is "the act of incorporating, paraphrasing, restating or generating in new form information that is already classified.  There were a total of 55.21 million derivative classifications in fiscal 2016 with 9.95 million being classified Top Secret, 50.48 million being classified Secret and 4.87 million being classified Confidential.  While the 55 million derivative classifications is down from the 2012 peak of 95.18 million, it is up substantially from fiscal 2007 and 2008 when roughly 23 million derivative classifications were made.

Classification decisions made by original classification authorities are not always well received; when holders of information who believe that the classification of their information was not assigned the correct status, they can challenge the classification.  In fiscal 2016, there were 954 formal classification challenges with 633 coming from the Department of Defense, 281 coming from the Department of the Navy and 47 coming from the Department of the Army.

2.) Declassification: Declassification is defined as the authorized change in status of information from classified to unclassified.  There are four types of declassification; automatic (which occurs when the information reached the 25-year threshold), systematic review, discretionary review and mandatory review.  During fiscal 2016, a total of 102.17 million pages were revised under the automatic, systematic and discretionary declassification programs and 43.94 million pages were declassified.  Here is a graphic showing the breakdown by type of review for fiscal 2016:

Here is a graphic showing the number of pages reviewed and declassified for the past ten years (excluding mandatory declassification):

With that background, let's get to the bottom line.  How much does classification of government activities cost U.S. taxpayers?  The total security classification cost estimate within the federal government for fiscal 2016 was $16.89 billion.  This includes the cost estimates of the Intelligence Community which totalled $2.38 billion.  Here is a breakdown of the costs of classification for fiscal 2016:

Here is a graphic showing how the cost of government security classification has risen over the past decade noting that Intelligence Community costs were first included in fiscal 2013:

As you can see, in the grand scheme of Washington's multi-trillion annual budgets, the cost of secrecy is relatively small, however, it is still greater than the entire annual budget of some of America's smaller states as you can see here:

As well, there is an even greater non-cost-related problem.  According to a report from the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform dated December 7, 2016 which examined the costs of over classification on transparency and security, Steven Aftergood, Director of the Project on Government Secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists made the following observations about issues with the federal government's current classification policies:

1.) Classification restricts desired information sharing.

2.) Classification impedes Congressional oversight.

3.) Classification undermines government accountability.

4.) Classification limits public awareness  of national security threats.

5.) Classification clouds the historical record of U.S. government operations.

6.) Classification is inefficient and increases financial costs.

7.) classification is susceptible to massive single-point failures through unauthorized disclosures. 

In his opening comments, Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz made the following comment:

"Sunlight is said to be the best disinfectant, and without knowing what our government is doing, we can’t ensure it is operating efficiently and effectively. It is also important to remember that the American people pay for the Federal Government. The Federal Government works for the American people. It is not the other way around, and so it is, you would think, logical to make sure that we are as open and transparent and accessible as possible, but this is always a running battle. We always have to find the proper balance between safety and security and openness and transparency, but we can’t give up all of our liberties in the name of security. And so we have this hearing today with four experts, people who have poured their time, effort, talent, their careers really, into this topic. There is a wealth of information that they are going to share with us, and that is what we are excited to hear about today.

Without knowing what our government is doing, we can’t ensure it is operating efficiently and effectively, as I said. Transparency is the basis ultimately for accountability." (my bold)

Government secrecy has its place, unfortunately, those in power often use it so that they can abuse the power that the voting public has granted them.  The spending of nearly $14 billion in fiscal 2016 just to keep the public ignorant of federal government machinations is just another example of what lengths those in power are willing to take to retain their elected office.  

As I stated in the title of this posting "Who is Protecting Whom?".