A report from the Associated Press shares the reaction of some veteran intelligence officers and experts to the controversy surrounding WikiLeaks, and the tens of thousands of U.S. military documents that were leaked on the site.
The intelligence experts called for a tightening of the access to information, as well as an increase monitoring at the lower levels of the intelligence community. Former CIA director Michael Hayden shared that “we all knew this was going to happen”; he was in effect expressing the sentiment that the controversy was the result of changes that were made after the 9/11 attacks, which essentially promoted the sharing of information. The changes, the experts implied, led to a decrease in the control of what was termed as the “nation’s secrets.”
Hayden shared further that some of the people he spoke to were “burned” by the leak, and would like to go back to safeguarding their data.
It can be recalled that the failures in intelligence that was said to have led to the attacks of 9/11 were blamed on the failure of some government agencies to share information. This info-hoarding, it is said, led to the overlooking of important clues that may have prevented the attacks from taking place.
The intelligence experts gave a couple of suggestions; one of them involved agency chiefs pushing for the limitation of access to electronic “portals” that provide information to intelligence officers, diplomats and U.S. troops.
Reactions over the WikiLeaks issue is not limited to the United States; Afghan President Hamid Karzai issued a statement on Thursday, saying that the issue has placed the lives of Afghan citizens who cooperated NATO-led forces in jeopardy, echoing, it seems, one of the concerns expressed by President Obama.
July 30th, 2010 - 2:08 am
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by On Leadership and cindy, USNavySealStore. USNavySealStore said: Military intelligence experts called for a tightening of the access to information after the #Wikileaks incident. http://bit.ly/9uWpmU [...]
July 30th, 2010 - 4:05 am
[...] all debating whether the site had gone too far.An interesting article by NavySeals over on the USNavySeals Blog tells of a recent Associated Press report that gathered reactions from veteran military and [...]
August 3rd, 2010 - 3:42 pm
A couple of thoughts about Assange as well as Hayden’s comment in this article. My opinion is that Assange is sharing information because he can, not because of some philosophical reason that perhaps we would be better of with transparency of information. You only need to look at his past to know why. He’s a hacker and accessing/publishing US information is a ego boost for him. I think he’s he is challenging US to take his website down.
Second comment. If Hayden knew that sharing information was going to be leaked,as a result of the intelligence agencies sharing information, why didn’t he and others take the necessary steps to safeguard the information? Why is it that a leak of information like this has to happen before some “intelligence experts” now suggest recommendations on how to safequard information?