Actually that is not true. Documents are not automatically declassified if they are leaked. Intuitively they are, but 'officially' they are certainly not.
Specifically, those who hold a US govt. clearance should not be accessing any of those docs as they could be in (potential) deep trouble.
It is just basic policy on how classified info is handled by the government. The only time automatic declassification happens is when its time window expires (and that can be overridden too). It is usually about 10 years. Otherwise surprisingly it still stays classified even if it leaks all over the internet.
Those who hold a clearance have agreed and signed, under strict penalties, not to process, view, or download classified information on unauthorized machines (their home laptop for instance). In doing so they would be committing a willful security violation -- a serious offence according to the current laws.
Merely leaking something doesn't necessarily damage security as much as publishing it and having the government confirm it as accurate. Imagine if someone leaked "Super Top Secret: You can be invisible to the M1A2 tank by wearing a hello kitty t-shirt inside-out". Without official confirmation (implied by the government officially declassifying the tech report), you wouldn't know for sure, and would attempt to test this theory, and would end up in pieces.
But government officials are throwing around political pressure and making statements in public that confirm what the documents are. How is declassifying them going to do anything worse at this point?
Well, it's one thing to confirm that some of the documents are real and that the principle of the thing is outrageous. It's something else entirely to confirm that all of the documents are legitimate, or to identify which ones are, for example, drafts or notional. And it's something else again to clarify individual statements, give context to conversations, and to discuss which of the revealed facts are current and relevant.
It's not as simple as saying, "these documents are unclassified". You have to look over the facts they reveal and decide which might still be worth the effort of keeping secret, and which it's okay to talk openly about.
There's also the possibility that the documents may contain misleading information or even disinformation written specifically for Wikileaks. I'd be surprised if such a thing has never happened, and surprised further still if it never does. A policy of never confirming or commenting on leaked information means those who would like to make serious use of it must always wonder.
I've read several reports about specific cables saying something to the effect of "this was one piece of intelligence being reported home, but we actually don't think its true". I.e. a bunch of papers ran with the news that Iran had missiles from North Korea we had previously said they didn't have, but it turns out the one cable saying that was incorrect information. (or so they say).
Comments
Actually that is not true. Documents are not automatically declassified if they are leaked. Intuitively they are, but 'officially' they are certainly not.
Specifically, those who hold a US govt. clearance should not be accessing any of those docs as they could be in (potential) deep trouble.
Out of curiosity, is there an official policy on that?
It is just basic policy on how classified info is handled by the government. The only time automatic declassification happens is when its time window expires (and that can be overridden too). It is usually about 10 years. Otherwise surprisingly it still stays classified even if it leaks all over the internet.
Those who hold a clearance have agreed and signed, under strict penalties, not to process, view, or download classified information on unauthorized machines (their home laptop for instance). In doing so they would be committing a willful security violation -- a serious offence according to the current laws.
Our tax dollars at work. And people complain about healthcare being too expensive...
Merely leaking something doesn't necessarily damage security as much as publishing it and having the government confirm it as accurate. Imagine if someone leaked "Super Top Secret: You can be invisible to the M1A2 tank by wearing a hello kitty t-shirt inside-out". Without official confirmation (implied by the government officially declassifying the tech report), you wouldn't know for sure, and would attempt to test this theory, and would end up in pieces.
But government officials are throwing around political pressure and making statements in public that confirm what the documents are. How is declassifying them going to do anything worse at this point?
Well, it's one thing to confirm that some of the documents are real and that the principle of the thing is outrageous. It's something else entirely to confirm that all of the documents are legitimate, or to identify which ones are, for example, drafts or notional. And it's something else again to clarify individual statements, give context to conversations, and to discuss which of the revealed facts are current and relevant.
It's not as simple as saying, "these documents are unclassified". You have to look over the facts they reveal and decide which might still be worth the effort of keeping secret, and which it's okay to talk openly about.
There's also the possibility that the documents may contain misleading information or even disinformation written specifically for Wikileaks. I'd be surprised if such a thing has never happened, and surprised further still if it never does. A policy of never confirming or commenting on leaked information means those who would like to make serious use of it must always wonder.
I've read several reports about specific cables saying something to the effect of "this was one piece of intelligence being reported home, but we actually don't think its true". I.e. a bunch of papers ran with the news that Iran had missiles from North Korea we had previously said they didn't have, but it turns out the one cable saying that was incorrect information. (or so they say).