WikiLeaks effect Pentagon revamps security in wake of Wikileaks

Published 29 December 2010

There are 2.2 million people in the United States with access to one or more levels (confidential, secret, and top secret) of classified information; there are 854,000 people with top secret clearances — of which 265,000 are contractors; the 9/11 Commission recommended more sharing of information among agencies — but critics say that too much sharing is as risky as too little sharing

The two massive Wikileak releases in June and November of 2010, as well as threats from the organization to force a major bank executive to resign, shows that Wikileaks is far from relenting. This news has brought the U.S. federal government’s safeguards and method of data sharing — modeled after the recommendation of the 9/11 Commission, into question.

Homeland Security NewsWire spoke with representatives from the Department of Defense regarding the next steps the federal government will be taking to prevent further breaches of security protocols.

LtGen Ronald L. Burgess Jr., director of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), spoke at the U.S. Geospatial Intelligence Symposium (GEOINT) on 4 November, described finding the proper balance between the restricting and sharing of information: “We have to build safeguards into our intelligence systems to prevent this from happening again,” Burgess said. “But how do we do that without rolling back the progress in information sharing? How do we properly react without overreacting? Where do we draw the line? How do we keep pushing the incredible power of [geospatial intelligence] and other intelligence to our customers, especially to the lowest levels where it makes a real difference, without opening ourselves up to WikiLeaks 2, 3 and 4?”

Data shared between the fourteen intelligence services in the United States uses three levels of security access: confidential, secret, and top secret. The Washington Post investigation, titled “Top Secret America,” estimated that “out of 854,000 people with top secret clearances, 265,000 are contractors. The Department of Defense does not have data regarding the number of intelligence community personnel outside of its department holding clearances, but it currently has approximately 2.2 million personnel (military, civilian, and contractor) with access to classified information. DoD does not anticipate changing this number of personnel in the foreseeable future, Major Chris Perrine from OSD Public Affairs told the NewsWire .

The Department of Defense has taken steps to increase security since documents were first disclosed by Wikileaks. They conducted an internal 60-day review of security procedures with recommendations sent to the secretary of defense. Some combatant commanders have taken individual measures for their commands. Removable storage media have been restricted or disabled as well as the capability to write or burn removable media on DoD classified computers. This is a temporary technical solution to mitigate future risks of personnel moving classified data to unclassified systems. An example of this was the expanded coverage of software-controlling USB