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Federal Prosecutors Tempt the Streisand Effect

Posted by timothy on from the don't-think-of-a-classified-pink-elephant dept.

decora writes "As the case of NSA IT guru Thomas Andrews Drake nears trial, the fur has been flying between the defense and prosecution lawyers. Earlier this week the judge ordered the sealing of a defense motion because the government claimed it contained classified information. The problem? The document had been sitting on the Federation of American Scientists website for several days. Another problem: the document is marked 'Unclassified' in big bold letters at the top of the page."

3 of 100 comments (clear)

  1. Unclassified until Deemed Classified? by rwv · · Score: 4, Interesting

    My knee-jerk reaction would be that somebody not familiar with the technical details may have marked this incorrectly and then posted it. Just because the top of the page says unclassified doesn't mean an honest mistake couldn't have occurred to cause it to get labeled incorrectly. If wouldn't surprise me if they are trying to protect one individual number within that document with the new (more protective) classification.

    1. Re:Unclassified until Deemed Classified? by jank1887 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Putting classified info on an unclassified network doesn't make your network classified. It puts you in violation of proper classified material storage, and is referred to as a classified spillage. The network should be protected (taken offline) and cleaned. But it doesn't become classified any more than a filing cabinet at your desk would become classified if you put a classified report in it.

      Also, the combination of certain Unclassified pieces of information could render the information classified. So putting two unclassified reports together, or portions thereof, could make the overall report sensitive enough that is should be classified. Sometimes people cut and paste then skip the security review because both items were previously declared unclassified. It would be silly if they were both 'Unclassified, Public Release Approved' if simple combination of two public documents could change that. But that's what proper security review is for, to identify things that shouldn't be public release approved. Could be that's what happened here, and on later review they're realizing it shouldn't have been declared (if it was properly declared) Unclassified.

  2. Incorrect Info All Around by stewbacca · · Score: 3, Interesting

    So much wrong in the summary and all the linked stories. I expect more from slashdot.

    First, FOUO is a handling instruction, not a classification. There are only 4 classification levels (unclassified, confidential, secret, top secret), and there are hundreds of handling instructions and classification combinations. FOUO, however, can only be used with UNCLASSIFIED, and merely exempts unclassified information from Freedom of Information Act.

    Second, the individual pages of that letter is marked UNCLASSIFIED//FOUO top and bottom, but that is only the highest classification of the particular single page in question. If these pages are in a larger document with higher classifications, they indeed take on the highest classification of the overall document. We don't know, because the title page with the classification authority is not present. My guess is that it comes from a document of higher classification.

    Finally, the analyst is guilty of leaking information that has handling instructions of FOUO--information that is not to be disseminated to the public. This means he is not authorized to release this information. It's a security violation. Not as severe as leaking classified information, but still a violation.