Don't reinstall intelligence stovepipes.(Local)

By LT. CMDR. MARK MUNSON

SINCE THE release of thousands of classified State Department cables by WikiLeaks, observers in the media and government have criticized what they see as the oversharing of classified data within the intelligence community.

Some are even calling for a return to the pre-2001 "stovepipes" that were eliminated as a result of a decade of gradual reform to address one of the major intelligence failures responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks.

Rep. Peter Hoekstra, ranking Republican on the House Intelligence committee, questioned why Pfc. Bradley Manning, an Army intelligence analyst and the purported source of cables and a deluge of other classified reports to WikiLeaks, would even have access to this sort of classified information.

Such criticisms display an almost complete ignorance of how intelligence is collected and produced, however. In particular, two myths have been presented as fact in commentary of the leaked cables.

Myth 1: That a large percentage of the personnel with access to classified data are somehow unworthy or unqualified for that access. Critics cite Bradley Manning's low rank and the large numbers of people with access to classified information via the Secret Internet Protocol Router Network (commonly referred to as SIPRNET) as an inevitable security disaster just waiting to happen.

These accusations are insulting to the numerous analysts working in the intelligence community, all of whom have valid security clearances. The notion that junior personnel are somehow unworthy of access to classified information reflects a profound lack of awareness regarding how intelligence is actually produced. Junior enlisted personnel in the military, coupled with recent college graduates working as civilians in the various intelligence agencies, do a significant portion of the basic work of intelligence analysis, poring through and making sense of often conflicting raw data and reports, and attempting to fashion coherent assessments for use by decision-makers. Restricting access to just older, more senior-ranking officers and personnel would cripple U.S. intelligence efforts.

Myth 2: The release of State Department cables somehow was typical of out-of-control access by personnel without a "need to know" sensitive sources and methods regarding how intelligence is collected. There may be merit to the argument that all of the users of SIPRNET (estimates range from 500,000 to 1 million individuals) do not need to understand the mechanisms of how foreign service officers conduct their business.

However, while nothing can undo the release of sometime-embarrassing data in the WikiLeaks cables, future unauthorized release can be easily prevented by simple changes in how State Department reports are written by omitting references to the sources and methods of how the information was collected. Despite all the opprobrium leveled at an out-of-control intelligence community and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, the real culprits at fault for this fiasco are clear: Pfc. Manning and his chain-of-command, which allowed him to circumvent network security and information assurance rules.

Manning claims that he inserted a blank CD labeled "Lady Gaga" into a SIPRNET computer, pretending to listen to music on headphones while in fact downloading all of those classified files. However, even if he in fact was listening to music and not stealing classified information, he would still be breaking network security rules by putting that CD into his classified workstation. The lax enforcement of those rules was much more responsible for this fiasco than too much access by too many people to the SIPRNET.

The release of this information has proved that Manning and Assange, despite their certainty that they had exposed a vast government conspiracy, are actually pretty poor analysts and/or journalists, unable to craft a coherent narrative from the mass of true, false and often biased raw data that are the reports which have been leaked to date.

Restricting access to information by cleared people within classified channels is an overreaction that may prevent the flow of data that analysts can use to predict and prevent the attacks of the future.

Lt. Cmdr. Mark B. Munson serves as the intelligence officer for Naval Special Warfare Group Four at Little Creek.