US State Department tells employees not to read WikiLeaks

[kpete]

Source: Christian Science Monitor

US State Department tells employees not to read WikiLeaks

The US State Department has pushed employees toward "digital diplomacy" with Twitter and iPhone apps, but the department has banned all employees from using WikiLeaks.

The US State Department has directed its staff around the world not to surf the WikiLeaks website, according to employees.

The ban is in response to WikiLeaks' decision to published classified material, including US diplomatic cables. It’s not clear when the policy first began but it joins a similar order by the US Department of Defense put in place since the leaking of Iraq and Afghanistan war documents earlier this year.

Analysts suggest the State Department is temporarily falling back on traditional bureaucratic protocols in the face of a crisis that is emblematic of the shift to an online world. As the dust settles, the WikiLeaks upheaval may push to the fore tensions between new “digital diplomacy” efforts that use Twitter and smart-phone apps, and an older culture of classified cables.



Read more: http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Asia-South-Central/2010/1201/US-State-Department-tells-employees-not-to-read-WikiLeaks

[sarcasmo]

1. Digital Diplomacy is not friendly toward Tyrants.

[Forkboy]

2. Or else!

[lunatica]

3. So they have orders to not look at the secrets that everyone else can look at

That's idiotic. They're beginning to look fucking ridiculous. Even like unto buffoons.

Talk about closing the barn door after the horses get out!

[Kaleko]

28. This is precisely what Wikileaks aims to accomplish -

a further clampdown on the information that feeds the beast's own internal ability to function.

These fools in the State Department don't realize that they're acting exactly as Assange predicted they would. How delicious!

[Solly Mack]

4. Don't read'em! (and forget everything you've read over the last 3.5 days)

[Bozita]

5. Ostrich, meet sand.

[givemebackmycountry]

20. Perfect...

And I mean that too.

[Journeyman]

6. Does this extend to all media accounts of Wikileak's content? . . .

[leveymg]

7. Most classification is to prevent Americans from discovering what the world has long known:

we're pampered, naive slaves of our own illusions of exceptional virtue. Now, maybe, not so exceptionally pampered.

Log off that web site, Smith! Get back to work, Jones!

[dixiegrrrrl]

8. At work, or after work?

Talk about sending a burning banner signal to your employees.
Only ones that will NOT now head for Wikileaks are too dumb to be worth anything.

[awoke_in_2003]

17. I would bet...

that their home internet usage is monitored. Hell, they probably signed paperwork when they got hired to allow it. Wouldn't be hard for the State Dept. to pull off.

[tanyev]

9. Yeah, that'll work.

[jberryhill]

10. As dumb as it sounds

It provides a pat answer when embassy employees are asked by their friends and colleagues in foreign countries, "What do you think about Wikileaks reporting X?"

"Oh, we're not allowed to read it."

[hughee99]

11. It seems to me that Wikileaks is creating a number of issues that the State Department

will have to deal with, so clearly the right thing to do is make sure that State Department employees have no idea what those issues will be until confronted by them during the course of their job. :sarcasm:

[EFerrari]

12. The State Department, keeping America safe

from its government!

[jtuck004]

13. And that whole Bill of Rights and Constitution thing, stay away from that too.

They will just give you uncomfortable thoughts...

[dixiegrrrrl]

22. ( ironic laugh)

[Kali]

14. ...

:rofl:

it really is the end of the empire, isn't it?

[No Elephants]

15. Is that even Constitutional?

[Uncle Joe]

16. It seems to me, that would put our diplomats at a disadvantage.

Thanks for the thread, kpete.

[emulatorloo]

21. Pretty sure diplomats already have access to those cables

[pam4water]

18. Bahawawawaw it funny and it's not! What happen to Hillary? She sure turned into an autocrat quickly.

I guess she can be welcomed into the fold of the vast right wing conspiracy.

[ProudDad]

30. What do you mean "turned into"...

It was her "management style" that helped kill Health Care back in '93... :)

(Gawd, I miss Mollie Ivins...)

[snooper2]

32. Some people have short memories

:)

[LawnKorn]

19. Even if a classified document is published in the open at the New York Times, it is still classified

If an individual loads classified information on an unclassified computer, it is called "spillage" and renders every server, computer, and hard drive classified. It takes big bucks to go through a network and completely remove these files.

The rules are clear, an employ that has any classified information on their computer is responsible for that information no matter where it came from, or how it got stored on the computer.

The excuse "I got it off the internet" is insufficient in the eyes of the people who enforce the rules.

If a Government employee wants to read WikiLeaks, do it at home.

[greiner3]

23. It looks as if you read more into the article than what is posted;

I cannot find where the State Dept. limits its employees to looking at the site only from work. I read the directive as meaning the employees cannot access the site from any computer or any media. How's that for willful ignorance?

[Demeter]

33. Or At Your Local Public Library

Makes me think there are non-Internet users making policy.

[AlphaCentauri]

24. Must be more about keeping employees out of the tracing logs n/t

[go west young man]

25. Orwell must be laughing his ass off at that one!

[daleo]

26. A directive worthy of the old Soviet Union. n/t

[lovuian]

27. that is like a red flag

Read it

[DeSwiss]

29. K&R

"The more secretive or unjust an organization is, the more leaks induce fear and paranoia in its leadership and planning coterie. This must result in minimization of efficient internal communications mechanisms (an increase in cognitive “secrecy tax”) and consequent system-wide cognitive decline resulting in decreased ability to hold onto power as the environment demands adaption. Hence in a world where leaking is easy, secretive or unjust systems are nonlinearly hit relative to open, just systems. Since unjust systems, by their nature induce opponents, and in many places barely have the upper hand, mass leaking leaves them exquisitely vulnerable to those who seek to replace them with more open forms of governance."

~Julian Assange

http://zunguzungu.wordpress.com/2010/11/29/julian-assange-and-the-computer-conspiracy-%E2%80%9Cto-destroy-this-invisible-government%E2%80%9D/">link

[ProudDad]

31. Bingo!

We have a winner!

:hi:

[bemildred]

34. Yes. Astute. nt