Security Through Obscurity
Security Through Obscurity
Originally shared by Andreas Schou
There's a very real sense in which the Clinton email issue is just a giant shit-fight between DOJ/DOD and State coming to a head. Both have reasonable points: State's computer security practices are abysmal, but State couldn't do any diplomatic work whatsoever if it ran its classification practices the way DOD/DOJ wants it to.
Here's what's going on:
Every executive agency has the right to set its own classification practices, and the classification chain for every executive agency ends with either the civilian head of that agency or some other agency. But because classification policies vary so widely between different executive agencies, there's often internecine disagreement when information classified by one agency (say, Defense) is later handled by another agency (say, State). And these disputes tend to center very heavily on State, as opposed to every other agency.
Fights about classification between Energy, which has a very eccentric classification regime, and Defense, which has pretty much the center case, tend to flare up around delayed publication of apepers about, for instance, nuclear policy or secrets. Fights between Defense and DOJ tend to center around the disclosure of classified information in civilian trials.
State, on the other hand, regularly discloses information classified by other branches of government without first consulting the agencies which classified it for a formal classification review. This is because when a drone strike goes FUBAR and kills a dozen Pakistani soldiers, the government doesn't have the time to fiddle around for six months deciding whether to declassify the reason for the strike. Either the Secretary of State or the Pakistani head of mission is going to need to be on the phone in fifteen minutes, apologizing profusely to the senior diplomats of a nuclear power,, or heads will roll. This being Pakistan, this is only barely a metaphor.
Other executive agencies, historically, have not liked this very much. DOJ generally wants to go beyond the constitutional bounds of classification law, if only to persecute government employees who leak or otherwise embarrass them. DOD would like to micromanage State's classification process, if only to bring it in line with DOD's fussy, siloed, and hierarchical classification practices.
Viewed in that context, Comey's conclusion about Clinton's emails is part of a broader, standing conclusion by the US national defense community that State's classification practices are unacceptable. But this is not new, and there are perfectly valid reasons to take State's side over American security services: too much is classified, American classification law is barely constitutional as it stands, and the steep penalties are entirely out of line with the vagueness of the underlying legal regime.
Originally shared by Andreas Schou
There's a very real sense in which the Clinton email issue is just a giant shit-fight between DOJ/DOD and State coming to a head. Both have reasonable points: State's computer security practices are abysmal, but State couldn't do any diplomatic work whatsoever if it ran its classification practices the way DOD/DOJ wants it to.
Here's what's going on:
Every executive agency has the right to set its own classification practices, and the classification chain for every executive agency ends with either the civilian head of that agency or some other agency. But because classification policies vary so widely between different executive agencies, there's often internecine disagreement when information classified by one agency (say, Defense) is later handled by another agency (say, State). And these disputes tend to center very heavily on State, as opposed to every other agency.
Fights about classification between Energy, which has a very eccentric classification regime, and Defense, which has pretty much the center case, tend to flare up around delayed publication of apepers about, for instance, nuclear policy or secrets. Fights between Defense and DOJ tend to center around the disclosure of classified information in civilian trials.
State, on the other hand, regularly discloses information classified by other branches of government without first consulting the agencies which classified it for a formal classification review. This is because when a drone strike goes FUBAR and kills a dozen Pakistani soldiers, the government doesn't have the time to fiddle around for six months deciding whether to declassify the reason for the strike. Either the Secretary of State or the Pakistani head of mission is going to need to be on the phone in fifteen minutes, apologizing profusely to the senior diplomats of a nuclear power,, or heads will roll. This being Pakistan, this is only barely a metaphor.
Other executive agencies, historically, have not liked this very much. DOJ generally wants to go beyond the constitutional bounds of classification law, if only to persecute government employees who leak or otherwise embarrass them. DOD would like to micromanage State's classification process, if only to bring it in line with DOD's fussy, siloed, and hierarchical classification practices.
Viewed in that context, Comey's conclusion about Clinton's emails is part of a broader, standing conclusion by the US national defense community that State's classification practices are unacceptable. But this is not new, and there are perfectly valid reasons to take State's side over American security services: too much is classified, American classification law is barely constitutional as it stands, and the steep penalties are entirely out of line with the vagueness of the underlying legal regime.
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