Feed: Wikileaks mischief reaps accusations against U.S. diplomats - AggScore: 12.8

Wikileaks mischief reaps accusations against U.S. diplomats

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caption id alignalignleft width124 captionSecretary Hillary Clinton39s State Department is the subject of a criminal investigation in Switzerland after disclosure of documents by Wikileaks. Photo USDoS img srchttpcdn2b.examiner.comsitesdefaultfilesstyleslargehashb23dclinton20h..jpg alt width124 height124 captionGovernment officials in Switzerland claim theyve discovered proof that American diplomats conducted illegal surveillance on Swiss residents. The Swiss Federal Department of Justice released a statement claiming it found signs that the U.S. diplomatic mission in Geneva maintained a surveillance program.The Swiss governments justice department is conducting an investigation of these allegations, many of which originated in Wikileaks classified document dumps.In 2007, the U.S. State Department had no approval to initiate a program to monitor diplomatic buildings in Geneva and in Bern, the seat of Swiss federal government, according to angry Swiss officials.A local Swiss newspaper also reported that the renegade Internet web site WikiLeaks had posted one of several diplomatic cable reporting that the U.S. diplomatic staff monitored suspected terrorist activities within Switzerland.WikiLeaks founded and run by Julian Assange in November 2010 released 250,000 classified diplomatic cables and is now the focus of a probe by U.S. government prosecutors.Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the U.S. State Department have not issued a statement on the Swiss allegations and subsequent investigation. Last month in the aftermath of the release of the Wikileaks material, a State Department official said, Our relationship with other countries is based on mutual interests. Those mutual interests are unchanged by any document that has been released by WikiLeaks.The WikiLeaks posting of stolen classified information has highlighted the tension between the intelligence communitys strategy of share to win and the necessity to enforce need to know.Commanders in the field understand the advantage that comes from sharing intelligence and information and they do not want to give up that capability, according to Jim Garamone, an American Forces Press Service staffer.Since the Wikileaks incidents, the Pentagon has put in place methods to minimize such thefts of classified materials. It is now much more difficult for a determined actor to get access to and move information outside of authorized channels, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said in a written statement following publication of news articles on the documents.The theft of the materials traces to the lack of sharing of information and intelligence prior to and after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. The commission studying the environment at the time found that agencies werent sharing enough information with each other.While stopping short of saying better sharing could have prevented the terror attacks in New York, Washington DC and Pennsylvania, the 911 Commission pointed this out as a weakness that needed to be closed, according to Garamones report.The deputy assistant secretary of defense for cyber and space policy, Robert J. Butler, yesterday said that sharing information within the military, with coalition partners and even with outside agencies will continue, but there will be more controls placed on the information. Share to win refers to the idea of getting information and intelligence out to the personnel who need it.