Intelligence Community Shouldn't Expect Secrets To Last 25-50 Years in Post-Snowden World
In a world facing a growing number of data breaches and leaks, the amount of time classified information can be kept secret within the intelligence community is dwindling, said New America Cybersecurity Fellow Peter Swire Thursday at a New America event on the release of his latest paper. Before information was leaked by ex-NSA contractor Edward Snowden about the intelligence community’s activities, the IC assumed secrets lasted 25-50 years, which is when declassification occurs legally, said Swire, a law and ethics professor at Georgia Tech.
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Former CIA General Counsel John Rizzo said leaks have been occurring at the CIA since he first joined the agency in 1971, but in the past decade, the number and scope of the leaks have increased. “I don’t think any secret can be kept for 25 years,” said Rizzo, now senior counsel at Steptoe & Johnson.
Information leaked by Snowden became public in June 2013, and by that August, President Barack Obama had named five individuals to participate in a review group. About 70 percent of the group’s recommendations were adopted by the intelligence community, and every section of the USA Freedom law comes from those recommendations, Swire said. Structural changes to the NSA and widespread use of strong encryption weren't adopted, he said.
Changes in information technology trends have altered the intelligence community’s business in three ways: Moore’s Law, sociological differences, and changes in sources and methods, Swire said. “One thumb drive can ruin your whole day,” Swire said. The government had relied on mainstream media outlets to act as gatekeepers and protect some classified information, but now websites like WikiLeaks will release the documents, Swire said. And it has become harder to keep secrets due to the IoT and increased prevalence of cameras and sensors, Swire said. Using big data allows behavior patterns and preferences to be determined, he said.
There has been a striking shift in how the mainstream media negotiates with the intelligence community on controversial stories since the Snowden revelations, said Brunswick Group Director Siobhan Gorman, a former Wall Street Journal intelligence correspondent. Reporters now push government to state more explicitly why certain information shouldn’t be published, Gorman said.
A poll asking government employees and Silicon Valley IT professionals their views on Snowden found that no government employees classified Snowden as a whistleblower, while about 90 percent of IT professionals in Silicon Valley viewed him as a whistleblower, Swire said. Libertarian ideologies are prevalent in the IT industry, he said. The president and vice president should hold a conference with the CEOs of major tech organizations and members of Congress and engage in a “true discussion” on how to balance personal privacy and national security concerns, Rizzo said.
Included in the risk assessment section of the briefing package provided to the president before he signs off on a new covert action program is how the American public and foreign governments would react if the information were made public, said Rizzo. The NSA had a track record of not monitoring big programs well, Gorman said. Agencies can do more to mitigate the chance that a leak or breach occurs, she said. As for the data breaches at the Office of Personnel Management and Ashley Madison dating site, Gorman said that it’s possible neither entity thought the data it had was valuable to anyone else and deserving of the highest protections.