Afraid Of The Enemy Within

by Patrick Appel

Jessie Walker thinks that “Washington is petrified of itself”:

Washington is classifying documents at a remarkable rate. According to a report from the Public Interest Declassification Board last year, one intelligence agency alone classifies the equivalent of about 20 million well-stuffed four-drawer filing cabinets every 18 months. Nearly 5 million federal employees or contractors have access to at least some secret information. Even more have access to information that isn’t classified but might embarrass someone.

That creates a double bind: The more the government trusts someone with sensitive data, the more it has reason to fear that person. Trust breeds mistrust. It’s the sort of situation that might make a person paranoid.

Bruce Schneier explains how to minimize leaks:

The best defense is to limit the number of trusted people needed within an organization. [NSA Director General Keith] Alexander is doing this at the NSA — albeit too late — by trying to reduce the number of system administrators by 90 percent. This is just a tiny part of the problem; in the U.S. government, as many as 4 million people, including contractors, hold top-secret or higher security clearances. That’s far too many.