If secret information winds up on a computer you have to file a bunch of paperwork and have the computer either scrubbed or converted to only accessing secrets. So despite the leaked information being in the public record they still treat it as secret information. Yes it's stupid but those are the rules. By not allowing access to the newspaper site containing the "secrets" they can avoid these issues.
Why a secret leaked to the public and available to all is still treated as a secret is confusing.
> Why a secret leaked to the public and available to all is still treated as a secret is confusing.
This is standard OpSec. You neither confirm nor deny the leak because it's entirely possible that the information itself is a plant designed to draw out responses that leak more information.
Right. So you instead confirm that leak by blocking the website so that it doesn't cause a lot of paperwork/hassle. If the leak were fake, then there would be no reason to care about it ending up on their machines.
This OpSec doesn't really make sense (to me):
- The documents are already in the public. Just saying, "they are now de-classified," doesn't give more information, other than an explicit confirmation that they were real. But this doesn't matter because:
- Politicians coming out and having a public debate about the classified programs talked about in the leak is further confirmation that the leak is real.
- Chasing after Snowden and charging him with espionage for releasing the documents is a confirmation that the documents are actually real.
There are so many things implicitly confirming that the documents are real that it doesn't make sense to deny them officially anymore. It's like trying to hide the subject of the Mona Lisa by creating an empty space in the shape of her silhouette, and then expecting people to not notice that something is missing.
> So you instead confirm that leak by blocking the website
No, you confirm that you have a standing policy of blocking any content that purports to be classified, regardless of actual content.
> - The documents are already in the public. Just saying, "they are now de-classified," doesn't give more information, other than an explicit confirmation that they were real. But this doesn't matter because:
Stating they are declassified still leaves them with the burden of cross checking any document found on their unclassified networks to figure out whether or not it is allowed to be there. It substantially eases the job of containing the genuinely classified information to keep the amount of "possibly classified, needs investigation" content down.
> There are so many things implicitly confirming that the documents are real that it doesn't make sense to deny them officially anymore.
The point is not to deny that they are real (how would the Army know?), but to prevent "contaminating" an unclassified network in a way that makes discerning real security problems harder.
Because all secrets are assigned codes and, I believe, names and registered through a central secrets database coordinated through all services. Someone has to close the ticket, first, and there may be outstanding issues.
I think you mean code-word clearance. This is for strictly limited-access programs, where the number of people knowing a secret is controlled. Normally, you would have a security clearance plus need-to-know. These programs put the weight much more heavily on the need-to-know side.
i.e. You may have a top-secret clearance and know that the Derkderkistani military is buying new tanks, but you don't need to know that the source of that info was from an agent in their Ministry of Finance.
Why a secret leaked to the public and available to all is still treated as a secret is confusing.