State Dept. Employee Investigated For Linking To WikiLeaks

New submitter Jimme Blue writes "An employee of the State Department is under investigation and may be fired for 'disclosing classified information.' Or, as others might call it, posting a link to WikiLeaks. 'His crime, he said, was a link he posted on August 25 in a blog post discussing the hypocrisy of recent U.S. actions against Libyan leader Muammar Qadaffi. The link went to a 2009 cable about the sale of U.S. military spare parts to Qadaffi through a Portuguese middleman. ... The State Department investigators, he said, demanded to know who had helped him with his blog and told him that every blog post, Facebook post, and tweet by State Department employees had to be pre-cleared by the Department prior to publication."

Whats the problem

[voss]

He while working for the state department gave credibility and verified leaked classified information in violation of state department policies. The fact that it was already out there in the public domain is irrelevant it has not been declassified.
He may get fired...a bit harsh but perfectly legal.

Re:Freedom of Speech

[chill]

When you get a security clearance and get told explicitly not to do this.

Prepublication Review

[Anonymous Coward]

People may not like it, but anyone with a US security clearance has a requirement for "prepublication review". That usually applies to talking about your job or things you learned during your job. Since this guy worked for State, and he posted information about state, I think they have a good point. For all any of us know he knew about that Cable from seeing it at work. Just because it has been publicly disclosed does *not* mean it is not still classified. https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/kent-csi/docs/v41i3a01p.htm [cia.gov] http://www.nsa.gov/public_info/prepub/index.shtml [nsa.gov]

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:What classified information?

[swalve]

Classified means the information has been put into a class. Classified doesn't mean "secret", it means "this information is [freely distributable | secret | top secret | 007 eyes only | etc.]". It it literally a work rule that details which information can be disseminated in what manner.

As for the argument where the State Dept. has to admit the stuff is the same thing, that is wrong too. The US gov't has said very clearly to its employees that the wikileaks stuff may contain material that has been classified as secret or above, and to avoid it if you want to keep your job.