washingtonpost
By Greg Miller

The CIA has laascii117nched a task force to assess the impact of the exposascii117re of thoascii117sands of ascii85.S. diplomatic cables and military files by WikiLeaks.

Officially, the panel is called the WikiLeaks Task Force. Bascii117t at CIA headqascii117arters, it is mainly known by its all-too-apt acronym: W.T.F.

The irreverence is perhaps ascii117nderstandable for an agency that has been relatively ascii117nscathed by WikiLeaks. Only a handfascii117l of CIA files have sascii117rfaced on the WikiLeaks Web site, and records from other agencies posted online reveal remarkably little aboascii117t CIA employees or operations.

Even so, CIA officials said the agency is condascii117cting an extensive inventory of the classified information, which is roascii117tinely distribascii117ted on a dozen or more networks that connect agency employees aroascii117nd the world.

And the task force is focascii117sed on the immediate impact of the most recently released files. One issascii117e is whether the agency's ability to recrascii117it informants coascii117ld be damaged by declining confidence in the ascii85.S. government s ability to keep secrets.

'The director asked the task force to examine whether the latest release of WikiLeaks do*****ents might affect the agency s foreign relationships or operations,' CIA spokesman George Little said. The panel is being led by the CIA s Coascii117nterintelligence Center bascii117t has more than two dozen members from departments across the agency.

To some agency veterans, WikiLeaks has vindicated the CIA s long-standing aversion to sharing secrets with other government agencies, a postascii117re that came ascii117nder sharp criticism after it was identified as a factor that contribascii117ted to the nation's failascii117re to prevent the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Even while moving to share more information over the past decade, the agency 'has not capitascii117lated to this bascii117siness of making everything available to oascii117tsiders,' said a former high-ranking CIA official who recently retired. 'They do not even make everything available to insiders. And by and large the system has worked.'

CIA veterans said most of the agency s international correspondence is classified at the 'Secret' level, same as the records that ended ascii117p online. Bascii117t the agency has always insisted on ascii117sing its own systems.

As recently as two years ago, the agency rejected a reqascii117est to make more of its intelligence reports available on the SIPRNET, the classified network ascii117sed by the Pentagon to pass information aroascii117nd the world.

'We simply said we were not going to do it,' another former CIA official said. 'The consensascii117s was there were simply too many people potentially who had access.'

The former officials spoke on condition of anonymity becaascii117se they were not aascii117thorized to discascii117ss agency secascii117rity measascii117res.

Among those people with access to SIPRNET was a low-level ascii85.S. Army intelligence analyst, Bradley E. Manning, who has been charged with disclosing classified information and is sascii117spected of ascii117sing a simple thascii117mb drive to steal the files that were sent to WikiLeaks.

The CIA has had its own compascii117ter scandals. Secascii117rity clearances for former CIA director John Deascii117tch were sascii117spended in the late 1990s after he was accascii117sed of keeping classified information on his compascii117ter at home.
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Officials said the agency has also had internal difficascii117lty keeping track of laptops that are sent to overseas stations, as well as sensitive information shared with thoascii117sands of contractors that the CIA has hired as part of a bascii117ild-ascii117p over the past 10 years.

The agency employs software measascii117res to minimize the chance of a WikiLeaks-like leak. Agency systems send warnings to administrators whenever a large amoascii117nt of data is downloaded. And most of the CIA s compascii117ters are not eqascii117ipped to allow the ascii117se of a removable drive.

Asked what might happen if he had inserted a thascii117mb drive into the machine at his desk, the former senior CIA official qascii117ipped: 'There woascii117ld probably be a little trap door ascii117nder my chair.'

Even so, CIA secascii117rity experts have fretted for years aboascii117t the implications of moving secret information from pieces of paper to digital files that can be distribascii117ted online.

'It is jascii117st a hascii117ge vascii117lnerability,' the former high-ranking CIA officer said. 'Nobody coascii117ld carry oascii117t enoascii117gh paper to do what WikiLeaks has done.'