THE WIKI THING IS WACKY – AT 4:25 A.M. ET:  We've wondered here at Urgent Agenda how the WikiLeaks leaks actually happened.  Apparently, many others are wondering as well, and they're not getting satisfactory answers.  From the Washington Times:

The State Department and other U.S. agencies are not fully cooperating with lawmakers' efforts to probe the WikiLeaks security breach, according to the Republican likely to be the next chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.

Rep. Mike Rogers, Michigan Republican and a senior member of the intelligence committee, said government officials seem "more concerned about their department's reputation than the consequences [of the leak], and that is a big problem."

And it always has been, and always will be.

"They've been obstructionist up to this point," Mr. Rogers told The Washington Times. "They need an attitude adjustment."

He joins a growing chorus of Democrats and Republicans who are finding fault with the government's post-Sept. 11 information-sharing system, which aims to push intelligence reporting toward the front lines of the war on terrorism.

"Clearly, the rush to share everything with everyone has gone too far," Mr. Rogers said. "Clearly, there'll be changes."

When I was in intelligence work, decades ago, we employed the "need to know" principle. You were only given information that you absolutely needed to know to do your job.  Now we find out, via this Washington Times story, that "a half-million people have access to the network that was reportedly compromised - a classified Pentagon computer system called SIPRNet."

No wonder our secret documents are all over the world, and on every significant desk.

Look, we want maximum intelligence sharing to be sure we don't have another disaster like 9-11.  We learned after that tragedy that different agencies had bits of information about the plotters, but weren't permitted to share it.  But sharing has to be done with some care and common sense.  Apparently, both those things are in short supply in some precincts.

I'm glad to see Congress getting actively involved.  The members seem considerably more agitated than the smug members of the mainstream media, too many of whom only seemed interested in finding some juicy gossip in the leaked papers.

December 3, 2010