Philip J. Crowley
Assistant Secretary
Daily Press Briefing
Washington, DC
December 7, 2010
QUESTION: On whether it’s breaking the law, (inaudible) breaking the law, this is information that is classified. I mean, media organizations often publish classified information. I mean, how do you determine who should be tried or not tried, depending on what they’ve published?
MR. CROWLEY: Well, we are a nation of laws. And we do have specific laws that govern the protection of information. And our focus, first and foremost, is on at least one individual who took an oath of office to protect the United States and its interests and has failed to heed that responsibility. But beyond that, we are mindful of the fact that we do have a Constitution, that enshrined in that Constitution is freedom of the press. We respect that, even as we have concerns about how it is exercised.
QUESTION: P.J., a State Department official passed along a message to Columbia University grad students that they shouldn’t discuss WikiLeaks on Facebook or Twitter; it would jeopardize employment opportunities with the U.S. Government.
MR. CROWLEY: Sean, I’m glad you raised that. First of all, we don’t know who that State Department official was. Whatever that individual passed to Columbia University is not a reflection of policy. Our focus here at the State Department is on – and we have given instructions to our employees here, because we are treating these documents as still classified, which means if you download these documents from an outside website to our unclassified system, it creates a security concern. So our instructions are to protect our unclassified network, not mix classified and unclassified information on that network. We do not control private internet access. We do not control private networks. We have issued no authoritative instructions to people who are not employees of the Department of State.
http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/dpb/2010/12/152489.htmNo, we are a nation of some laws that apply to some people but not other.
We need to look beyond wikileaks and look ahead, looking behind is so....90's. Just like with bush, move along and ignore the breaking of laws.