Agency Buy-In Is Key to Obama's Anti-WikiLeaks Order

The government office charged with declassifying confidential information cheered President Obama's new directions to agencies on thwarting insiders who feed websites like WikiLeaks with secret files before their classification time is up.

On Friday, Obama issued a long-awaited executive order in response to the scandal surrounding a soldier accused of extracting a boatload of files from a classified military system to share with the anti-secrets site.

"This executive order recognizes that the primary responsibility lies with departments and agencies to carry out this initiative, while it also reinforces the responsibilities of individuals entrusted with access to classified information," John Fitzpatrick, director of the Information Security Oversight Office, said in a statement.

The order aims to hold agency heads accountable for preventing insider threats and safeguarding classified information on computers. At the same time, the directive tries to strike a balance between blocking unauthorized users and expediting authorized disclosures.

"Strengthening standards and practices of protection will lead to greater trust and cooperation and increased information sharing," Fitzpatrick said.

According to ISOO's mission statement, the office's goal is to "provide for an informed American public" by limiting the amount of information kept classified and declassifying files as soon as they are safe to release.

Materials are supposed to be automatically released 25 years after they are classified if not earlier, according to previous executive orders. Authorities can keep files under wraps longer if they can show that disclosure would expose an intelligence source, code-making data, directions for building weapons of mass destruction, or certain other extraordinarily sensitive information.

But researchers say that department heads often disregard declassification instructions.

"Presidents Clinton, Bush and Obama each ordered that all 25 year old classified records, unless they were specifically exempted, 'shall be automatically declassified whether or not the records have been reviewed.' But agencies have refused to implement this provision or to permit automatic declassification without review, thereby crippling the presidential initiative for streamlining the declassification process," Steven Aftergood, director of the project on government secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists, wrote in March.

Aftergood, an open government proponent whom WikiLeaks once contacted for advice, has criticized the site for practicing reckless disclosure.