
I showed leaked NSA slides at Purdue, so feds demanded the video be destroyed - jeo1234
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/10/i-showed-leaked-nsa-slides-at-purdue-so-feds-demanded-the-video-be-destroyed/
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thaumasiotes
This has some great stuff:

> I might have seen trouble coming. One of the first questions in the Q&A that
> followed my talk was:

> “In the presentation you just gave, you were showing documents that were
> TS/SCI [top secret, sensitive compartmented information] and things like
> that. Since documents started to become published, has the NSA issued a
> declass order for that?”

> I took the opportunity to explain the government’s dilemmas when classified
> information becomes available to anyone with an Internet connection. “These
> documents, by and large, are still classified," I said. "And in many cases,
> if you work for the government and you have clearance, you’re not allowed to
> go look at them… Now, it’s perfectly rational for them to say, we’re not
> going to declassify everything that gets leaked because otherwise we’re
> letting someone else decide what’s classified and what’s not. But it gets
> them wound up in pretty bad knots.”

> My remarks did not answer the question precisely enough for one post-
> doctoral research engineer. He stood, politely, to nail the matter down.

> “Were the documents you showed tonight unclassified?” he asked.

> “No. They’re classified still,” I replied.

> “Thank you,” he said and resumed his seat.

> Eugene Spafford, a Purdue professor of computer science who has held high
> clearances himself, wrote to me afterward. “We have a number of ‘junior
> security rangers’ on faculty and staff who tend to be ‘by the book.’
> Unfortunately, once noted, that is something that cannot be unnoted.”

> Sure enough, someone filed a report with the above-mentioned Information
> Assurance Officer, who reported in turn to Purdue’s representative at the
> Defense Security Service. By the terms of its Pentagon agreement, Purdue was
> officially obliged to be _shocked to find that spillage is going on_ at a
> talk about Snowden and the NSA. Three secret slides, covering perhaps five
> of my 90 minutes on stage, required that video be wiped in its entirety.

> This was, I think, a rather devout reading of the rules. (Taken literally,
> the rules say Purdue should also have notified the FBI. I do not know
> whether that happened.) A more experienced legal and security team might
> have taken a deep breath and applied the official guidance to “realistically
> consider the potential harm that may result from compromise of spilled
> information.”

