WikiLeaks Prompts Stronger Safeguards for Classified Info
Inevitably and predictably, the U.S. Government has moved to systematically increase the monitoring of classified computer networks and to tighten the safeguarding of classified information in response to the indiscriminate publication of classified records by WikiLeaks.
An executive order issued on October 7 does not define the new security policies. Instead, it establishes new mechanisms for monitoring, developing and implementing information system security policies, including a newly established Insider Threat Task Force.
In a gesture directed at whistleblowers, the new executive order states (sect. 7e) that “the entities created and the activities directed by this order shall not seek to deter, detect, or mitigate disclosures of information by Government employees or contractors that are lawful under and protected by” whistleblower protection statutes.
But while the systematic tracking of online behavior may not deliberately “seek” to deter or detect whistleblowers, it’s hard to see how it could fail to produce such effects.
Over the past few months, the Trump administration has been laying the foundation to expand the use of the Defense Production Act (DPA) for energy infrastructure and supply chains.
Get it right, and pooled hiring becomes a model for how the federal government decides what to do together and what to do apart. That’s a bigger prize than faster hiring. It’s a more functional government.
As of March 2026, there were at least nine documented U.S. wrongful arrests tied to face recognition misidentification. Errors like these are as much human as machine.
No one will be surprised if we end up with a continuing resolution to push our shutdown deadline out past the midterms, so the real question is what else will they get done this summer?