Morning Security Brief: WikiLeaks Fallout, FBI Counterterrorism Stings, & Portland's JTTF Rethink

♦ The massive WikiLeaks disclosure of State Department cables demonstrates the United States did not follow good information security protocols. '[T]he WikiLeaks releases show that the Pentagon failed to take basic steps to protect sensitive information, such as detecting and preventing surreptitious, unauthorized downloads, said Steven Aftergood, who tracks intelligence for the Federation of American Scientists," reports the Los Angeles Times. Since the incident, the Times reports that "taken some immediate steps to prevent unauthorized downloading of classified material, including disabling drives that would allow users to record and remove data. The Defense Department also is installing basic detection systems similar to those used by credit card companies to detect and monitor fraud."

♦ The incoming chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee has had enough of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. "Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) says he’s asked Attorney General Eric Holder to take quick action. 'I am calling on the attorney general and supporting his efforts to fully prosecute WikiLeaks and its founder for violating the Espionage Act,' King told a New York radio station," reports POLITICO. King, now the ranking Republican on the Homeland Security panel, also asked Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to determine whether it’s possible to declare WikiLeaks a foreign terrorist organization. Doing that, he said, would give the U.S. government authority “to seize their funds and go after anyone who provides them with any help or contributions or assistance whatsoever.”

♦ In another disclosure from the WikiLeaks document dump, Brazilian officials privately worry over terrorism threats to the country. "Politically, Brazil continues to deny the presence and potential threat of terrorists and terrorism in Brazil, while law enforcement and intelligence monitor and cooperate to counter the threat," a U.S. cable by an unknown writer said, according to the Associated Press. According to the AP, U.S. officials believe Brazil's policy helps maintain the country's international image while protecting its Muslim population.

♦ The latest counterterrorism arrest in Portland, Oregon, has civil rights advocates and defense attorneys asking whether the FBI entraps terrorism suspects. "A study this year by the Center on Law and Security at New York University, which tracks terrorism cases, found that of 156 prosecutions in what it identified as the most significant 50 cases since 2001, informers were relied on in 97 of them, or 62 percent," reports The New York Times. "The entrapment defense has often been raised, but as of September, it had never been successful in producing an acquittal in a post-Sept. 11 terrorism trial, the study found." Responding to the entrapment allegation against the FBI in the Portland case, Attorney General Eric Holder explained that 19-year-old Mohamed Osman Mohamud was given plenty of options to vent his frustrations nonviolently. Instead Mohamud chose terrorism—in this case detonating a car bomb at a tree-lighting ceremony.

♦ In a related story, Portland Mayor Sam Adams says the weekend's counterterrorism arrest has made him rethink his decision not to join the region's FBI-led Joint Terrorism Task Force. "Apparently the mayor was so impressed with how well they city's police worked with the FBI to capture Mohamed Osman Mohamud, he has requested a meeting with federal officials to discuss the matter, said communications director Roy Kaufmann," reports the Anderson Cooper 360 blog. Kaufmann told AC 360 that Adams did not join the JTTF previously over civil liberty and privacy concerns. "It's a very precarious battle between civil rights and security, and we want to make sure that people's civil rights are not violated," said Kaufmann,