The FOUO Debate

Some readers took exception to my posting last week of a high-level wiring diagram for the U.S. Cyber Command, which was labeled "For Official Use Only," a.k.a. FOUO.

One reader said I should have put the welfare of the nation ahead of my own personal/business interests and not posted an FOUO document on a public Web site.

I'm going to turn that around and suggest that folks who create FOUO documents should ensure they do not leak onto the public Internet -- a far greater threat than anything I do.

If you have the time, try this simple exercise:

1. Go to www.searchmil.com

2. Type in "fouo .ppt 2009"

3. Hit a return, and you can then spend the rest of the day working your way through a long list of FOUO documents, including such highly classified information as a weather forecast for Camp Lejune, N.C. (Yes folks, someone at Lejune decided to slap an FOUO stamp on the camp's weather.) You'll also see an Army Staff Advocate General slide set on the Anti-Deficiency Act, which probably earned an FOUO label to keep anyone but lawyers from being bored.

This leads me to conclude that FOUO is applied in a rather willy-nilly fashion, and often has little to do with national security.

But, every so often, using the above exercise, I run across an FOUO document on the public Internet that I believe is a threat to security. That happened last month when I stumbled across an internal slide set from the Joint IED Defeat Organization, which contained some information that I considered a potential threat to deployed troops. Instead of writing about the presentation, I called the Public Affairs Officer at JIEDDO and suggested that they take the slides out of public view.

The U.S. Cyber Command organization chart, on the other hand, poses a threat to no one -- except people like me who realize they need better eyeglasses.