More on OPSEC and ATI

At the risk of flogging an equine carcass, I received a couple of e-mails on the subject of the supposed crackdown on ATI requests at DND, and thought I'd share some of the more salient points of that correspondence with you, dear reader.

First, from an official DND spokesman:

Damian,

Your comprehensive coverage of Canada's mission in Afghanistan is to be commended. Healthy discussion and debate about a critically important international mission like Afghanistan is important. Given that your readers seem keenly interested in reading beyond the newspaper headlines of the day, I though it worthwhile passing on a few facts with respect to the Department of National Defence and the provision of information on the mission, including Access to Information Act (ATI) requests for information.

The claim has been made in some recent articles that DND is blocking "any and all information about Canada's mission in Afghanistan." You'll not be surprised when I say the claim is completely inaccurate. For starters, I'm not sure how maintaining the most robust media embedding program in Afghanistan supports the assertion of blocking information. Some 48 national and international news agencies have been on the ground in Kandahar with Canadian soldiers, development workers, police and diplomats - and most journalists stay for weeks at a time.

It's also interesting to note that while DND handled some 1,800 Access to Information requests last year. 93.3% of these were completed on time. On Afghanistan alone, at least 78,000 pages of information have been released since 2001. CIDA, DFAIT and DND all maintain websites packed with information about the Afghanistan Mission. [Babbler's jaw-dropped emphasis]

When it comes to releasing requested ATI information, the sheer volume of requests (requiring many thousands of person hours to research) requires that documents which have operational security implications be reviewed to ensure we are not inadvertently releasing information which has the potential to assist adversaries in attacking Canadians in Afghanistan - soldiers and civilians alike - or those we are there to help - the Afghan people.

I think it fair to say that Canadians expect the defence department's leadership to reduce risks to our personnel as much as possible. The best way to do that is by ensuring they have the right equipment, training and leadership - and by protecting operational security. This includes making sure we don't release information that could jeopardize their safety.

Regards

Lieutenant Colonel Jamie Robertson
Spokesperson
Department of National Defence

Colonel Robertson's points about the responsibilities CF leadership has to the soldiers, and about how difficult those responsibilities become with over 1,800 ATI requests in a year, and tens of thousands of pages to wade through, are well-taken. While some - specifically, those with no skin in this game - can agitate for total access and engage in an ideological debate about these issues, there are officers sitting at desks with the solemn task of making sure nothing heads out the door of CEFCOM or NDHQ or any other organization within DND that could hurt the soldiers on the ground or in the air of Afghanistan.

Assuming some of the department's critics still have a conscience at all, how would they like to have that burden weighing upon it?

What that letter doesn't do, however, is address just why some information that the average layman would consider innocuous is held back for reasons of operational security. A serving officer wrote to me to spell out one particular example, on the sensitive issue of detainees:

When detainees are taken, the Taliban do not necessarily know where their fighters are - dead, captured or simply have abandoned the field of battle (ie dropped their weapons and melted into the population - many are rent-a-gun types) etc. This serves to disrupt TB operations somewhat as captured fighters could possess important information about Taliban operations, locations of other fighters etc. That addresses the immediate value of not releasing number. Numbers per week or month reveals capacity to handle x amount of detainees. If I were a Taliban commander and found out that Canadians were handling xx on average per week or month, and pieced together the holding and transfer process (pretty well documented through news articles) why not flood the Canadians with three times xx prior to an operation with stooges and individuals of no signifcant value to the TB. It would be a good way to gum up the works and slow the ability for the Canadians to handle more captured fighters. This could be a significant tactical development that would have ramifications on the field of battle. Ergo, connect the dots and you see some of the reasoning with just this one example (off the top of my head).

Now, I know that this justification could be applied to just about any information. Why publicize the number of troops we have in theatre, when the relatively low number tells the Taliban we can't blanket the province with an armed presence? Why put out the names and units of soldiers serving outside the wire at any given time, when the Taliban or AQ could use that information to target the home front? You can see how such a rationale could be over-used.

The truth is that there's no right answer to the question of how much information to release on military operations. It's a constant balancing act between the public's important right to know and the government's equally important right to secrecy where national interests are concerned. The only thing we know for sure is that submitting to either extreme viewpoint - secrecy or transparency - is dangerous.

What keeps me optimistic about the balance DND is striking is my personal knowledge of the people who serve our nation in uniform: they are as protective of our freedoms as any Canadian alive.