"Apparently Treason Is The Highest Form Of Patriotism"

Post title tributed to DrewM.  Any ideas on what the WaPo can possibly be thinking with this?:

The Diplomatic Security Bureau at State sent out a notice Thursday to all department employees warning them to protect classified information and reject inquiries from the press when the new web feature goes live.

"The Washington Post plans to publish a website listing all agencies and contractors believed to conduct Top Secret work on behalf of the U.S. Government," the notice reads. "The website provides a graphic representation pinpointing the location of firms conducting Top Secret work, describing the type of work they perform, and identifying many facilities where such work is done."

According to the notice, the Post used only open-source information to compile its site. However, if some of that open-source information turns out to have been classified, its publication by the Post doesn't change that classification, the State Department emphasized.

Any ideas on motivations here?  George Bush rode off into the sunset a year and a half ago.  Does the WaPo not trust their "some kind of a god" anymore because he's kept Operation Enduring Freedom going and hasn't bugged out of Iraq yet and still hasn't closed Gitmo?  Are they trying to "remind" him of his defeatist/retreatist '08 campaign pledges by taking away his "wayward options"?  Or is "serving as the intelligence analysis division for every terror and criminal group out there" just an irresistable compulsion to them?

Here's the warning what passes for intel professionals sent out to the aforereferenced contractors:

Foreign intelligence services, terrorist organizations, and criminal elements will have potential [*eyeroll* - there's no "potential" about it] interest in this kind of information. It is important that companies review their overall counterintelligence posture to ensure that it is appropriate. Specifically, we recommend that companies affected by this publication and website assess and take steps to mitigate risk to their workforce, facility and mission, to the extent consistent with your contractual relationship with ODNI. These steps should include re-enforcement of security and counterintelligence protections and steps to enhance workforce awareness. CI and security events related to the publication of these articles and website should be reported through normal company channels to the MSC/Security office. For the time being, thresholds should be lowered to aggressively report anomalous behavior.

They're wasting their time.  Any additional counter-intelligence actions that are taken will simply be duly relayed to the enemy by the WaPo or New York Times or other Enemy [*ahem*] Media source.  Their time would be better spent pulling back any and all information from being "open sourced".  That way at least the Enemy Media would have to earn its treason.

I sympathize with DrewM's lament that President Bush didn't crack down hard on them with criminal prosecutions of such loose-lippedness.  But you know what the reaction would have been from that very same EM that had already hyped the "Bush is a tyrant" angle to the stratosphere.  Remember the old adage: "Never throw rocks at a guy holding a machine gun."  Back then I think that's precisely the reaction they were trying to provoke.

Now?  I guess it's just like crying racism - catnip from which they just can't help themselves.  Just file it away for after Chicago goes up in radiological flames or Los Angeles is nerve-gassed or a suitcase nuke is "opened" in Manhattan.  What goes around may take its own sweet time about it, but sooner or later is DOES come around.