President Obama issued an executive order Friday that establishes an Insider Threat Task Force to prevent potentially damaging and embarrassing exposure of government secrets, such those made public by WikiLeaks.

Eugene Spafford, executive director of Purdue University’s Center for Education and Research in Information Assurance and Security, said the president’s action was long overdue. “Why haven’t they been doing this already?” asked Spafford, who has testified before Congress on IT security matters. “This is at least 10 years too late, if not 20.”