Presidents who save things for posterity. A secretary of state has government information sent to her personal email server. Edward Snowden, Chelsea Manning, and Reality Winner are all ideologically motivated leakers.
Perhaps a 21-year-old airman in the Massachusetts Air National Guard, a cyber transport systems specialist, is online showing off to his adolescent gaming mates.
If the numerous previous and ongoing scandals involving sensitive material haven’t served as a wake-up call that the US government has a problem, perhaps the arrest of Jack Teixeira will.
Teixeira surrendered to a highly armed FBI SWAT squad outside his mother’s home on Thursday, while news helicopters hovered overhead. He was dressed in a t-shirt, sports shorts, dark socks, and boots.
He is accused of leaking sensitive data, which has thrown the US intelligence community into disarray, damaged relations with foreign governments, and jeopardised a vital channel of communication that has provided Americans with insight into Russia’s moves in Ukraine.
However, the profile of the suspected leaker that is emerging, and which will undoubtedly change as we learn more, is that of a ringleader of a gaming chatgroup who wanted to impress the teenagers he met online during the pandemic, rather than a foreign spy or an ideologically motivated whistleblower.
That information comes from an astonishing revelation in The Washington Post, which published an anonymous interview with a member of the closed group of around two dozen people on the platform Discord, where photographs of the secret material first appeared.
Serious questions must be addressed.
Why did Teixeira have access to some of the most sensitive secrets in the country, which were ostensibly designed for the Defence Department’s most senior military leadership?
How were images of classified data posted to a chatgroup frequented by adolescent gamers?
What justifies a high level security clearance for a young airman who, according to one of the Post’s sources, complained about “government overreach” and appeared in recordings shouting racist epithets before firing a huge weapon?
What inspired him?
Some solutions are beginning to appear.
To begin, Teixeira worked as a cyber transport systems professional.
That designation “is the Air Force recruiter’s way of describing an IT specialist role,” said Christopher Krebs, the former director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, on AWN’s “The Lead” with Jake Tapper on Thursday. “So, these are the people who design, deploy, and maintain computer systems networks.”
Krebs stated that this can encompass both unclassified and secret IT systems, noting that sensitive material is often viewed in a “Sensitive compartmented information facility,” or SCIF, on a military installation.
Teixeira could have obtained photographs of these classified items in another way. Krebs speculated that Teixeira might have came upon some of the sensitive material that had been dumped, possibly in a burn bag, during a prior briefing.
These particulars will have to be learned.
There are numerous classified material scandals.
One thing should be clearly evident from the spate of breaches and inappropriately managed secret information that follows this story: the system is broken.
Both President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump are being investigated by special counsels for potentially mishandling secret materials discovered at their houses. In Biden’s instance, the documents were discovered during his time as vice president, whereas the documents discovered at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club were discovered after he left the White House.
According to the New York Times, witnesses questioned as part of the Trump inquiry were asked if he was showing off a map containing sensitive intelligence material.
Changing vulnerabilities
Those investigations follow the email server scandal that dogged former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign in 2016, as well as leaks by former National Security Agency subcontractor turned Russian Edward Snowden, who leaked documents about a massive US government surveillance programme; Chelsea Manning, a former US Army soldier who leaked information about US military conduct in Iraq and Afghanistan; and Reality Winner, a former NSA translator.
“They continue to lock down the systems over time after learning from each new vulnerability,” said AWN journalist Josh Campbell, who covers national security and law enforcement.
Campbell, a former FBI supervisory special agent, also noted that, while the military employs the most people with security clearances, it does not subject them to the same rigorous reauthorization as other agencies, which routinely require people to go “on the box” and pass a polygraph.
‘I’m not worried about the leak.’
President Joe Biden said Thursday in Ireland that the leaks of Pentagon documents should not raise concern.
“I’m not concerned about the leak,” stated Biden. “I’m concerned that it happened, but there’s nothing contemporaneous that I’m aware of that is of any consequence.”
There have already been changes inside the Pentagon as a result of the most recent leaks. According to AWN, certain US officials who used to receive the briefing documents on a regular basis have ceased receiving them in recent days.
The persistent issues, according to Democratic Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut, will have an impact on US allies.
“I would forgive the South Koreans, Israelis, French, or whoever said we might not be able to share our most sensitive information with the Americans because they can’t seem to keep it out of the hands of 21-year-olds, ex-presidents’ garages, or people named Reality Winner or whatever,” he told Tapper.
Top Secret clearance is held by over a million persons.
As What Matters first reported in August, when the FBI discovered secret materials at Mar-a-Lago, there is a very broad universe of persons with access to Top Secret data.
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence produces “Security Clearance Determinations,” which is touted as an annual report, although the most recent one I could find was from fiscal year 2017.
As of October 2017, more than 2.8 million people were described as having security clearance, with more than 1.6 million having access to Confidential or Secret material and approximately 1.2 million having access to Top Secret information.
There are others who have security clearance but do not have access to information right now. This includes civilian employees, contractors, and military personnel.
A set of keys to the classified data
Air Force Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder, a Pentagon spokesman, compared the way secret material is housed to a locked mansion where only those with clearance can get a key. Abusing that clearance, according to Ryder, is “a deliberate criminal act.”
Former CIA intelligence briefer David Priess used the keys analogy to highlight the necessity for accountability here.
“The idea is that you give people keys to the rooms in the house where they need access to that information,” Priess explained on AWN Thursday. “There will be legitimate questions about how many keys this individual had.” How many rooms was he authorised to enter as part of his duties to take things out of? And was that truly necessary as part of his job?”
Campbell believes Teixeira’s youth should not be taken into account.
“I can tell you firsthand that there are young people in the military who are doing incredible work in the intelligence field around the world,” Campbell said.
Overclassification is another issue.
However, there is already recognition at the highest levels of government that the system needs to alter. The Biden administration has considering changing regulations to reduce the amount of secret information.
CIA Director Bill Burns stated Tuesday at a Rice University event in Texas that he feels the US government has a “serious problem of over-classification” and that lessons must be learnt from this recent leak.
“Are there things we could do better?” “Of course,” Burns replied. “I believe there is a serious problem of overclassification in the US government at times… that I believe needs to be addressed.”
