US embarrassed by reservist who leaked Pentagon documents: Who can access classified information? | Abroad

Teixeira, who worked as an “information technology specialist,” will appear in federal court in Boston today. The FBI arrested him yesterday at his home in North Dighton, Massachusetts, about 75 miles from Otis Air National Guard Base (a military training facility), where he worked. Incidentally, Teixeira was only arrested after American journalists revealed just about everything about him in the investigation into the high-profile leaks of stacks of classified documents.

The following day The Washington Post And The New York Times clearly explained how secret documents – including on Ukrainian air defense – ended up on social media, “OG”, as Texeira called himself online, was arrested. The American media compares the scandal to the famous Snowden files of 2013, when Edward Snowden, an employee of the National Security Agency (NSA), made public many secret documents. And that had consequences: Angela Merkel learned, among other things, that she was being wiretapped by the Americans, who turned out to be spying on several Western allies.

Regardless of what the Teixeira documents reveal, it remains amazing how many people in the many US departments apparently have access to these classified documents. Why should a rookie like Jack Teixeira be able to see how Ukrainian air defense is organized? Quite a risk. Another thing the US Secret Service is currently dealing with: how was Teixeira able to remove classified documents from a secure site without arousing suspicion? And then he was a fairly sincere boy from a religious patriotic family, it is reported. Not about a seasoned Russian spy.

“A lot of people can read these kinds of articles,” reports The New York Times today: from members of the National Guard at bases in Massachusetts and generals at NATO headquarters in Brussels to US bureaucrats around the world. The said ‘Top secretIn practice, the level of consent therefore appears accessible to a remarkable number of eyes. “It allows them to see secure Pentagon and other intelligence sites, daily intelligence briefings, situation maps, and detailed analysis of the state of the world, all through the eyes of U.S. intelligence. .”

US military personnel with “top secret clearance” include nearly all of the more than 600 US generals, as well as their military aides, many colonels who work in the Pentagon, captains of naval vessels, a wide variety of junior officers and even, in the case of ‘Airman Teixeira’, reservists in training. Officials from the Pentagon, the US Department of Defense, estimate the number of people with such access to confidential documents to be in the tens of thousands, according to the newspaper. Even non-military think tank analysts would have some degree of “security clearance”.

The question is whether the term “top secret” really is top secret, and whether the national security services have allowed their sensitive material to drift too far. The New York Times. Teixeira’s arrest will certainly have consequences for himself. The overenthusiastic player is likely to receive a heavy penalty, also as a warning of what awaits those who mishandle secret information.

Teixeira, 21, was arrested under the Espionage Act and faces up to 10 years on each charge. This could therefore put him behind bars for many decades. A US Navy man, Jonathan Toebbe, who tried (unsuccessfully) to sell foreign secrets classified at a lower level of confidentiality was sentenced last year to 19 years in prison. Some military officials have defended the practice of issuing security clearances to service members regardless of age. “If someone is old enough to die for their country, they are old enough to be entrusted with their secrets,” the argument continues.

Measures were taken at the time after the leak by Edward Snowden, but they were apparently not sufficiently followed. To limit intelligence service breaches after the Snowden affair, it was made difficult for service employees to digitally copy secret material. In the case of OG, documents appear to have been printed and removed from secret files.

Hours after Teixeira’s arrest, Kathleen Hicks, the Undersecretary of Defense, sent out a memorandum reiterating rules for handling classified documents. “Personnel with access to classified information are trusted custodians of that information and the responsibility to protect classified information is an ongoing requirement of anyone who has been granted a security clearance.”

President Biden insists the leak is painful, but the consequences should not be overstated.

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