Associated Press
The Pentagon on Wednesday announced plans to tighten protection for classified information following the explosive leaks of hundreds of intelligence documents that were accessed through security gaps at a Massachusetts Air National Guard base.
Airman 1st Class Jack Teixeira, 21, is accused of leaking the highly classified military documents in a chatroom on Discord, a social media platform that started as a hangout for gamers.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, in a memo released Wednesday, ordered all of the department’s secured rooms where classified information is stored and accessed to be brought into compliance with intelligence community standards for oversight and tracking. The changes call for increased levels of physical security, additional controls to ensure documents aren’t improperly removed, and the assignment of top-secret control officers to monitor users.
Austin also said the sensitive compartmented information facilities, or SCIFs, must be monitored to prevent the use of electronic devices inside the rooms. That effort would include “appropriate electronic device detection systems and mitigation measures” inside the secure areas, according to the memo.
According to authorities, Teixeira, who enlisted in the Air National Guard in 2019, began sharing military secrets first by typing out classified documents and later by removing classified documents from the base and taking them home to photograph them.
Teixeira worked as a “cyber transport systems specialist,” essentially an IT specialist responsible for military communications networks, which gave him wide access to the military’s classified computing networks.
The case highlighted the potential vulnerabilities the department faces as it works to safeguard classified information at military facilities across the globe that have varying security procedures and layers of protection, a senior defense official said in a briefing with reporters on the new directives.
“There wasn’t a single point of failure,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity in accordance with Pentagon ground rules for the briefing.
Court filings in Teixeira’s case revealed that Air National Guard supervisors warned him at least three times about improper access to classified information, but no further action to restrict his clearance or access was taken.
The official said one of the concerns the department found in its review was that facilities that were farther from headquarters had ambiguity on some of the military’s classified information policies, such as when a security violation was required to be reported higher up the chain of command.
Teixeira pleaded not guilty last month to federal felony charges.
The stunning breach exposed to the world unvarnished secret assessments of Russia’s war in Ukraine, the capabilities and geopolitical interests of other nations and other national security issues. It has led to sweeping security reviews looking at the large number of users who have access to top secret information, who is tracking them, and whether or not they have a need to know.
Austin also directed the Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency to develop ways to more quickly flag and communicate concerns to local commanders about personnel, such as by improving how “continuous vetting information” — any updated reports on criminal records, credit reports or other indicators that are tracked as part of background checks — can be more quickly shared to flag a potential security risk.
An estimated 4 million people hold U.S. security clearances, according to a 2017 report from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Of those, roughly 1.3 million are cleared to access top-secret information.
The Defense Department has previously been criticized for delays vetting new employees for security clearances and for over-classifying information. Officials have tried to balance those concerns against efforts to come up with ways to better protect the documents without further slowing down needed access to information, the official said.
More recent figures weren’t immediately available. But some lawmakers have long wanted to update the U.S. system of classifying information and add safeguards for how documents are stored and tracked.
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Republished with permission of The Associated Press.
2 comments
Earl Pitts American
July 5, 2023 at 4:41 pm
Good afternoon America,
This “Document Gate” along with that fat kilo of Hunter’s cocaine found in The White House are going to take The Democratic Party from swirling the bowl to a full “Where the “H” did they go” flush.
On a related note I, Earl Pitts American, noticed “Uncle Joe” was a little more alert and coherent in his public speaking for a week and 1/2 prior to that cocaine being found in The White House.
And on another related note Corn Pop has been caught on security video on several occasions carrying a large bulging envelope into The White House and leaving soon thereafter with huge amounts of cash hanging out of his pockets. On several occasions 100 dollar bills fell out of Corn Pop’s bulging over-stuffed pockets and he did not even notice. Well over 15,000. was collected by The White House gardner “Honest Willie Johnson” which he turned into Hunter.
Great job Gardner Johnson,
Earl Pitts American
It's Complicated
July 11, 2023 at 9:33 am
The fact that his supervisors warned him ‘at least three times,’ reveals a breakdown in policy and management.
If Teixeira worked for a medical practice, and he purposefully leaked health information, there would be no 2nd warning. Seems like Top Secret national security stuff should have an even higher standard.
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