Why would a 21-year-old National Guardsman have access to top-secret documents to begin with? The arrest of Jack Teixeira, who authorities believe leaked classified documents, lays bare just how many people have access to top secret intelligence.
8 min readWASHINGTON — Why would a 21-year-old National Guard member be in a position with access to top-secret documents to begin with?
The Pentagon will probably be dealing with the fallout from the leaking of scores of pages of sensitive material for months as, in the immediate term, Russian military planners pore over the leaked files for clues to their own compromised agencies. But the case raises broader questions about whether the term “top secret” is actually even secret, and whether national security agencies have allowed their sensitive material to drift too far afield.
The arrest of Teixeira, Farkas said, serves as a warning for what awaits those who mistreat classified information. Some military officials defended the practice of granting security clearances to service members regardless of their age; if someone is old enough to die for their country, they are old enough to be trusted with its secrets, they argued.
For instance, the top-secret briefs are on government computers that reside in secure work areas known as SCIFs — Sensitive Compartmented Information Facilities — where no one is allowed to bring in any electronic devices that could be used to take photographs or make video or audio recordings. Visitors to a slew of offices at the Pentagon must leave their cellphones, laptops and anything else that can be used to record or take photos in lockers in the hallway.
It was unclear Thursday what level of clearance Teixeira had. But he was detailed to the 102nd Intelligence Wing of the Massachusetts Air National Guard, and it is possible that he had top-secret clearance, a Defense official said Thursday. After 9/11, intelligence agencies began sharing material much more widely across the government. Then, after the failed intelligence assessment that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, intelligence agencies started sharing more about the sources of their information and their confidence in how reliable the material might be.
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