Barbados Times

Barbados, Caribbean & World News
Thursday, Apr 18, 2024

Why did the US take so long to notice the classified document leak?

Why did the US take so long to notice the classified document leak?

A major leak of classified documents has shaken the United States and is now raising questions about how authorities could have missed them.

The leak seems to have started in a small private chatroom on a social media platform called Discord, popular with video gamers.

The documents purport to detail the progress of the Ukraine war, Kyiv's battle plans and US espionage tactics around the world.

According to an investigation by Bellingcat, images of the top secret files were shared as far back as January but they only caught Washington’s attention in early April once the media started reporting on the leak.

On Thursday, US authorities identified the suspected leaker as 21-year-old Jack Teixeira. He has been arrested and taken into custody.

Teixeira is a 21-year-old member of the Massachusetts Air National Guard. The documents are normally accessible only to officials with the highest level of security clearance, raising eyebrows about how a junior member of staff could have accessed this information.

Yet US defence officials told AP he needed such access in his role.


Should US intelligence agencies change how they handle sensitive information?


"It's alarming that this person had access to this type of information," said Dan Lomas, a security and intelligence lecturer at Brunel University, London.

"Within the U.S. intelligence community, there are 18 different intelligence organisations. There are hundreds of thousands of individuals who can potentially gain access to documents like this. It's a result of this idea that post-9/1, the government started pushing out as much information as possible for analysts to interpret. The more you push information out, the more likely it'll be leaked due to so many people having access to it," he told Euronews.

The documents appeared in a dark corner of the web focused on gaming and in a small private chatroom. Lomas believes it was understandable the Pentagon did not notice the leak.

"There are so many avenues for people to potentially leak information online. There's so many online chat rooms, and you can anonymise yourself and leak information... This is effectively like searching for a needle in a haystack," he explained.

"But at the heart of the story is the problem of someone actually printing out these documents and taking them home to then post online. think there are also potential issues there regarding the vetting of individuals, but mostly it's about document security and who has access to this. I suspect we'll start to see, if anything, a tightening up of the document handling processes."

However, cybersecurity experts say Discord has been used by criminals and hackers.

“The Discord domain helps attackers disguise the exfiltration of data by making it look like any other traffic coming across the network,” said a 2021 report by Cisco’s Talos cybersecurity team.

But monitoring online private chatrooms also could raise issues in terms of privacy and free speech. Law enforcement agencies don’t have the legal right to monitor a private online chatroom preemptively.

"If they do start doing that, then you have a clash with constitutional rights. You have serious questions about civil liberties and individual freedom in the US," said Abishur Prakash, geopolitics and technology expert in an interview with Euronews.


'A unique instance of leakage'


The intelligence leak does not appear to resemble previous incidents such as in the case of Edward Snowden in 2013.

The big question currently: why did the leaker disclose these documents? The motive remains unclear and the way it happened is very unusual as well, according to experts.

"Intelligence agencies in the U.S. have to ask the question: why are people doing this? It's not about civic duty. It's about something else," said Abishur Prakash.

"This is a unique instance of leakage. We're seeing someone leak information not for political purposes, not whistleblowing purposes, seemingly for the weird reason of wanting to make friends," believes Dan Lomas, security and intelligence lecturer.

"He seems to be someone who wants to reach out to individuals to impress them. One way to do it is to share top-secret, classified U.S. information that might make people think that this person is more important than he really is," he said.

As the investigation unfolds, officials are bracing for the possibility that more classified information could be circulating online.

Newsletter

Related Articles

Barbados Times
0:00
0:00
Close
Paper straws found to contain long-lasting and potentially toxic chemicals - study
FTX's Bankman-Fried headed for jail after judge revokes bail
Blackrock gets half a trillion dollar deal to rebuild Ukraine
Israel: Unprecedented Civil Disobedience Looms as IDF Reservists Protest Judiciary Reform
America's First New Nuclear Reactor in Nearly Seven Years Begins Operations
Southeast Asia moves closer to economic unity with new regional payments system
Today Hunter Biden’s best friend and business associate, Devon Archer, testified that Joe Biden met in Georgetown with Russian Moscow Mayor's Wife Yelena Baturina who later paid Hunter Biden $3.5 million in so called “consulting fees”
Singapore Carries Out First Execution of a Woman in Two Decades Amid Capital Punishment Debate
Google testing journalism AI. We are doing it already 2 years, and without Google biased propoganda and manipulated censorship
Unlike illegal imigrants coming by boats - US Citizens Will Need Visa To Travel To Europe in 2024
Musk announces Twitter name and logo change to X.com
The politician and the journalist lost control and started fighting on live broadcast.
The future of sports
Unveiling the Black Hole: The Mysterious Fate of EU's Aid to Ukraine
Farewell to a Music Titan: Tony Bennett, Renowned Jazz and Pop Vocalist, Passes Away at 96
Alarming Behavior Among Florida's Sharks Raises Concerns Over Possible Cocaine Exposure
Transgender Exclusion in Miss Italy Stirs Controversy Amidst Changing Global Beauty Pageant Landscape
Joe Biden admitted, in his own words, that he delivered what he promised in exchange for the $10 million bribe he received from the Ukraine Oil Company.
TikTok Takes On Spotify And Apple, Launches Own Music Service
Global Trend: Using Anti-Fake News Laws as Censorship Tools - A Deep Dive into Tunisia's Scenario
Arresting Putin During South African Visit Would Equate to War Declaration, Asserts President Ramaphosa
Hacktivist Collective Anonymous Launches 'Project Disclosure' to Unearth Information on UFOs and ETIs
Typo sends millions of US military emails to Russian ally Mali
Server Arrested For Theft After Refusing To Pay A Table's $100 Restaurant Bill When They Dined & Dashed
The Changing Face of Europe: How Mass Migration is Reshaping the Political Landscape
China Urges EU to Clarify Strategic Partnership Amid Trade Tensions
Europe is boiling: Extreme Weather Conditions Prevail Across the Continent
The Last Pour: Anchor Brewing, America's Pioneer Craft Brewer, Closes After 127 Years
Democracy not: EU's Digital Commissioner Considers Shutting Down Social Media Platforms Amid Social Unrest
Sarah Silverman and Renowned Authors Lodge Copyright Infringement Case Against OpenAI and Meta
Italian Court's Controversial Ruling on Sexual Harassment Ignites Uproar
Why Do Tech Executives Support Kennedy Jr.?
The New York Times Announces Closure of its Sports Section in Favor of The Athletic
BBC Anchor Huw Edwards Hospitalized Amid Child Sex Abuse Allegations, Family Confirms
Florida Attorney General requests Meta CEO's testimony on company's platforms' alleged facilitation of illicit activities
The Distorted Mirror of actual approval ratings: Examining the True Threat to Democracy Beyond the Persona of Putin
40,000 child slaves in Congo are forced to work in cobalt mines so we can drive electric cars.
BBC Personalities Rebuke Accusations Amidst Scandal Involving Teen Exploitation
A Swift Disappointment: Why Is Taylor Swift Bypassing Canada on Her Global Tour?
Historic Moment: Edgars Rinkevics, EU's First Openly Gay Head of State, Takes Office as Latvia's President
Bye bye democracy, human rights, freedom: French Cops Can Now Secretly Activate Phone Cameras, Microphones And GPS To Spy On Citizens
The Poor Man With Money, Mark Zuckerberg, Unveils Twitter Replica with Heavy-Handed Censorship: A New Low in Innovation?
Unilever Plummets in a $2.5 Billion Free Fall, to begin with: A Reckoning for Misuse of Corporate Power Against National Interest
Beyond the Blame Game: The Need for Nuanced Perspectives on America's Complex Reality
Twitter Targets Meta: A Tangle of Trade Secrets and Copycat Culture
The Double-Edged Sword of AI: AI is linked to layoffs in industry that created it
US Sanctions on China's Chip Industry Backfire, Prompting Self-Inflicted Blowback
Meta Copy Twitter with New App, Threads
The New French Revolution
BlackRock Bitcoin ETF Application Refiled, Naming Coinbase as ‘Surveillance-Sharing’ Partner
×