How this year’s military intelligence leaks could damage US security

It was massive, costly, and secret.

According to a declassified CIA history, the Hughes Glomar Explorer was created in the early 1970s to lift a Soviet submarine from the Pacific Ocean.

A February 1975 Los Angeles Times investigation unraveled the CIA cover story that Howard Hughes built the ship to collect manganese nodules from the ocean, leading the agency to terminate the operation.

Jack Teixeira, a 21-year-old Air National Guard member accused of posting top-secret military intelligence documents online, appeared in court on Wednesday, raising questions about whether leaks harm U.S. security in cases other than the Hughes Glomar Explorer.

Given that internal assessments are secret, proving that a leak, whether a single data point or a trove of papers, has harmed the U.S. government is challenging, but analysts of government secrecy said the damage can be dramatic.

“There is a potential… for great damage because many of the most valuable intelligence methods are quite fragile,” stated Federation of American Scientists Steven Aftergood.

“Once their existence is known, they can be evaded or spoofed and so their intelligence value can evaporate,” he said, alluding to a target avoiding espionage or misrepresenting information.

“Individuals can be placed at significant risk of imprisonment or death,” he continued.

FOUR DAMAGES
Washington national security attorney Mark Zaid listed four potential harms.

These include disclosing the information itself (such as troop locations); the source or method of collection (which can endanger the individual or the stream of information); the mere fact of U.S. interest (which may help adversaries identify and exploit U.S. trigger points); and public disclosure, which can embarrass or provoke other nations, including allies.

Diplomatic repercussions occur.

After the Washington Post reported on apparent tensions between Mexico’s army and navy, Mexico’s president on Tuesday accused the Pentagon of snooping and said he would classify armed forces material to safeguard national security.

Two U.S. ambassadors were fired after Wikileaks released diplomatic and military papers in 2010.

After Ecuador expelled the U.S. ambassador to Mexico for cables alleging police corruption, he resigned in 2011.

Due to confidential internal analyses, outsiders cannot fully assess leak harm.

“The damage assessment itself would likely reveal additional classified information,” Zaid added, including how long a source was giving information and whether it caused a tactical setback, such as troop deployments.Officials may downplay or exaggerate leaks to gain public favor or strengthen their case for punishing leakers.

The Hughes Glomar Explorer, which cost hundreds of millions of dollars and only recovered part of the Soviet submarine, was useless to the CIA once its secret was compromised.

After private deepwater oil drilling, the ship was dismantled in 2015.