U.S. leaks show clash between ‘need to know’ vs ‘need to share’

The newest U.S. intelligence leak shows that safeguarding secrets involves limiting their circulation, but protecting against another Sept. 11, 2001, assault entails sharing them.

President Joe Biden must balance those two goals to avoid leaks, safeguard U.S. security, and encourage friends to share intelligence.

On Thursday, the FBI arrested Jack Teixeira, a 21-year-old U.S. Air Force National Guard employee, for leaking dozens of highly classified U.S. documents online, including information about Ukraine’s military weaknesses and U.S. allies.

Reuters has seen over 50 papers but has not verified their validity.

Former officials said this breach would likely lead to a hard tilt toward restricting information, making it difficult for security personnel to “connect the dots” and prevent assaults like the 2001 New York and Washington strikes.

“The idea that a 21-year-old airman has access to all of these (documents)… shows that in the post-9/11 emphasis on sharing information so that we can connect the dots, we’ve over-shared information,” said former senior National Security Council and congressional staffer Michael Allen.

“The U.S. government will overreact. These papers will be significantly restricted and unavailable to those who require them. He advised a more scalpel approach.

Teixeira may be charged with knowingly maintaining and disseminating national defense material by the Justice Department.

Reuters received no immediate response from the White House or Department of Defense.

The Pentagon reviewed and updated its classified document distribution lists on Thursday.

NEED TO SHARE
After the 2001 al Qaeda attacks, the U.S. made intelligence sharing easier across government institutions.

The 2004 9/11 Commission Report criticized U.S. security services for creating a “‘need-to-know’ culture of information protection rather than a ‘need to share’ culture of integration.”

Naturally, more persons could view secret information.

One U.S. official said Teixeira’s highly sensitive materials were likely available to thousands of people with security clearances.

“One of the things we learned from 9/11 is… we really need to share information,” said former U.S. Intelligence Community inspector general Michael Atkinson. “Leaks, unfortunately, can damage that type of helpful information sharing.”

After Wikileaks released roughly 750,000 U.S. diplomatic and military papers in 2013, the government tightened access.

Chelsea Manning, then a U.S. Army intelligence analyst known as Bradley Manning, leaked the largest amount of sensitive government information.

The Insider Threat Program, implemented by the Obama administration, required U.S. agencies to improve safeguards against unauthorized disclosures, including routinely monitoring and auditing classified computer networks “to detect, monitor, and analyze anomalous user behavior for indicators of misuse.”

Threats vary.
While those improvements may have offered an extra level of security, analysts believe that government security procedures are meant to prevent leaks by people motivated by ideology or a desire for financial reward, as opposed to other incentives such as insiders who divulge secrets for self-aggrandizement.

The Insider Threat program compels government employees to report mishandling secret items and their removal from secure locations, co-workers’ concealed international travel and contacts, and any sudden wealth. They cannot monitor coworkers’ private online activity, such as publishing classified information to impress.

Steven Aftergood, a Federation of American Scientists expert on U.S. government secrecy, said the Obama administration’s policy failed to detect and discourage the recent leaks but was designed to address a different threat.

“The Insider Threat Program was really tailored as a response to the then-Bradley Manning and WikiLeaks scenario in which the unauthorized disclosures had an ideological or political motive,” he stated. “They were a response to perceived injustice, or they were intended as a critique of U.S. policy.”

The New York Times named Teixeira as the leader of an online chat group where he shared the confidential documents with 20 to 30 largely younger people who discussed weapons, racial memes, and video games.

“The Insider Threat Program was looking for other Bradley Mannings,” stated Aftergood. However, Bradley Manning did not commit this recent revelation. “It’s a new phenomenon in which the disclosure is either showing off for his friends… or is neutral about the substance of disclosure.”