Tag: leaks

National Security Leaks as Political Rorschach Tests

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That anyone tried to paint Teixeira as a whistleblower hints at the degree to which national security leaks can become political Rorschach tests — inevitably interpreted through one’s partisan or ideological lens.
A decade ago, it was Republicans who blasted Edward Snowden while some on the left defended his actions. After those leaks, GOP House Armed Services Committee Chairman Buck McKeon said, “Mr. Snowden was no whistleblower, but a spy and a traitor [who] put his personal politics and ambitions over the safety and well-being of his fellow citizens.” Democratic members of Congress, including Rep. John Conyers and Sen. Chris Coons, pushed back, arguing that Snowden’s revelations triggered a useful debate about the tradeoffs between liberty and security.
Still, even in today’s polarized atmosphere, partisanship alone does not explain the reaction to every leak. National security is one area where the ideological extremes of both parties often meet, with the far-left and far-right valorizing leakers because they view them as victims of a system they do not trust. A further complication is that by their very nature, whistleblowers are often contrarian, cantankerous and self-righteous — and that automatically makes them polarizing figures.
The Teixeira episode underscores the limits of seeing partisanship as the key factor in explaining the political response to leaks: Most Republicans were quick to distance themselves from Greene’s comments, including some who wholeheartedly share Greene’s skepticism about the war in Ukraine. And while some Democrats defended Snowden, many others signed on to bipartisan letters condemning the national security leaks. The Obama administration did its darnedest to prosecute Snowden.
The partisan politics of national security whistleblowing are also muddied by the fact that whatever is being leaked often implicates both parties. In the case of Snowden, for example, the NSA programs and surveillance he disclosed had their origins in the Bush administration but continued under Barack Obama. Chelsea Manning’s document dump covered multiple administrations. Daniel Ellsberg leaked the Pentagon Papers when Richard Nixon was president but the documents he provided to the New York Times and Washington Post implicated the Kennedy and Johnson administration’s policies in Vietnam.
In some cases, whistleblowers reveal conduct that has nothing to do with the party in power and everything to do with the flawed standard operating procedures of the national security bureaucracies — in Teixeira’s case, how in the hell he got a security clearance in the first place. In such circumstances, the opposition party always has an incentive to attack the current administration for lax national security safeguards, making it more difficult for those politicians to simultaneously express sympathy with the intent of the leaker.
Another reason the partisan framing does not explain everything is that there are legitimate debates within each party about the power vested in the national security establishment. Progressives on the left and libertarians on the right fundamentally disagree on the state’s role in regulating the market. When it comes to national security, however, they are in lockstep opposition to an expansive national security state. That holds with particular force in the case of whistleblowers. Ellsberg and Snowden acted as they did because they believed the government was either lying to the American people or engaging in activities that stretched federal authority beyond what was publicly known. Progressives and libertarians also share a belief in the overclassification of information. Even though Teixeira revealed sources and methods in his postings, it may be awkward for Republicans to criticize his actions while defending Donald Trump’s post-presidential possession of classified documents.
Perhaps the most important complicating factor is that when one individual is responsible for the leaks, that person defines the narrative — for good or ill. Whistleblowers can be a difficult group to like; many Americans will find it wrong when someone with top secret information turns on the organization that trusted them. As one scholarly analysis of the phenomenon acknowledged, “Even when the actions of whistleblowers are subjectively motivated by moral concerns, they may be perceived by others as ill-considered and as having immoral (or at least problematic) side effects.”

Furthermore, an awful lot of the people who leak wind up being something less than the heroic martyr that some imagine them to be. Mark Felt, the high-ranking FBI official dubbed “Deep Throat” during Watergate, did not leak information to Bob Woodward out of the goodness of his heart — it was part of a self-serving (and unsuccessful) plan to become the next FBI director. As one biographer put it: “Felt didn’t help the media for the good of the country, he used the media in service of his own ambition.” Edward Snowden, now a Russian citizen, has been mostly silent about that country’s brutal invasion of Ukraine even as he criticized the Biden administration for wanting to regulate cryptocurrencies. Teixeira leaked information to multiple Discord groups to gain attention from others, not for any ideological or policy reason. He also trafficked in racial and antisemitic slurs on those channels.
It is also the case that sometimes the content of the leaks is interpreted differently from what the leaker intended or outside observers expected. Wikileaks’ Cablegate was supposed to be an exposé of perfidious U.S. foreign policy behavior; mostly it revealed that U.S. diplomats were saying the same things in private that they were saying in public. Similarly, Teixeira’s leaks have publicized diplomatic initiatives and security assessments that the Biden administration wanted kept secret. Contrary to the claims of Carlson and Greene, however, there is little that is new in these leaks about the war in Ukraine.
If there is a pattern, it might be that more conservative leakers act out of a sense of personal ambition and more liberal leakers do so out of a sense of indignation. But the political reaction to any leak is a combination of partisanship, ideology and the inherent fact that not all leakers are selfless whistleblowers.
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#National #Security #Leaks #Political #Rorschach #Tests
( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

April 30, 2023
Air Force unit in document leaks case loses intel mission

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The leaks have raised questions as to how a single airman could have removed so many documents without being detected, why there were not safety checks in place and how the documents could have lingered online undetected for months.
“How could this guardsman take this information and distribute it electronically for weeks, if not months, and nobody knew about it?” Democratic Sen. Jon Tester of Montana asked the Air Force leaders testifying before a Senate defense appropriations subcommittee.
These are questions the Air Force is asking, too. For top secret information across the military, there’s supposed to be accountable control officers who are responsible for recording active top secret documents and ensuring they have been either properly secured or disposed of, such as through a shredder or by burning them.
Pending further review, “The 102nd Intelligence Wing is not currently performing its assigned intelligence mission. The mission has been temporarily reassigned to other organizations within the Air Force,” the service said in a statement to The Associated Press.
In addition, the Air Force is conducting a service-wide review of how each command handles classified information, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. C.Q. Brown told members of subcommittee.
The Air Force’s own reviews are on top of a military-wide review directed on Monday by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. Austin has ordered that all military facilities that handle classified information report to him within 45 days on how they access, share, store and destroy the nation’s secrets following the leaks.
The leaked documents exposed to the world unvarnished secret assessments on the war in Ukraine, the capabilities and geopolitical interests of other nations and other national security issues.
Teixeira posted the highly classified material in a geopolitical chat room on Discord, a social media platform that started as a hangout for gamers.

“He had access to some aspects based on his job as a cyber administrator. He took advantage of that access,” Brown said.
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#Air #Force #unit #document #leaks #case #loses #intel #mission
( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

April 19, 2023
China to quickly gain air superiority in Taiwan attack, US leaks warn

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London: China would probably establish air superiority very rapidly in any attack on Taiwan, according to leaked US intelligence assessments that raise disturbing questions about the self-ruled island’s military readiness, media reports said.
The documents emerged as G7 foreign ministers met to discuss a common China strategy and Beijing briefly halted flights over part of the East China Sea on Sunday.
The classified documents seen by the Washington Post reveal that Taiwan’s military leaders doubt their air defences can “accurately detect missile launches” and that only about half of the island’s aircraft are capable of effectively engaging the enemy.

The documents also said Taiwan feared moving its aircraft to shelters could take up to a week, leaving them vulnerable to missile strikes, and that China’s use of civilian ships for military purposes was hampering US intelligence’s ability to predict an invasion, The Guardian reported.
Pentagon analysts concluded China’s air force would find it far easier to establish early air superiority than Russia did in its invasion of Ukraine, it added.
China views Taiwan as part of its territory to be retaken one day, by force if necessary. Chinese President Xi Jinping has expanded and modernised the People’s Liberation Army and China’s armed forces are thought to be 14 times the size of Taiwan’s.
Taiwan’s Defence Ministry said in a statement to the Washington Post that it “respects outside opinions about its military preparedness” but its response to recent Chinese military exercises showed officers were “absolutely capable, determined and confident”.
Taiwan last week staged large-scale emergency response drills enacting scenarios including missile and chemical weapons attacks, after China held its latest military exercises around the island, 100 miles (160km) off the Chinese mainland.

Flights out of northern Taiwan were delayed on Sunday morning after China launched a satellite rocket that dropped debris into waters north of the capital, Taipei. Taiwan’s Defence Ministry said the incident posed no threat to “our nation’s territory”, The Guardian reported.
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#China #quickly #gain #air #superiority #Taiwan #attack #leaks #warn
( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

April 16, 2023
The Real Scandal Behind the Pentagon Leaks

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As national security disasters go, the Pentagon leaks were complete. But as great a scandal as the secrets deluge might be, the greater scandal is how lax the Pentagon appears to be with such monumentally confidential information that it could be purloined and posted on freeform internet sites 4Chan and Discord. Squawking from Congress has ensued, of course, and the Pentagon has muttered about how “serious” the damage is. There is talk that some of the documents have been altered to exaggerate the number of Russian dead. But the government is mostly ostriching the calamity right now. President Joe Biden has been silent on the issue. And on Monday, White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby, counseled the press to look away. Declining to confirm the provenance of the documents, Kirby said, “It has no business — if you don’t mind me saying — on the front pages of newspapers or on television. It is not intended for public consumption, and it should not be out there.”
Yes, yes! If the press and the public will only take a deep breath and ignore the rising floodwaters, the Russians and the Turks and the Israelis will ignore the tidal wave, too, and dryness will be restored to the land. Good work, Kirby!
The Pentagon — and Kirby, who previously worked as a military and diplomatic affairs analyst for CNN — have enough egg on their faces to start an omelet factory. They don’t know how these secrets escaped their cage, they don’t know who engineered the breakout, they don’t know if additional secrets were snagged. They seem to know nothing and to be engaged in the magical thinking that if we turn away the problem will disappear.
According to press reports, the stash of classified documents appears to have been printed and photographed before being posted online and were likely printed from a secure printer by an authorized user. One unnamed U.S. official told the New York Times that hundreds, if not thousands, of military and U.S. officials have security clearances that would permit them access to the documents. The Pentagon is going to need a wide dragnet if they hope to catch the leaker.
The paradox of the national security machine is that in order for the secrets it gathers to be of any practical use, they must be shared widely enough to be put to work. It’s vital for hundreds if not thousands of policymakers and military officials to know, for example, the burn rate on Ukrainian and Russian artillery shells and anti-aircraft missiles. Or the content of the Russian government’s plans. Or what the Wagner Group is up to. But the secrets lose their fizz the minute the Russians know what the American forces know. Worse than that, the Russians can use the spilled secrets to determine how the secrets got spilled in the first place, blinding future attempts by the American apparatus.
Finding a balance between holding secrets too tightly and handling them like easily lost pocket change would make a good thesis topic for George Smiley. Judging the debts and assets of the intelligence breach can’t be fully ascertained without access to additional secrets about how the Russians and others are responding. The Pentagon has gone on record saying that the leaks “could lead to people losing their lives,” which is the standard official comment when secrets leak and the implied reason flacks like Kirby don’t want the press to report on them. These claims of “lost lives” are always contested, as they were when the Wikileaks cables were unspooled in 2010, and when Edward Snowden shared top-secret documents in 2013, with the admonitions often being downgraded from “lives lost” to “caused harm.”
That said, it’s incontrovertible during wartime that unique “information” that’s freed up can be used by either side to launch deadly attacks. But in this case, some of the “secrets,” such as both Ukraine and Russia running short on munitions, have been previously reported in the press. Likewise, the Russians have known since the dawn of the Ukraine war that our spies were reading their mail because the Biden administration made it a tool of diplomacy to inform the world that we had learned Russia’s “secret” military plans. It’s hard at this point to see how the revelations about Egypt, Turkey, the Wagner Group and the attempted shoot-down of a British spy plane will directly lead to the loss of life. But I suppose John Kirby will take a stab at it when he brushes the omelet off his face.
Sarcasm aside, the leaks may prove disastrous for the United States, Ukraine and its NATO allies in the war. But until that is proven, we should feel free to interpret the government’s reaction to the breach as acts of deflection designed to escape blame for maintaining such a loose grip on these vital secrets. Bring on the coverage of the damage done by these leaks, but don’t forget the equally urgent story: On whose watch were the leaks allowed to happen and what is being done to prevent a new gusher?

******
I’ve got nothing against John Kirby, who answered my single query to him at the beginning of the war. I’m just against Kirbyism. Send secrets to [email protected]. No new email alert subscriptions are being honored at this time. My Twitter feed has a Discord account. My Mastodon and Post accounts are jealous because I joined Substack Notes. My RSS feed shoots down spy planes before breakfast.

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#Real #Scandal #Pentagon #Leaks
( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

April 12, 2023
‘I’m sick to my stomach’: Pentagon officials shocked by intel leaks

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Inside the Defense Department, officials described feelings of shock and distress as the scope of the leak emerged over the weekend.
“The mood is anger,” said one DoD official, who like others quoted for this story was granted anonymity to discuss internal reactions to the leak. “It’s a massive betrayal.”
“I’m sick to my stomach,” said a second DoD official.
The Justice Department has opened a criminal investigation into the breach, and the Pentagon is leading an interagency effort to determine the impact on national security. DoD is also now reviewing its processes for handling classified information, including how the information is distributed and to whom, Pentagon press secretary Chris Meagher told reporters Monday.
But DoD is still trying to get a handle on the scope of the breach. The department is continuing to assess “what might be out there,” Meagher said.
“The Department of Defense’s highest priority is the defense of our nation and our national security,” he said. “We of course condemn any unauthorized disclosure of classified information, and we’re taking this very seriously.”
National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby also acknowledged that more classified materials may be out there. Asked whether the leak has been contained, he responded: “We don’t know. We truly don’t.”
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin was informed of the leak during his morning briefing on April 6, after an initial tranche of five images surfaced on mainstream social media platforms, according to Meagher. On the morning of April 7, Austin began daily meetings with senior leaders to discuss the issue.

At the secretary’s direction, DoD set up a “cross-department effort” to assess the potential impacts of the leak, engage allies and lawmakers, and determine the way ahead, Meagher said.
The breach has set off a diplomatic crisis, with Biden administration officials seeking to reassure concerned international counterparts.
Officials were initially concerned about the intelligence breach but believed the information would be of limited use to Russia because it showed a snapshot in time, said the first defense official. For example, one slide was labeled “Status of the Conflict as of 1 Mar,” and depicted a map of troop positions. The documents also appeared to be heavily doctored, the official said.
But by the afternoon of April 7, it was clear that the leak was much bigger than the officials imagined. A tranche of over 100 documents has been circulating since at least early March, when they were first posted online on Discord, a social media platform popular with gamers.
The documents appear to be photographs of printouts that were folded up and then smoothed out again. A number of items appear underneath the paper documents, including “Gorilla” brand super glue gel and a rifle scope from hunting company “Creative XP.”
The leak has prompted conversations about whether DoD should further restrict the number of people who have access to sensitive information. The first DoD official described seeing classified information, both in paper form and on electronic tablets, “all over the Pentagon.”
“Anytime that there are documents like this with the sensitivities that they contain, the highest levels of this building is going to be concerned,” said a third DoD official.
Experts said the disclosure could be even more damaging than the leak by Edward Snowden 10 years ago, particularly because the information is so recent. The documents related to Ukraine, for example, date from late February to early March, and show battlefield information that is still relevant to the conflict.
Mick Mulroy, a former top Pentagon official and retired CIA officer, said the investigation needs to move quickly not just to identify the source of the leak but to prevent any further disclosures.
“We need to rethink how we store and hold classified information and who has access to that information,” Mulroy said.
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#sick #stomach #Pentagon #officials #shocked #intel #leaks
( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

April 11, 2023
13 exam paper leaks in Gujarat in last 8 yrs, will Bandi ask for Modi’s resignation?: KTR

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Hyderabad: BRS working president and IT & Industries Minister KT Rama Rao has slammed BJP state chief Bandi Sanjay over the TSPSC paper leak issue, saying that the former made ‘unfounded accusations’ against the state government without knowing that TSPSC is a constitutional body and the state has a limited role to play.
“This demonstrates the level of his ignorance,” KTR remarked.
KTR delivered a press statement here on Friday warning that Sanjay would soon be prosecuted for his ‘political plots’. He admonished the BJP leaders to refrain from ‘politicking’ the situation for their own personal advantage.
The BRS working president stated that by attributing one person’s error to the entire TSPSC, the BJP was attempting to incite ‘unrest’ among the youth who were out of jobs. Rama Rao recalled that Bandi Sanjay had made an appeal to the youth to quit their employment and cease studying for exams in order to campaign for the BJP.
The minister added that the saffron party lacked ‘moral standing’ to cast doubt on the BRS government’s resolve to help the unemployed and that there had been countless instances of paper leaks in numerous BJP-ruled states.
“In Gujarat, the state of Narendra Modi, 13 exam papers have been stolen during the past eight years. Does Bandi Sanjay have the guts to ask for Modi’s resignation?” he asked.
“How the government responds to an issue when it emerges is essential,” Rama Rao remarked, recalling how, as soon as the paper leak issue surfaced, the state government acted quickly, formed an SIT, and detained all the offenders.
“Although the occurrence was regrettable, the TSPSC has decided to cancel the Group-1 preliminary examinations in order to uphold justice and consider the future of all qualified candidates,” he said.

He reassured Telangana’s youth and students were reassured that they didn’t need to be concerned about the recruitment process.
He added that the BRS government had already demonstrated its commitment to the unemployed youth by filling up vacant positions and that the state government would take all necessary steps to achieve justice for each and every unemployed youth in the state.
“The State government established a new zonal system, unique to the rest of the nation, with the aspirational goal of delivering 95% of the jobs for Telangana’s youth as evidence of its dedication to their welfare,” he said.
He stated that Bandi Sanjay has previously used a similar style of irrational personal accusation in relation to the Intermediate exams without possessing even a basic understanding of how the government functions.
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#exam #paper #leaks #Gujarat #yrs #Bandi #Modis #resignation #KTR
( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

March 18, 2023
TSPSC leaks: Telangana BJP chief on one-day hunger strike demanding judicial probe

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Hyderabad: Telangana Bharatiya Janata Party president Bandi Sanjay Kumar will sit on a day-long hunger strike at the state party headquarters on Friday demanding that the state government order a judicial inquiry by a sitting high court judge into the leakage of the examination paper of the recruitment test conducted by the Telangana State Public Service Commission.
Sanjay also demanded the immediate sacking of state information technology minister KT Rama Rao from the cabinet, as his IT department had ‘failed to prevent the leakage of the question paper’, besides a complete overhaul of the TSPSC and payment of compensation of Rs 1 lakh to each of the unemployed youth who had suffered due to cancellation of the examination.
Before commencing the hunger strike, the BJP president would go to the Telangana martyrs’ memorial at Gun Park in front of the state assembly at 10 am to pay homage to the martyrs. “This is to highlight the fact that the K Chandrasekhar Rao government has belittled the sacrifices made by over 1400 youth for the sake of Telangana state,” a press note from BJP said.
Later, Sanjay would sit on a protest hunger strike from 10.30 am to 2.30 pm at the party office, the party said.
On Thursday morning, the BJP president went to Chanchalguda Central Prison to call on the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha leaders, who were arrested while protesting at the TSPSC office on Wednesday.
Speaking to reporters later, Sanjay strongly condemned the lathi-charge and arrest of BJYM state president Bhanu Prakash and others who were doing a ‘peaceful’ protest over the leakage of the TSPSC question paper. “While the accused in the leakage case are being given the royal treatment, those who took part in the protests are subject to harassment,” he alleged.
The Begum Bazaar police arrested seven activists of Bhartiya Janata Yuva Morcha for rioting and damaging public property at the Telangana State Public Service Commission (TSPSC) during the protest on Tuesday.
Sanjay sought to know how the question paper was leaked without the knowledge of the TSPSC chairman. “In fact, the TSPSC officials should be prosecuted first. The constitution of an SIT is just a hoax as it would not serve any purpose. Many SITs constituted in the past did not yield any results,” he said.

Stating that the entire episode was a ‘drama’ enacted by KCR’s son KT Rama Rao, Sanjay wondered why the state government was hesitating to order a judicial probe by a sitting high court judge.
Stating that the ‘failure’ of KTR is clearly evident in the entire episode, Sanjay said the Information Technology department, headed by KTR had miserably failed to prevent leakage of the question paper. “It is shameless on the part of KTR to say that the BJP has a role in the leakage, on the pretext that one of the arrested Rajasekhar has connections with the BJP,” he said.
He pointed out that Rajasekhar had been an employee of Telangana State Technology Services, which is part of the IT department headed by KTR. “What is KTR doing instead of identifying such people? He is unfit to be a minister,” he said.
Sanjay said Rajasekhar had nothing to do with the BJP. “Many people come to me to take selfies. Does it mean I have connections with all of them?” he asked.
He alleged out that the mastermind behind the question paper leakage Renuka has connections with the Bharat Rashtra Samithi. “Her mother is a sarpanch of BRS. Her brother is a BRS leader. So, for whose benefit the question paper was leaked?” he asked.
He demanded that all those, including the TSPSC chairman, be sacked and stringent action be taken against them. “The government should conduct recruitment tests as scheduled,” he said.
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#TSPSC #leaks #Telangana #BJP #chief #oneday #hunger #strike #demanding #judicial #probe
( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

March 16, 2023