When classified information is leaked, as it allegedly did in the case of Jack Teixeira (who has pled not guilty of revealing classified media in various social media chatrooms), there is usually a “blame net” that gets spread far and wide by the media, government officials and politicians. While most of the net is cast over the individual leaker, others may be casualties as well. This can include supervisors of the offenders, training managers and programs, and yes, even those who investigated and granted the clearance in the first place.
As major media outlets look to unpack the Jack Teixeira case, they’re coming up against one reality – the Privacy Act protects many elements of the security clearance process. What it doesn’t protect is the government’s statutory requirements to respond.
The Washington Post filed suit against the Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency (DCSA) for refusing to answer or provide materials in response to an August FOIA request made by the Post against the agency in the Teixeira matter. It appears much of the interest generated by the Post in the clearance investigation arose from multiple statements made by the prosecutors during the legal proceedings against Teixeira. The Post in their complaint wrote “prosecutors stated in opposing pretrial release that Teixeira had been suspended from high school in 2018 after “a classmate overheard him make remarks about weapons, including Molotov cocktails, guns at the school, and racial threats” and “Less than a year later, Teixeira’s application for a firearms identification card “was denied due to the concerns of the local police department over [Teixeira’s] remarks at his high school.”
Whether all of that information was disclosed to the DSCA investigator and they did not address it, or they never discovered it in the first place, is probably what the newspaper wants answered. The Post cites public interest as a reason to grant the FOIA request, including questions asked by Congress about the clearance investigation. DSCA denied the FOIA request based on privacy and the documents’ relationship to law enforcement exceptions. The Post request was for three specific elements – the investigation information (protected by the Privacy Act), the adjudication information (protected by the Privacy Act), and information concerning who conducted the background investigation, including the name of the company, and the specific investigators and adjudicator (also likely covered by Privacy Act and the ongoing criminal case).
The Post appealed the decision and noted in their complaint the appeal had not been decided within the statutory guidelines of twenty business days, thus filing suit for relief.
This added interest in DSCA and the clearance investigation process by the media and others is a sidebar in a criminal case that does not seem that complex. Will it overshadow the actual criminal proceeding itself? Or stall efforts in the security clearance reform effort? Doubtful, but with political interest backing the Washington Post, it may certainly not fade out of the news entirely.
