Cast your eye around the classified world today and an odd phenomenon becomes apparent. We find a compromise of protected information cases, yet the perpetrators are not like only a few decades ago. Many compromise violations are committed by young, idealistic persons at the often-literal beginning of their careers. What are we dealing with? Idealists? Unaware neophytes who haven’t been properly briefed? Common thieves? Or something else altogether.
Young and Idealistic
Consider just a few cases. Chelsea Manning had been in the U.S. Army for only three years. She had access to a sea of classified information as an intelligence analyst. This vast amount of data she compromised when, while stationed in Iraq, she passed hundreds of thousands of military and State Department cables to Julian Assange’s Wikileaks. When he published them, it was considered the greatest breach of classified information in American history. Her attorney, Nancy Hollander, said she did so because “We need brave individuals to hold the government accountable for its actions at home and abroad…”. Indeed, Manning’s claim to be a whistleblower led her to release a video of an airstrike that erroneously killed Iraqi civilians. She said, “What was bothering me was I [had] years of training and years of believing in something and then hitting the ground and then seeing it and feeling completely unprepared for how different [it was],” Manning says. “I wanted that discrepancy to be addressed somehow.”
In another case, Jack Teixeira, an IT technician and National Guardsman, extracted classified information and shared it in discussions with uncleared counterparts online. His violation was known to him. He stated to another user that he was concerned that he would get in trouble for “making the transcriptions of text in the workplace” so he began taking the documents to his residence and photographing them. How many espionage stories have we read where the insidious spy takes photographs of Secret documents at home and then scurries them back to work before anyone notices they are gone? Yet here we have someone who had access to Ukrainian war data and electronic collection information who only worries that he might be found out at work.
Indeed, a navy sailor even tried to access controlled information about President Biden. These are only a few examples of compromise coming from unexpected sources. We once thought Edward Snowden’s compromises were overwhelming. We now see a major conflict between idealism which sees itself manifested in ‘whistleblowing’, and what we who protect classified information see as a compromise of classified information. Why should we study such cases? First, because every defense lawyer in America is. As defense lawyers generally argue on behalf of their clients, ‘If I in my capacity as a member of a cleared program decide something needs to be known to the world, what should stop me if I’m on the side of righteousness? What authorizes this?’ In Manning’s case the video, of an Apache Helicopter erroneously gunning down civilians, needed to be known, in her opinion. Had she any options other than sending raw data to public information outlets like Wikileaks?
Any other options?
We who defend our way of life through classified programs say of course she did. She could have told her chain of command about her concerns. Or, distrusting them, she could have reported her observations to the command’s Inspector General. It is their job to investigate potential wrongdoing by those they serve. Indeed, she could have contacted her command’s Criminal Investigation Division. It is their job to investigate such claims. There is no need to remain within the chain of command if you wish to report formally what you believe is wrongdoing; wrong that the direct chain might interfere with if reported to them. More significantly, she could have contacted her supporting Military Intelligence unit. They are there to protect not only classified information but also the professionalism of military units engaged in such programs. Indeed, ‘whistleblowers’ could go to any Judge Advocate’s office and explain the situation. All of these methods of exposing perceived wrongs should be briefed annually.
Why? If the video in question exposed wrongdoing, its participants also could have been party to bringing disgust upon all American forces. That we are hiding such activities without corrective action being applied is what all our adversaries hope to reveal about us. What Manning did is to take the official avenues of correction away from the US government and show the world where a wrong action had taken place. Those policies which the government has developed to counter such actions are formal and briefed. Such corrective actions the government instituted over the years were never even considered by the leakers.
Likewise, Teixeira. He engaged in information sharing he knew was wrong, but did it anyway. Likewise, the navy sailor sought information denied to the public. His motive was not revealed, although curiosity is among the least defensible pleas.
Educate Employees Early
What to do? When we brief our new employees, we need to clearly state the difference between whistleblowing and compromise. Attaching a virtuous reason for the exposure of one wrong activity discovered, as in the Manning case, does not justify not going past the chain of command or other formal reporting methods. Trying to hang one possibly wrong government action on a follow-up release of thousands of documents is utterly indefensible. Likewise with Teixeira. No one has the authority to extract classified without official reason. Nor does anyone have access to other’s personal data without authorization. That these compromises were by young people should remind us that even the most basic of classified control measures must be introduced and explained early. Keep copies of all briefing points covered, too. In case of a compromise, it is important to show that the violator knew what he or she was doing was wrong.
