President Joe Biden, high-profile Department of Defense officials and members of Congress have called into question the clearance process and security protocols that they say gave an Air National Guardsman charged with the unauthorized removal and transmission of classified national defense information access to the leaked documents.
Air National Guardsman Jack Teixeira is accused of leaking recent assessments of the situation in Ukraine, details of China’s approval of the “provision of lethal aid” to Russia in its war in Ukraine and Egypt’s secret plans to supply rockets to Russia. The charges carry a potential maximum sentence of 15 years in prison.
In Ireland, Biden said Friday that he has asked to “make sure they get to the root of why he had access in the first place.” While there may have been failures that allowed Teixeira to take home such a large volume of national secrets, it is not out of the norm for a young person in the military to be entrusted with such responsibilities, experts say.
In his role as a cyber transport systems journeyman, Teixeira managed computers and communications systems, a function similar to providing tech support. To do that job, he had maintained a top-secret clearance since 2021, a federal complaint notes, and could view a smaller category of highly classified material called sensitive compartmented information.
Teixeira also had access to a Defense Department computer network called the Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communications System, a U.S. official familiar with the matter told The Washington Post. That could have allowed the 21-year-old to read and potentially to print documents with the same level of classification as many of the ones leaked.
In response to questions from reporters, Pentagon spokesman Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder said Thursday that the military regularly entrusts young people with classified information, that Teixeira having that level of clearance was normal and that scores of other young workers have that type of access.
Experts in national security and clearance law agreed.
“For someone in his particular position and his responsibilities, it’s not unusual that he would have that kind of access,” said Bradley Moss, a lawyer who works in security clearance law. Because Teixeira worked in a space where those documents existed, he needed that clearance, Moss added.
Teixeira was serving in a National Guard unit that has large responsibilities. The 102nd Intelligence Wing runs an around-the-clock operation that distills intelligence for senior military leaders, a defense official told CNN.
Because of the large amount of classified information, more information technology workers who might not otherwise need clearances must get them to manage the systems, said Amy Jeffress, a lawyer who specializes in national defense matters and served in the Justice Department.
INVESTIGATIVE INTERVIEWS
More than a million people have top-secret security clearance. To get it, a candidate must fill out an exhaustive form called the SF86, which asks for information including any foreign contacts, places of residence and work history. Some positions also require applicants to take a polygraph.
Candidates also submit to investigative interviews, and background checkers question friends, family members and colleagues to obtain a broader picture of each person. The government runs criminal and financial checks in a process that can take months or longer.
Moss explained that investigators are looking for potential risks of reliability such as financial problems, drug or alcohol abuse, questionable foreign connections and professional misconduct.
Finding someone reliable and not a security risk, though, is a determination made about a moment in time, said Kenneth Gray, a retired FBI special agent and lecturer at the University of New Haven.
“The clearance process shows you are a reliable person, that you are not going to commit espionage against the federal government,” Gray said. “That’s only a snapshot in time, though. It doesn’t mean you are necessarily reliable in three years.”
WORTH THE RISK?
Security experts said the background checks are largely effective in determining whether someone has been approached by foreign agents or governments but are not infallible.
Some people can beat polygraphs and, as Gray noted, the clearances show someone is reliable only at a moment in time. But 18- or 19-year-olds who receive clearances could undergo significant changes in maturity or ideology before follow-up clearance checks, which often are conducted every five years.
“When you are granting access to a person with classified documents, you always have the possibility that that person is not going to be trustworthy,” Gray said. “There are effective safeguards in audits, but there’s always risks. If you want to lock it down totally and grant very limited access, it makes it very difficult to do your job.”
Guardrails do exist once someone starts working with classified materials. Certain documents can be viewed only inside Sensitive Compartmented Information Facilities.
Officials use access cards that leave a digital trail of what someone has downloaded and printed. But, Moss said, an element of “honor and trust” is placed in individuals who have been cleared that relies on their adhering to security protocols.
“Security officials don’t have the time to check every person as they exit the building,” Moss said. “They do random inspections, but it would too significantly disrupt work operations to inspect everyone every day.”
INTELLIGENCE PROTOCOLS
After Teixeira’s arrest Thursday, high-level officials across the U.S. government called for a review of the security and clearance processes surrounding classified documents.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in a statement that he was directing the undersecretary of defense for intelligence and security to review intelligence access, accountability and control procedures to “prevent this kind of incident from happening again.”
Congress must address “protocols for how intelligence is handled, the security clearance process and how officials can prevent intelligence leaks like this,” Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said in a statement Thursday.
What exactly those changes would be is not clear. After Edward Snowden used a thumb drive to transfer classified material out of secure facilities, that type of hardware was prohibited. Moss suggested that a review of physical security procedures and a possible increase in random inspections of clearance-holding people in offices is needed.
Gray said there should be an in-depth study and probably changes in how documents will be handled.
Information for this article was contributed by Ben Brasch, Mariana Alfaro and Shane Harris of The Washington Post.
