U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin has issued new instructions for how military personnel and contractors are allowed to handle classified information after sensitive military planning documents were recently leaked online.
In one portion of his memo, Mr. Austin ordered heads of DoD components that are not part of the Intelligence Community (IC) must “validate the continuing need for their personnel to have access to Sensitive Compartmented Information (SCI) and ensure personnel who require such access have a valid SCI non-disclosure agreement on file.” The defense secretary also instructed that DoD component heads make sure to document all Sensitive Compartmented Information Facilities (SCIFs) and Special Access Program Facilities (SAPFs), which are two different facilities used for handling classified information.
The security crackdown was triggered after several documents with classified markings appeared online this Spring, providing a glimpse of U.S. military plans and assessments of the ongoing fighting between Ukraine and Russia. Leak investigators eventually linked the publication of these sensitive documents to 21-year-old Jack Teixeira, a low-level information technology specialist with the Massachusetts Air National Guard.
“This review found that the overwhelming majority of DoD personnel with access to CNSI are trustworthy and that all DoD Components demonstrate a broad commitment to security,” Mr. Austin wrote. “However, the review identified areas where we can and must improve accountability measures to prevent the compromise of CNSI, to include addressing insider threats.”
The Ukraine War Documents Leak
The Ukraine war documents that appeared online earlier this year includedAnother document describes casualty assessments and equipment losses on the Ukrainian and Russian sides of the war. One document describes the locations of Ukrainian and Russian forces on the battlefield, while another describes the location of U.S. military units throughout the rest of Europe. Yet another document appeared to describe the rates at which Ukrainian forces have expended munitions for weapons like the HIMARS rocket artillery system.
Mr. Teixeira allegedly posted the documents on the online messaging app Discord, before they began to circulate on other websites.
The exact number of classified documents that were leaked is unclear.