The Air Force on Tuesday stated it has begun its own investigation into how a tender airman allegedly used to be ready to get right of entry to in all probability loads of extremely categorized documents he is accused of posting on the net.
Top officers additionally introduced that the unit 21-year-old Airman 1st Class Teixeira used to be assigned to — Otis Air National Guard Base in Cape Cod, Massachusetts — has been got rid of from its intelligence venture and its paintings is now being performed via different devices.
“I’ve tasked our inspector general to go look at the unit and anything associated with this leak that could have gone wrong from the point of view of implementing our policies — to see what things allowed this to happen,” Secretary of the Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall advised a Senate Appropriations protection subcommittee.
An Air Force observation defined that the IG’s overview would “investigate overall compliance with policy, procedures, and standards, including the unit environment and compliance at the 102nd Intelligence Wing related to the release of national security information.”
“The 102nd Intelligence Wing is not currently performing its assigned intelligence mission,” stated Ann Stefanek, an Air Force spokesperson. “The mission has been temporarily reassigned to other organizations within the Air Force.”
An undated image displays Jack Douglas Teixeira, a 21-year-old member of the Air National Guard, who used to be arrested via the FBI, over his alleged involvement in leaks on-line of categorized documents, posing for a selfie at an unidentified location.
Social Media Website by the use of Reuters
“There is a full court press going on about this,” Kendall advised senators. “We’re all disturbed by it and we’re working very very hard to get to the bottom of it and take corrective action.”
Members of the congressional panel expressed disbelief that Teixeira allegedly have been ready to leak information directly to the Discord website online for months with out being detected.
Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall listens to opening feedback whilst attesting ahead of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense for the Department of the Air Force fiscal 12 months 2024 finances in Washington, Apr. 18, 2023.
Eric R. Dietrich/USAF
“How could this guardsman take this information and distribute it electronically for weeks, if not months, and nobody knew about it?” stated the subcommittee’s chairman, Democratic Sen. Jon Tester of Montana.
“It appears that this was going on for many months without the airman allegedly being caught. And when he was caught, it was because of investigative journalism, not the controls within the Air Force,” stated GOP Sen. Susan Collins of Maine. “That is equally disturbing.”
Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. C.Q. Brown advised the committee that the Air Force has procedures in position to give protection to categorized information however “obviously in this case this process fell apart.”
Brown equipped the primary indications that whilst Teixeira had a extremely categorized TS-SCI (Top Secret – Sensitive Compartmented Information) clearance he didn’t have a “need to know” get right of entry to to the documents as a part of his process as a IT specialist.
“The aspect of this particular airman, for his particular job he had access to information, but he didn’t necessarily have need to know for some of the information,” stated Brown.
“Because of his duties he had access to some aspects based on his job as a cyber administrator. He took advantage of that access,” stated Brown.
Brown additionally stated the Air Force would installed position a service-wide overview of safety procedures to happen over the following 30 days inside of each and every Air Force unit.
“The focus of the standdown will be to reassess our security posture and procedures, validate the need to know for each person’s access, and emphasize to all Airmen and Guardians the responsibility we are entrusted with to safeguard this information and to enforce and improve our security requirements,” stated the Air Force observation.
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