Lawmakers remain at a loss as to how all of these classified documents still got out, in part because at the Capitol, sensitive documents are kept under guard, armed guard, and key. Moreover, many fear that the culture around classified documents is too permissive throughout the executive branch.
From 2009 to 2013, Don Beyer served as Ambassador to Switzerland and Liechtenstein, where he took extraordinary measures to protect confidential documents. “I made a rule that, for the most part, I would actually go to our primary desk and have them talk to me about it. Or if they come to my office with it, you just stand there while I read it. I never want it on my desk,” Baer says of confidential materials. Never phone in this office. Every phone was left outside. In every office in our building, you had to leave your cell phone outside.”
Now that he’s a Virginia Democrat, Baer also questions what role overrating plays in all of these blunders. “When you categorize a lot of things, more people have the passes in order to be able to do their work,” says Baer. “So if you can rationalize that, maybe you can reduce the number of people who need a permit.”
The era of ‘need to share’
Even as US officials and lawmakers focus on keeping American secrets, well, secret, others are cautioning against overreacting. Information spreads these days.
“It’s a problem. We have to come up with a better system, of course, going forward. But you have to balance that with people needing access to information as well,” says Rep. Mike Gallagher, the Wisconsin Republican who chairs the new House committee on China. “I think it’s just a growing trend in the 21st century, that we’re going to have to move from this kind of need-to-know culture to need-to-engage in government and with our allies.”
Misinformation, as this latest leak of classified documents shows, is fading, too. Copies of sensitive files Teixeira allegedly shared with his Discord buddies were later posted to pro-Russian Telegram channels, but crudely edited to make Russia look better and Ukraine look worse.
“Some of them were tampered with. Some of the edits were modified by the accused himself, so assessing the potential harm and how to prevent it from happening will be an ongoing process,” says Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah.
Technological fixes can only go so far. Plus, right now, there’s always a human on the other end — and no AI solution to human nature, at least not yet.
“I think the basic dilemma remains, which is that, at the end of the day, when you give someone top-secret clearance, you’re placing an enormous amount of trust in that person. It’s hard to design a program — or a policy — to fix the problem of humans doing bad things,” Gallagher says. .So there is a certain level of risk built into the system that I think is impossible to reduce to zero. It’s not clear to me but what is the right fix. We’re trying to figure that out.”