Article

2023-05-12 -Land of the Free

US senators look to overhaul security clearances after damaging documents leak

[Jpost] The issue has been in the national spotlight with the arrest last month of Jack Teixeira,

...the somehow spoilt brat who managed not to understand discretion despite being a second generation intelligence guy, sharing copies of all sorts of interesting things with his international online gaming group...
a 21-year-old low-ranking member of the Air National Guard accused of taking advantage of his clearance.

Democratic and Republican US senators introduced legislation on Wednesday to overhaul the vast security clearance system for protecting national secrets, spurred by damaging document leaks allegedly by a 21-year-old airman and the discovery of classified materials at top officials' homes.

Led by Democratic Senator Mark Warner, chairman of the Senate intelligence committee, the lawmakers said the current system classifies far too many documents and gives access to secret information to far too many people.
Sounds good but I'm not convinced Warner is a good guy. At all.
"That combination of overclassification and then too many people having clearances has led us to this problem," Warner told a news conference. He said more than 4 million people in the United States now have security clearance.

Warner, fellow Democrat Ron Wyden and Republicans John Cornyn and Jerry Moran introduced two bills addressing the issue. Among other things, they would tighten the rules for deciding what would be classified and set a 25-year limit for how long most documents would stay that way.

"Our democracy, our ability to govern ourselves, depends on the public getting access to information about what our government is doing and what government officials are doing," Cornyn said, adding that he expected the effort would get broad support.

Attorney General Merrick Garland has also appointed special counsels to investigate the handling of classified records by Republican former President Donald Trump and the handling of classified records from his time as vice president by current Democratic President Joe Biden.

The path forward for the bills was not immediately clear but the senators said they hoped the recent attention on the clearance issue would help.

"This is a piece of legislation that can become law and it is desperately needed for that to happen," Moran said.

Posted by Skidmark 2023-05-12 00:00|| || Front Page|| [16 views ] Top

#1 PSI's sure catch a lot of spies/bad actors all the time. /sarc

Posted by DooDahMan 2023-05-12 07:16|| 2023-05-12 07:16|| Front Page Top

#2 Way, way too much is classified and way, way too much classified is kept long beyond it need to be kept. Those people classifying the stuff are like our Fed just printing more and more money.

Posted by Procopius2k 2023-05-12 07:23|| 2023-05-12 07:23|| Front Page Top

#3 Jimmy Carter made a declassification date mandatory on most intel material. It led to the under-classification of reports, to the detriment of no one. When he left office, the requirement ended.

Posted by Slavising Unineting5672 2023-05-12 08:11|| 2023-05-12 08:11|| Front Page Top

#4 Computers/Automation (to include copy machines) can't be helping, either. We've come a long way from typing messages with an OCR ball on a DD 173/2 on an IBM Selectric II.

Posted by DooDahMan 2023-05-12 08:22|| 2023-05-12 08:22|| Front Page Top

#5 Warner has a good deal of first hand knowledge of security violations so any legislation will have built in loopholes to facilitate his political shenanigans.

Posted by Super Hose 2023-05-12 12:24|| 2023-05-12 12:24|| Front Page Top

#6 Still wondering why some of the JFK assassination files are still classified 60 years later???

Posted by Tom 2023-05-12 13:20|| 2023-05-12 13:20|| Front Page Top

#7 /\ Somebody doesn't want us to know something. A blinding flash of the obvious of course.

My hunch has always been LHO was a double agent. The knowledge that a presidential assassin was on the payroll of the US Intelligence Community (IC) might still be viewed as unseemly, even by today's standards.

Ok, so call me a much older Alex Jones, but that's my hunch. Furthermore, I doubt LHO has been the 'only' IC asset who has gone bad.

Just as an aside, one of the most significant challenges with the business of espionage and recruited agent handling is asset CONTROL.

Posted by Besoeker 2023-05-12 14:14|| 2023-05-12 14:14|| Front Page Top

#8 Furthermore, I doubt LHO has been the 'only' IC asset who has gone bad.

A very popular movie theme.

Just as an aside, one of the most significant challenges with the business of espionage and recruited agent handling is asset CONTROL.

Posted by Skidmark 2023-05-12 14:48|| 2023-05-12 14:48|| Front Page Top

#9 Also note following posting about Bidengate.

An out-of-control asset.

Posted by Skidmark 2023-05-12 14:52|| 2023-05-12 14:52|| Front Page Top

10:49 Grom the Reflective
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