A new document leak exposes a range of sensitive information about US-allied countries and stokes fresh doubts about whether the White House is doing enough to combat security risks. The documents were published on a Telegram channel and first reported by CNN and Axios. The US is investigating how they were accessed and posted online, officials told CNN.
Some of the documents appear to be authentic, and some reveal new details about the extent of US eavesdropping on key allies such as South Korea, Israel, and Ukraine. Other documents, like intercepted pager messages sent during the September 11 attacks in the United States, show how families were checking on loved ones and government departments were reacting.
The newly released material also highlights how easily secret and confidential data can be distributed in the paperless era of electronic communications. Civil servants, soldiers, and other personnel often find sensitive information when they least expect it – lost in a cafe, for instance – and rather than hand it in to authorities they may choose to pass it on to the media instead.
In the case of former UK Foreign Office civil servant Sarah Tisdall, who was imprisoned in 1983 for leaking details about the transport of Cruise missiles to the Greenham Common base in the UK, the Guardian newspaper printed her revelations. It was not until she was out of prison that the paper’s political editor, Peter Preston, realized the tell-tale marks in the top right corner of one of her pages identified her as the leaker and led to her arrest.