STATE SECRETSPulp Fiction: People, Not Paper, Are Leaking States Secrets
The intelligence community must embrace emerging information technology and abandon paper-based products. Getting rid of paper, however, would not fix the underlying problem. Instead of restricting paper, the U.S. counterintelligence community must risk a forward posture of machine learning and AI adaptation to detect disclosures and espionage before it happens.
In “Stop the Printers! Ditch Paper to Prevent National Security Leaks,” my colleagues Heather McMahon and Michael Schellhammer flagged the U.S. government’s reliance on paper as an enduring security flaw that has led to multiple leaks. I agree with McMahon and Schellhammer that the intelligence community must embrace emerging information technology and abandon paper-based products. Getting rid of paper, however, would not fix the underlying problem. The FBI’s list of spying’s “who’s who” is a testament that the character of espionage and mishandling information is ever-changing, but its nature endures. Counterintelligence professionals must focus on the nature of the espionage environment to respond as the character changes.
Stop Focusing on the Media
“Stop the Printer”’s examples focused on the character of espionage (the symptom), not the nature (cause). Focusing only on paper as the threat overlooks the myriad of other methods people have used to copy, retain, exploit, and provide information to foreign intelligence services. One of the citations presented as proof of paper’s malfeasance contained 11 examples of mishandling of information, of which only four were solely from printing, the rest being handwritten notes, media, or a combination of all three. Other recent examples prove that paper is not the primary issue. Employees bypassed security protocols to extract classified information from secure spaces in each instance. U.S. Air Force Airman First Class Jack Teixeira transcribed top-secret material, which he then shared on a digital platform. Special Operations Command linguist Mariam Thompson, convicted of providing information to Hezbollah, hand-copied information from secure terminals. U.S. Army soldiers Ethan Melzer and Cole Bridges, who also pleaded guilty to multiple charges, provided sensitive information from memory. Other examples include Edward Snowden downloading information from the NSA onto a thumb drive and the U.S. Navy sailor who “collected and recorded” information to provide to China’s foreign intelligence service. Finally, the arrest of a U.S. Army specialist accused of providing intelligence to China is the most recent example that paper was not the underlying cause. A search of the items listed in the Department of Justice press release revealed that most were easily obtainable online, i.e., they did not need to be printed.
