Many questions were raised by the U.S. and its allies due to the recent leak of several highly classified documents. In early April, federal authorities arrested 21-year-old Jack Teixeira due to possible association with the leaking of classified documents. Teixeira, an airman with the Massachusetts Air National Guard, was assigned the role of a cyber transport systems journeyman which granted him access to highly classified information. The young adult made his first appearance in court on April 14 where he was charged with unsanctioned sharing of national defense information as well as retention of classified documents. These charges raise a potential maximum of 15 years in prison for him. This raised the question of whether U.S. security is strong enough and whether they grant too much access to those who are not qualified enough to obtain classified material.

Many may find it surprising to know that these highly secret documents were leaked on Discord, an app widely used for the purpose of chatting with other people mostly in gaming communities. Authorities suspect Teixeira was the member of a small chat group with whom he shared highly classified information. One member of this chat group stated that someone under the name “OG” started posting messages with unfamiliar words and strange acronyms and claimed to have access to government knowledge that was held by the public. After the initial message, OG continued to post write-ups of various documents. The member of the group claimed that the reasoning behind OG’s behavior was that he wanted to inform the others of his insight and keep them protected. When writing summaries on the content of the documents became too difficult and extensive, OG proceeded to take hundreds of photos which he posted for the discord group to see. In the past weeks, these documents have surfaced on the internet which raises a major security concern for the U.S. as well as their allies.

United States allies have expressed concern for the U.S. government’s handling of sensitive material since this incident. The leaked documents included material pulled from briefings for top military leaders and other various sensitive information. The content discussed in some of these documents included military advances in China, information about battlefield vulnerabilities for Ukraine during their current war with Russia, and foreign nations’ plans to supply Moscow with arms. Recently, President Biden stated that steps will be taken in order to increase the security of sensitive information. Western officials have recently voiced concerns about the U.S. military’s decision to grant inexperienced, junior service members, such as Teixeira, access to a variety of high-level intelligence. While this concern was raised, the same official noted that their county’s ties with the United States are too important to abandon due to the fact that the U.S. is one of the strongest espionage powers. This suggests that many allies can’t afford to restrict information with the U.S. due to their advanced electronic spying abilities, far superior to any other nation. Additionally, no other nation has reached the same level as the National Security Agency which provides more reason for the allies to maintain connections with the U.S. These advantages are in some ways a protection for the U.S. in that they keep the allies in cooperation with the United States, but they still need to improve how they control who has access and control over sensitive information.