Latest Document Leak Already Being Used by Government as Excuse to Tighten Surveillance on All of Us
by Jordan Arizmendi
After the latest confidential document leak, the Biden Administration as well as various security agencies are developing stricter methods to monitor social media sites and chatrooms. According to a senior official as well as a congressional official briefing, a change is coming in the government’s intelligence-gathering process.
The government is taking such drastic measures after U.S. intelligence missed classified Pentagon documents circulating online for weeks. The leaks cover U.S. and NATO aid to Ukraine and appear to describe the transportation of weapons going into Ukraine with considerable detail.
21-year-old suspect, Jack Teixeira, has been arrested and charged with unauthorized retention and transmission of national defense information as well as unauthorized removal of classified information and defense materials.
In addition to the highly classified assessments of the Ukraine war, the documents also include eavesdropping on key allies and adversaries. All in all, the document dump forced the world to question whether or not they can trust America with confidential information. In response, the U.S. government is turning to its go-to solution – increase public surveillance even more.
After all, Teixeria posted the confidential documents months ago on the social media platform Discord, a gaming app that allows its hundreds of millions of users to connect with people online. If an agent were actively monitoring every sentence being shared on the site, this confidential document leakage would have ended much sooner than it did, the government argues.
White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said, “We do believe that social media companies have a responsibility to their users and to the country to manage the private sector infrastructure that they create and now operate. We normally urge companies to avoid facilitating those circulation of material detrimental to public safety and national security.”
The government will monitor social media sites and chatrooms more closely. Ultimately, you and me are the ones who will be imprisoned along with Jack Teixeira. As a result of this latest document leak, our internet activity as well as our lives will, undoubtedly, be even further scrutinized by the government because of its own failure to effectively safeguard such allegedly sensitive information.
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