The recent arrest of an Air National Guardsman in Massachusettsis just the beginning of another protracted struggle over leaked top secret documents, renewing a recurring theme that predates the age of the internet.
Each new episode stirs debate, both legal and political, about the motives of the leakers, the proper response to their actions and the larger consequences to come.
But whether we call them whistleblowers or traitors, whether we consider their actions conscientious or unconscionable, the people who decide on their own to share such material have often altered the course of events.
The current case has introduced a 21-year-old named Jack Teixeira to the world. He is alleged to have obtained classified material about the war in Ukraine and the U.S. role in that war. He is also alleged to have harvested information gathered by intelligence agencies from their surveillance (eavesdropping) on world leaders. He is accused of accessing all this while serving on base as a reservist and later leaking it in a group chat on the platform Discord.
It was a shock to most to think that someone so young and far down the chain of command could have such access – or manage to get it.
The fallout so far includes cries of outrage from various U.S. allies who have been the targets of U.S. intelligence gathering, otherwise known as spying. Some of the official reaction could be for show, of course. It is hard to imagine foreign governments are truly surprised at such activity by the...
CLAIM: Video claiming President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. had resigned. RATING: FALSE A YouTube video falsely claimed that President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. had stepped down from office amid continue...