How the exposure of highly classified documents could harm US security – and why there are laws against storing them insecurely

Boxes full of classified documents sit on top of an ornate stage inside the Mar-a-Lago Club’s White and Gold Ballroom. Department of Justice^[9]

Historically, foreign spies have attempted to enter highly secure U.S. government buildings to obtain classified information. In 1987, for example, the U.S. Marine Corps charged two Marine guards with allowing Soviet agents^[10] to repeatedly access sensitive areas inside the U.S. Embassy in Moscow.

If foreign spies knew Trump stored classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, they may have attempted to enter the property. In 2019, a Chinese business consultant entered the resort and initially got past Secret Service agents^[11]. She was stopped in the main reception area, carrying multiple electronic devices.

What’s the risk to sources and methods?

The U.S. uses sources and methods^[12] such as spy satellites and foreign citizens or assets^[13] to clandestinely gather information about other countries.

Based on the classification markings identified in the indictment, documents Trump stored at Mar-a-Lago contained intelligence from multiple U.S. sources, including satellite images, human sources and intercepted foreign communications, which can include cell phone calls or email messages.

If other countries gained access to this intelligence, their counterintelligence professionals could learn how the U.S. obtained specific information and they could use countermeasures that could render a particular source or method useless to the U.S. moving forward.

In April 1983, a terrorist attack killed 63 people^[14] at the U.S. Embassy in Beirut. At the time, the terrorist organization operating in Syria was communicating with counterparts in Iran^[15]. The U.S. government began intercepting the traffic^[16], which two media outlets later reported, according to an opinion piece by Katherine Graham published in The Washington Post. Shortly after, communication between Syria and Iran stopped and the U.S. intelligence community lost insight into the Syrian terrorists’s activities. This may have left the U.S. unable to detect or prevent an attack^[17] by the same terrorist group^[18] on the Marine barracks in Beirut six months later. That attack left 241 U.S. service men and women dead.

What’s the risk to US foreign relations and alliances?

Diplomacy, the connection between sovereign states^[19], largely forged through foreign policy, is an important component of national security, as is intelligence sharing among allied intelligence services.

The U.S., for example, belongs to what is known as the Five Eyes intelligence alliance^[20], in which intelligence agencies from five allied countries share a range of information. But, the allegation that a document with Five Eyes classification markings had spilled onto a Mar-a-Lago storage room floor may lead the other four countries to reconsider their level of information sharing with the U.S. It has happened before.

Classified documents meant to be seen only by the Five Eyes intelligence alliance and newspapers spill onto the floor of a storage room of the Mar-a-Lago Club. The Department of Justice^[21]

After the 9/11 terrorist attack, a report by the Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction^[22] documented two instances in which allied intelligence agencies refused to share sensitive information with the U.S. due to concerns that the U.S. would not protect the information.

What are the risks to soldiers and citizens?

In addition to information about U.S. nuclear programs, U.S. and allies’ defense and weapons capabilities and potential military vulnerabilities, the indictment alleges Trump also unlawfully retained classified information about U.S. military retaliation plans in response to a foreign attack.

In enemy hands, this intelligence, if still valid, could significantly increase their ability to develop effective countermeasures or to alter their military tactics. At best, this could prolong a conflict, and, at worst, could allow an adversary to defeat U.S. forces, which could jeopardize citizens’ lives.

In each scenario, the lives of U.S. service members could be placed at increased risk.

Additionally, an enemy able to identify a U.S. vulnerability, particularly a self-identified vulnerability, can also try to exploit that weakness to their advantage, just as the United States did during World War II.

Prior to the 1942 Battle of Midway^[23], U.S. intelligence intercepted and decrypted communications detailing Japan’s military strategy for the upcoming battle.

U.S. forces took advantage of the information, won the decisive conflict and turned the tide of the war^[24].

Ironically, the U.S. was unsuccessful in safeguarding the fact that it had intercepted and decrypted Japanese communications. A Naval officer allowed a Chicago Tribune journalist unauthorized access to classified U.S. communications. The journalist subsequently wrote an article revealing the U.S. penetration^[25]. This was one of the few instances in which the U.S. government considered, but ultimately rejected, prosecuting a media outlet for disclosing national defense information.

Authors: Gary Ross, Associate Professor of Intelligence Studies, Texas A&M University

Read more https://theconversation.com/how-the-exposure-of-highly-classified-documents-could-harm-us-security-and-why-there-are-laws-against-storing-them-insecurely-207484

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