The Invasion of Ukraine

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Woodchopper
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Re: The Invasion of Ukraine

Post by Woodchopper » Tue Apr 11, 2023 8:20 am

EACLucifer wrote:
Mon Apr 10, 2023 3:00 pm
One of the most frustrating things about this leak is that the US could quite possibly have managed to spin this as a load of bollocks with a bit of real intel mixed in, but instead all but confirmed it.
I'm not sure that would have worked. Russia would have known that it wasn't one of their disinformation operations and they would also have known the accuracy of the intelligence about them. It looks like much of it is based upon signals intelligence so difficult to spin as b.llsh.t something that would have needed to have been based upon intercepted Russian communications.

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Re: The Invasion of Ukraine

Post by EACLucifer » Tue Apr 11, 2023 10:31 am

Woodchopper wrote:
Tue Apr 11, 2023 8:20 am
EACLucifer wrote:
Mon Apr 10, 2023 3:00 pm
One of the most frustrating things about this leak is that the US could quite possibly have managed to spin this as a load of bollocks with a bit of real intel mixed in, but instead all but confirmed it.
I'm not sure that would have worked. Russia would have known that it wasn't one of their disinformation operations and they would also have known the accuracy of the intelligence about them. It looks like much of it is based upon signals intelligence so difficult to spin as b.llsh.t something that would have needed to have been based upon intercepted Russian communications.
You are right when it comes to Russia, but it might have helped with the third party leaks.

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Re: The Invasion of Ukraine

Post by EACLucifer » Tue Apr 11, 2023 9:37 pm

Apparently there's a video doing the rounds which shows Russian forces committing the sort of crime against a POW that you would expect from Islamic State. I've avoided seeing it, and I intend to keep it that way, and you should do likewise. Now would be a bad time to go digging for new sources whose attitudes on such things aren't known to you.

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Re: The Invasion of Ukraine

Post by Grumble » Tue Apr 11, 2023 9:43 pm

I was at Stonehenge on Friday, as we left there was a group of Ukrainian soldiers about to go on the tour. I was half tempted to say Slava Ukraine to them, but I wasn’t sure how well it would go down.
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Re: The Invasion of Ukraine

Post by EACLucifer » Tue Apr 11, 2023 10:25 pm

Russia is obstructing the grain corridor. This is in addition to previous behaviours to slow down grain exports. They are trying to hold the world hostage, and this shows, along with all their other despicable conduct, that they will never honour any deal they are not forced to honour. The way to get them out of Ukraine and to limit their harm to other countries is with force, and force requires weapons.

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Re: The Invasion of Ukraine

Post by EACLucifer » Tue Apr 11, 2023 10:48 pm

One point most people - including me - missed regarding Ukrainian SAM stocks is that the usage rate was during the Russian missile campaign against Ukrainian civilians and infrastructure, which has largely slowed down due, most likely, to low stocks of offensive munitions on the Russian side. One goal of that campaign was likely to deplete Ukraine's air defences, but the situation isn't quite as bad as feared.

Credit to Jakub Janovsky of the Oryx team for pointing that out.

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Re: The Invasion of Ukraine

Post by Woodchopper » Thu Apr 13, 2023 7:52 am

The man behind a massive leak of U.S. government secrets that has exposed spying on allies, revealed the grim prospects for Ukraine’s war with Russia and ignited diplomatic fires for the White House is a young, charismatic gun enthusiast who shared highly classified documents with a group of far-flung acquaintances searching for companionship amid the isolation of the pandemic.

United by their mutual love of guns, military gear and God, the group of roughly two dozen — mostly men and boys — formed an invitation-only clubhouse in 2020 on Discord, an online platform popular with gamers. But they paid little attention last year when the man some call “OG” posted a message laden with strange acronyms and jargon. The words were unfamiliar, and few people read the long note, one of the members explained. But he revered OG, the elder leader of their tiny tribe, who claimed to know secrets that the government withheld from ordinary people.

The young member read OG’s message closely, and the hundreds more that he said followed on a regular basis for months. They were, he recalled, what appeared to be near-verbatim transcripts of classified intelligence documents that OG indicated he had brought home from his job on a “military base,” which the member declined to identify. OG claimed he spent at least some of his day inside a secure facility that prohibited cellphones and other electronic devices, which could be used to document the secret information housed on government computer networks or spooling out from printers. He annotated some of the hand-typed documents, the member said, translating arcane intel-speak for the uninitiated, such as explaining that “NOFORN” meant the information in the document was so sensitive it must not be shared with foreign nationals.

OG told the group he toiled for hours writing up the classified documents to share with his companions in the Discord server he controlled. The gathering spot had been a pandemic refuge, particularly for teen gamers locked in their houses and cut off from their real-world friends. The members swapped memes, offensive jokes and idle chitchat. They watched movies together, joked around and prayed. But OG also lectured them about world affairs and secretive government operations. He wanted to “keep us in the loop,” the member said, and seemed to think that his insider knowledge would offer the others protection from the troubled world around them.

“He’s a smart person. He knew what he was doing when he posted these documents, of course. These weren’t accidental leaks of any kind,” the member said.

[...]

When rendering hundreds of classified files by hand proved too tiresome, he began posting hundreds of photos of documents themselves, an astonishing cache of secrets that has been steadily spilling into public view over the past week, disrupting U.S. foreign policy and aggravating America’s allies.

This account of how detailed intelligence documents intended for an exclusive circle of military leaders and government decision-makers found their way into and then out of OG’s closed community is based in part on several lengthy interviews with the Discord group member, who spoke to The Washington Post on the condition of anonymity. He is under 18 and was a young teenager when he met OG. The Post obtained consent from the member’s mother to speak to him and to record his remarks on video. He asked that his voice not be obscured.

[...]
His account was corroborated by a second member who read many of the same classified documents shared by OG, and who also spoke on the condition of anonymity. Both members said they know OG’s real name as well as the state where he lives and works but declined to share that information while the FBI is hunting for the source of the leaks.

[...]

The Post also reviewed approximately 300 photos of classified documents, most of which have not been made public; some of the text documents OG is said to have written out; an audio recording of a man the two group members identified as OG speaking to his companions; and chat records and photographs that show OG communicating with them on the Discord server.

The young member was impressed by OG’s seemingly prophetic ability to forecast major events before they became headline news, things “only someone with this kind of high clearance” would know. He was by his own account enthralled with OG, who he said was in his early to mid-20s.

[...]

In a video seen by The Post, the man who the member said is OG stands at a shooting range, wearing safety glasses and ear coverings and holding a large rifle. He yells a series of racial and antisemitic slurs into the camera, then fires several rounds at a target.

[...]

Late last year, a peeved OG fired off a message to all the members of the server. He had spent nearly an hour every day writing up “these long and drawn-out posts in which he’d often add annotations and explanations for stuff that we normal citizens would not understand,” the member said. His would-be pupils were more interested in YouTube videos about battle gear.

“He got upset, and he said on multiple occasions, if you guys aren’t going to interact with them, I’m going to stop sending them.”

That’s when OG changed tactics. Rather than spend his time copying documents by keyboard, he took photographs of the genuine articles and dropped them in the server. These were more vivid and arresting documents than the plain text renderings. Some featured detailed charts of battlefield conditions in Ukraine and highly classified satellite images of the aftermath of Russian missile strikes on Ukrainian electrical facilities. Others sketched the potential trajectory of North Korean ballistic nuclear missiles that could reach the United States. Another featured photographs of the Chinese spy balloon that floated across the country in February, snapped from eye-level, probably by a U-2 spy plane, along with a diagram of the balloon and the surveillance technology attached to it.

[...]

In a sense, OG had created a virtual mirror image of the secretive facility where he spent his working hours. Inside the Discord server, he was the ultimate arbiter of secrecy, and he allowed his companions to read truths that “normal citizens” could not.

[...]

The member estimated that the server hosted people from Europe, Asia and South America. “Just about every walk of life.” Of the roughly 25 active members who had access to the bear-vs-pig channel, about half were located overseas, the member said. The ones who seemed most interested in the classified material claimed to be from mostly “Eastern Bloc and those post-Soviet countries,” he said. “The Ukrainians had interest as well,” which the member chalked up to interest in the war ravaging their homeland.

[...]

All winter, OG uploaded documents to the server. No one talked about sharing them elsewhere. Then, unbeknown to the group, on Feb. 28, another teenage user from the Thug Shaker Central server began posting several dozen photographs showing classified documents on another Discord server affiliated with the YouTuber “wow_mao.” Some of the documents offered detailed assessments of Ukraine’s defense capabilities and showed how far U.S. intelligence could see into Russia’s military command.

On March 4, 10 documents appeared on “Minecraft Earth Map,” a Discord server focused on the popular video game. A user operating the account that posted the smaller tranche of images told The Post they obtained them on wow_mao.

Secret and top-secret documents were now available to thousands of Discord users, but the leak wouldn’t come to the attention of U.S. authorities for another month. Meanwhile, OG stopped sharing images in the middle of March.

[...]

For all OG’s disdain for the federal government, the member said there was no indication that he was acting in what he thought was the public interest by exposing official secrets. The classified documents were intended only to benefit his online family, the member said.

“I would definitely not call him a whistleblower. I would not call OG a whistleblower in the slightest,” he said, resisting comparisons to Edward Snowden, who shared classified documents about government surveillance with journalists.

Remarkably, the member said he has been in touch with OG in the past few days, even as an FBI manhunt is underway and the Pentagon launches its own inquiry into the leaks. After shuttering the Thug Shaker Central server, OG moved the community to another server to communicate with his online family.

He “seemed very confused and lost as to what to do,” the member said. “He’s fully aware of what’s happening and what the consequences may be. He’s just not sure on how to go about solving this situation. … He seems pretty distraught about it.”

In his final message to his companions, OG admonished them to “keep low and delete any information that could possibly relate to him,” the member said. That included any copies of the classified documents OG had shared.

[...]

Thousands of military personnel and government employees around OG’s age, working entry-to-low-level positions, could plausibly have access to classified documents like the ones he allegedly shared, according to U.S. officials and experts who have seen the documents reported in the media. Despite what his young followers thought, OG would have had no special knowledge compared with his peers. He possessed no special power to predict events. Rather, he appears to have persuaded some highly impressionable teenagers that he’s a modern-day gamer meets Jason Bourne.

[...]

To date, no federal law enforcement officials have contacted the young group member. Asked why he was prepared to help OG even at the risk of his own freedom, the young man replied without hesitation: “He was my best friend.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national ... documents/

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Re: The Invasion of Ukraine

Post by dyqik » Thu Apr 13, 2023 9:58 am

OG sounds like someone who was trying to groom a bunch of far-right terrorists.

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Re: The Invasion of Ukraine

Post by Woodchopper » Thu Apr 13, 2023 11:07 am

dyqik wrote:
Thu Apr 13, 2023 9:58 am
OG sounds like someone who was trying to groom a bunch of far-right terrorists.
Yes, he seems to have been trying to build a following. Once he's been arrested and tried we might find out what plans he had. Or perhaps it was all just a way to boost his ego.

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Re: The Invasion of Ukraine

Post by Martin Y » Thu Apr 13, 2023 11:51 am

Woodchopper wrote:
Thu Apr 13, 2023 11:07 am
dyqik wrote:
Thu Apr 13, 2023 9:58 am
OG sounds like someone who was trying to groom a bunch of far-right terrorists.
Yes, he seems to have been trying to build a following. Once he's been arrested and tried we might find out what plans he had. Or perhaps it was all just a way to boost his ego.
Sounds like literally all he wanted was to gain status in his online group. It sounds absolutely pathetic but it must be the bane of security people's lives everywhere to try to stop selfish idiots with access to secret material from using it to impress and look cool or get laid.

I mean, who hasn't leaked the odd top secret document to impress the other kids in their small internet hangout? Google doesn't even search this place and its not as if any of you would take any of the top secret stuff I share and share it elsewhere to try to look cool. So where's the harm, right?

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Re: The Invasion of Ukraine

Post by EACLucifer » Thu Apr 13, 2023 1:25 pm

dyqik wrote:
Thu Apr 13, 2023 9:58 am
OG sounds like someone who was trying to groom a bunch of far-right terrorists.
It's being pretty widely reported that he was antisemitic and generally racist, so, yeah. Long past time for a review of who gets clearance.

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Re: The Invasion of Ukraine

Post by jimbob » Thu Apr 13, 2023 1:29 pm

Martin Y wrote:
Thu Apr 13, 2023 11:51 am
Woodchopper wrote:
Thu Apr 13, 2023 11:07 am
dyqik wrote:
Thu Apr 13, 2023 9:58 am
OG sounds like someone who was trying to groom a bunch of far-right terrorists.
Yes, he seems to have been trying to build a following. Once he's been arrested and tried we might find out what plans he had. Or perhaps it was all just a way to boost his ego.
Sounds like literally all he wanted was to gain status in his online group. It sounds absolutely pathetic but it must be the bane of security people's lives everywhere to try to stop selfish idiots with access to secret material from using it to impress and look cool or get laid.

I mean, who hasn't leaked the odd top secret document to impress the other kids in their small internet hangout? Google doesn't even search this place and its not as if any of you would take any of the top secret stuff I share and share it elsewhere to try to look cool. So where's the harm, right?
I am a bit surprised at how much access people seem to get to stuff that cannot all be within their remit unless quite senior.

My employer tightened up its internal security protocols about 20 years ago after what was possibly some commercial espionage against it.

There have been previous leaks, and at least two made it into international headlines (Snowden and Manning, for example).
Have you considered stupidity as an explanation

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Re: The Invasion of Ukraine

Post by EACLucifer » Thu Apr 13, 2023 1:35 pm

jimbob wrote:
Thu Apr 13, 2023 1:29 pm
Martin Y wrote:
Thu Apr 13, 2023 11:51 am
Woodchopper wrote:
Thu Apr 13, 2023 11:07 am


Yes, he seems to have been trying to build a following. Once he's been arrested and tried we might find out what plans he had. Or perhaps it was all just a way to boost his ego.
Sounds like literally all he wanted was to gain status in his online group. It sounds absolutely pathetic but it must be the bane of security people's lives everywhere to try to stop selfish idiots with access to secret material from using it to impress and look cool or get laid.

I mean, who hasn't leaked the odd top secret document to impress the other kids in their small internet hangout? Google doesn't even search this place and its not as if any of you would take any of the top secret stuff I share and share it elsewhere to try to look cool. So where's the harm, right?
I am a bit surprised at how much access people seem to get to stuff that cannot all be within their remit unless quite senior.

My employer tightened up its internal security protocols about 20 years ago after what was possibly some commercial espionage against it.

There have been previous leaks, and at least two made it into international headlines (Snowden and Manning, for example).
The way I've heard it is that one factor that may have lead to the September the 11th attacks being missed was too few people having access to classified information, so the US opened access up to more people in the hope of preventing a repeat.

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Re: The Invasion of Ukraine

Post by jimbob » Thu Apr 13, 2023 1:51 pm

EACLucifer wrote:
Thu Apr 13, 2023 1:35 pm
jimbob wrote:
Thu Apr 13, 2023 1:29 pm
Martin Y wrote:
Thu Apr 13, 2023 11:51 am


Sounds like literally all he wanted was to gain status in his online group. It sounds absolutely pathetic but it must be the bane of security people's lives everywhere to try to stop selfish idiots with access to secret material from using it to impress and look cool or get laid.

I mean, who hasn't leaked the odd top secret document to impress the other kids in their small internet hangout? Google doesn't even search this place and its not as if any of you would take any of the top secret stuff I share and share it elsewhere to try to look cool. So where's the harm, right?
I am a bit surprised at how much access people seem to get to stuff that cannot all be within their remit unless quite senior.

My employer tightened up its internal security protocols about 20 years ago after what was possibly some commercial espionage against it.

There have been previous leaks, and at least two made it into international headlines (Snowden and Manning, for example).
The way I've heard it is that one factor that may have lead to the September the 11th attacks being missed was too few people having access to classified information, so the US opened access up to more people in the hope of preventing a repeat.
But in a sanitised way?

A colleague told us about a family day at his son's employer in Cheltenham.

Nobody is allowed personal mobile phones on site. So it would take quite a bit of deliberation to get the information out to leak it.
Have you considered stupidity as an explanation

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Re: The Invasion of Ukraine

Post by Woodchopper » Thu Apr 13, 2023 2:53 pm

jimbob wrote:
Thu Apr 13, 2023 1:51 pm
EACLucifer wrote:
Thu Apr 13, 2023 1:35 pm
jimbob wrote:
Thu Apr 13, 2023 1:29 pm


I am a bit surprised at how much access people seem to get to stuff that cannot all be within their remit unless quite senior.

My employer tightened up its internal security protocols about 20 years ago after what was possibly some commercial espionage against it.

There have been previous leaks, and at least two made it into international headlines (Snowden and Manning, for example).
The way I've heard it is that one factor that may have lead to the September the 11th attacks being missed was too few people having access to classified information, so the US opened access up to more people in the hope of preventing a repeat.
But in a sanitised way?

A colleague told us about a family day at his son's employer in Cheltenham.

Nobody is allowed personal mobile phones on site. So it would take quite a bit of deliberation to get the information out to leak it.
I get the impression that the material that was leaked wasn't the raw intelligence that in the UK would be gathered by GCHQ but assessments and analysis that would have a wider distribution (eg within the MoD, FCO, Cabinet Office etc).

It looks like the documents had been folded. So the leaker may have just printed them and carried them out in their pocket. Sounds simple but security checks will be looking for weapons and searches of people with clearance will be rare (clearance means that they are supposed to be trusted).

EACL is correct, after 9/11 the US opened up access to intelligence to avoid stove piping which was blamed for the failure to prevent the attacks. For example Chelsea Manning was just a low level military analyst based in Iraq but she had access to confidential State Department documents.

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Re: The Invasion of Ukraine

Post by Brightonian » Thu Apr 13, 2023 6:37 pm


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Re: The Invasion of Ukraine

Post by jimbob » Thu Apr 13, 2023 6:41 pm

Woodchopper wrote:
Thu Apr 13, 2023 2:53 pm
jimbob wrote:
Thu Apr 13, 2023 1:51 pm
EACLucifer wrote:
Thu Apr 13, 2023 1:35 pm


The way I've heard it is that one factor that may have lead to the September the 11th attacks being missed was too few people having access to classified information, so the US opened access up to more people in the hope of preventing a repeat.
But in a sanitised way?

A colleague told us about a family day at his son's employer in Cheltenham.

Nobody is allowed personal mobile phones on site. So it would take quite a bit of deliberation to get the information out to leak it.
I get the impression that the material that was leaked wasn't the raw intelligence that in the UK would be gathered by GCHQ but assessments and analysis that would have a wider distribution (eg within the MoD, FCO, Cabinet Office etc).

It looks like the documents had been folded. So the leaker may have just printed them and carried them out in their pocket. Sounds simple but security checks will be looking for weapons and searches of people with clearance will be rare (clearance means that they are supposed to be trusted).

EACL is correct, after 9/11 the US opened up access to intelligence to avoid stove piping which was blamed for the failure to prevent the attacks. For example Chelsea Manning was just a low level military analyst based in Iraq but she had access to confidential State Department documents.
And a 21 year old National Air Guard member who liked sharing fascist memes online is someone who should not have passed vetting for it
Have you considered stupidity as an explanation

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Re: The Invasion of Ukraine

Post by bolo » Thu Apr 13, 2023 7:38 pm

jimbob wrote:
Thu Apr 13, 2023 1:29 pm
I am a bit surprised at how much access people seem to get to stuff that cannot all be within their remit unless quite senior.
It sounds like none of it within his remit. He was an IT technician. I have no idea how classified computers and networks are designed, but if the answer is that the new guy on the IT help desk has access to absolutely everything, then that's a really sh.tty design.

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Re: The Invasion of Ukraine

Post by Grumble » Thu Apr 13, 2023 8:00 pm

jimbob wrote:
Thu Apr 13, 2023 6:41 pm
Woodchopper wrote:
Thu Apr 13, 2023 2:53 pm
jimbob wrote:
Thu Apr 13, 2023 1:51 pm

But in a sanitised way?

A colleague told us about a family day at his son's employer in Cheltenham.

Nobody is allowed personal mobile phones on site. So it would take quite a bit of deliberation to get the information out to leak it.
I get the impression that the material that was leaked wasn't the raw intelligence that in the UK would be gathered by GCHQ but assessments and analysis that would have a wider distribution (eg within the MoD, FCO, Cabinet Office etc).

It looks like the documents had been folded. So the leaker may have just printed them and carried them out in their pocket. Sounds simple but security checks will be looking for weapons and searches of people with clearance will be rare (clearance means that they are supposed to be trusted).

EACL is correct, after 9/11 the US opened up access to intelligence to avoid stove piping which was blamed for the failure to prevent the attacks. For example Chelsea Manning was just a low level military analyst based in Iraq but she had access to confidential State Department documents.
And a 21 year old National Air Guard member who liked sharing fascist memes online is someone who should not have passed vetting for it
At that age probably not got a criminal record. They won’t ask about political opinions, just looking for criminal record and foreign connections.
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Re: The Invasion of Ukraine

Post by jimbob » Thu Apr 13, 2023 8:04 pm

bolo wrote:
Thu Apr 13, 2023 7:38 pm
jimbob wrote:
Thu Apr 13, 2023 1:29 pm
I am a bit surprised at how much access people seem to get to stuff that cannot all be within their remit unless quite senior.
It sounds like none of it within his remit. He was an IT technician. I have no idea how classified computers and networks are designed, but if the answer is that the new guy on the IT help desk has access to absolutely everything, then that's a really sh.tty design.
A really sh.tty design compared to many commercial organisations.
Have you considered stupidity as an explanation

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Re: The Invasion of Ukraine

Post by jimbob » Thu Apr 13, 2023 8:06 pm

Grumble wrote:
Thu Apr 13, 2023 8:00 pm
jimbob wrote:
Thu Apr 13, 2023 6:41 pm
Woodchopper wrote:
Thu Apr 13, 2023 2:53 pm


I get the impression that the material that was leaked wasn't the raw intelligence that in the UK would be gathered by GCHQ but assessments and analysis that would have a wider distribution (eg within the MoD, FCO, Cabinet Office etc).

It looks like the documents had been folded. So the leaker may have just printed them and carried them out in their pocket. Sounds simple but security checks will be looking for weapons and searches of people with clearance will be rare (clearance means that they are supposed to be trusted).

EACL is correct, after 9/11 the US opened up access to intelligence to avoid stove piping which was blamed for the failure to prevent the attacks. For example Chelsea Manning was just a low level military analyst based in Iraq but she had access to confidential State Department documents.
And a 21 year old National Air Guard member who liked sharing fascist memes online is someone who should not have passed vetting for it
At that age probably not got a criminal record. They won’t ask about political opinions, just looking for criminal record and foreign connections.
If you have access to strategic military intelligence, I would hope that there is a bit more vetting.
Have you considered stupidity as an explanation

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Re: The Invasion of Ukraine

Post by Woodchopper » Thu Apr 13, 2023 8:16 pm

Just checked and in 2019 about 1.25 million people had clearance for ‘top secret’ material.
https://sgp.fas.org/othergov/intel/clear-2019.pdf

Which is a lot.

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Re: The Invasion of Ukraine

Post by Woodchopper » Thu Apr 13, 2023 9:03 pm


The documents that circulated online appear to have been printed largely from briefing books that staffers spend hours putting together for senior officials on the Pentagon’s Joint Staff.

Previously, slides from the Joint Staff briefing deck could be accessed by hundreds, if not thousands, of people across the government, officials said. The Pentagon has now stopped distributing the updates to as many people across different government agencies.

“Way too many people have access to very sensitive information,” a senior US official told CNN, noting that “thousands” of people likely saw these documents before they hit the internet.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/13/politics ... index.html

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Re: The Invasion of Ukraine

Post by Grumble » Thu Apr 13, 2023 9:44 pm

jimbob wrote:
Thu Apr 13, 2023 8:06 pm
Grumble wrote:
Thu Apr 13, 2023 8:00 pm
jimbob wrote:
Thu Apr 13, 2023 6:41 pm


And a 21 year old National Air Guard member who liked sharing fascist memes online is someone who should not have passed vetting for it
At that age probably not got a criminal record. They won’t ask about political opinions, just looking for criminal record and foreign connections.
If you have access to strategic military intelligence, I would hope that there is a bit more vetting.
They can ask very personal questions about sexual history and all sorts of things if they want to, but again, what’s a 21 year old going to have?
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Re: The Invasion of Ukraine

Post by EACLucifer » Fri Apr 14, 2023 12:24 am

To think that it's really not that long* since US officials did their anonymous-cowards-leaking-negative-stuff-about-Ukraine-to-the-press thing specifically about them not sharing intel/planning with them. Can't imagine why they wouldn't want to do that :roll:


*I can't remember exactly how long, but, still, not long.

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