U.S. Intelligence leak

Here is the latest sensational story sold hyped by the media to the public during the last week.

Jack Teixeira, is a 21-year-old airman with the Massachusetts Air National Guard and is believed to be the head of an extremist obscure invite-only Discord chatroom in the social media called Thug Shaker Central.

Jack Teixeira allegedly held a top-secret security clearance, which gave him access to highly classified, secret and sensitive information of the Pentagon which Teixeira recently published in his Discord platform.

The publication of the secret material by Teixeira allegedly sow discord in the international relations of the U.S. with allies and compromised the national security and defense of the U.S. against adversaries.

The White House released a statement earlier Friday commending law enforcement for the arrest, and saying that while the administration is still determining the validity of those documents, the President has directed the U.S. military and intelligence community to take steps to further secure and limit the distribution of sensitive information and that the national security team is closely coordinating with our partners and allies, on the matter.

This is helpful but while the situation is assessed by the competent authorities, the U.S. should also review overall the classification and dissemination of information, which is capable to affect the national integrity or the international relations of the U.S. with allies or others and compromise the national security and defense of the U.S. against adversaries (like China and Russia in particular).

This meaning the U.S. should review overall and assess the classification and dissemination in terms of both the publication of secret information and the cover up of other information so called secret. Especially when the publication, concealment or non-disclosure of information including of classified, is

1. Hyped (in extremis), abusive, malicious, mischievous, misleading, deceitful, extortionate, fabricated, false and so dangerous, damaging or prejudicial to the public, the citizens, the institutions, the society the economy or the nation.

2. Underpinned, propagated, organised and systematic by media cartels or other private interest groups and networks with variable political, social, economic and security agendas (e.g. Ukraine), especially dangerous, hostile and unlawful.

3. Required by the rules of democracy, liberty, accountability, transparency, anti-trust and free market competition and by the law for the protection of the private or the public right and interest.

4. Warranted for the law enforcement agencies and the judicial authorities should act upon, particularly on cartels and conspiracies for the pre-meditated facilitation, complicity or commission of wrongdoings, damaging and illegal acts, violations, offences and serious crimes or other organised practices and conducts particularly hostile, damaging, dangerous or prejudicial to the international relations and the national interests, security and defense of the U.S. and of their allies.  

Finally a few notes on integrity, law, liberty and institution.

In democracy power is with the many. In oligarchy and autocracy power is with the few. Liberty and democracy are active and running technical systems (technological, economic and ecological). They regulate the social, political and economic dynamics for the individual and the common good and beneficial. This includes motion and the protection of plurality, variety and freedom. For this reason they have structures and function under rules, this means principles and practices, customs, ethics, morals, laws and regulations established by liberal traditions and democratic institutions.

In democracy the structures and systems, forms and functions are liberal – not absent. They are to be respected and when not, enforced by ordered institutions. In free markets competition, variety and plurality is protected by regulation and supervision. Trusts, monopolies, cartels, concerted practices for price, transaction, trade, economic condition manipulation and other unlawful practices, impede market (and economic) functions and are therefore inflationary, recessionary and so taxationary by the few minorities against gross public majorities. For this reason they are also illegal, under civil law (accomplices liable to compensation for damages) and in excess criminal law (accomplices liable to penalty of detention). Systemic corruption and the usurpation of institutional powers by privileged interests claiming inequality and derivative kleptocracy and plutocracy as democratic or liberal (!) and using it for the political oppression and private taxation of the public is profoundly illiberal, undemocratic and unlawful.

It goes without saying that in a democracy, freedoms of speech and press are essential and respected. Correspondingly, journalism and public information have rules, principles and practices that are also basic and respected. So it goes without saying that the corporate or public media, monopolies and cartels that dominate, manipulate, censor, control and overall police the public and private information (including of opposition and dissent) or otherwise evade, violate or defeat the freedoms of speech and of the press and the principles and practices of journalism by illegal means like the aforementioned (misinformation, disinformation, manipulation, intimidation, coercion, extortion, deceit and worse) and for unlawful ends also like the aforementioned (proximity saves the repetition) are obviously liable to legal sanctions, which include civil compensations for damages in full, criminal penalties for imprisonment and administrative levies for containment.

P.S. The trip of Joe Biden to Ireland was not political or diplomatic. It nevertheless carried a sense of support for the Good Friday agreement. His earlier trip to war torn Ukraine carried a similar sense for unity, settlement and peace. It is regrettable that extremists in Russia and in Ukraine preferred to ignore this.