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Post by Admin on Apr 10, 2023 15:25:04 GMT
The Pentagon is investigating how the highly sensitive material was posted online and who is responsible as the Biden administration works to determine the impact. READ MORE: abcn.ws/3MrtAxi
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Post by Admin on Apr 10, 2023 19:45:20 GMT
The US Justice Department has opened an investigation into the leaking of dozens of classified American Defence Department documents on social media.
It is the biggest leak of secret American information on the war in Ukraine since Russia's full-scale invasion 14 months ago.
The maps, charts and photographs - some of them marked "top secret" - paint a detailed picture of the war in Ukraine.
The documents also reveal of details of Washington's other allies, from Israel to South Korea, including internal debates those countries are having about Ukraine and other sensitive issues.
Pentagon officials are quoted as saying the documents are real.
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Post by Admin on Apr 11, 2023 17:32:48 GMT
The U.S. is scrambling to contain the damage from the leak of potentially hundreds of classified documents discovered last week on social media sites. The Justice Department is investigating to figure out who leaked the documents and why, and the Pentagon is working with the State Department, White House, and intelligence agencies to determine how damaging the leak is, try and assuage angry allies, and figure out how to prevent future breaches.
At this point, "we don't know who is behind this; we don't know what the motive is," National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said Monday. "We don't know what else might be out there."
Users of the social media site Discord say an administrator of a closed group chat room, or server, called "Thug Shaker Central" posted hundreds of classified documents during arguments over Russia's Ukraine invasion. Most of the documents that have emerged are from February and March, but the open-source investigators at Bellingcat said they saw evidence of documents from January. Bellingcat traced a handful of leaked documents from Thug Shaker Central to two larger Discord servers in early March, then 4Chan, and finally, on April 5, pro-Russia Telegram channels. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin was briefed on the leak April 6.
Bellingcat spoke with three members of the Thug Shaker Central server, which was deleted April 7, and they described it as a tight-knit community of about 20 active users who shared an interest in video games, music, and Orthodox Christianity. The server "was not especially geopolitical in nature, although its users had a staunchly conservative stance on several issues," Bellingcat recounted. "Racial slurs and racist memes were shared widely."
The Discord users all refused to identify the person who posted the classified files, and one user told The Associated Press he kept copies of "way past hundreds" of the documents posted by "O.G." He said Americans deserve to see the files, and "on the off chance that the O.G. gets arrested, I'm leaking them all." Discord said it is cooperating with law enforcement investigating the leak.
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Post by Admin on Apr 12, 2023 0:47:58 GMT
Officials in the United States are scrambling to identify the source of an apparent breach of highly classified documents. The leak reportedly gives details on a range of topics, including Ukraine's air defense and Israel's spy agency. Chris Meagher, assistant to the secretary of defense for public affairs, told reporters on Monday that the online leaks presented a "very serious" risk to national security.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has reached out to allies and worked to assess the leaks since he became aware of them on Thursday, Meagher said. The department is looking closely at "how this type of information is distributed and to whom," he added. State Department spokesman Vedant Patel told reporters that officials "are engaging with allies and partners at high levels over this, including to reassure them of our commitment to safeguarding intelligence and the fidelity of securing our partnerships." While the Defense Department is still assessing the validity of photographed documents circulating online, they "appear to contain sensitive and highly classified material," Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh said on Sunday. Twitter, Telegram, Discord and other platforms have seen a flow of leaked documents in the last few days and new documents continue to appear online.
The areas addressed in the documents include Russia's war in Ukraine, China, the Middle East, and Africa. News agency Reuters reports that one of the documents, dated February 23 and bearing the mark "Secret," mentions how Ukraine's S-300 air defense systems would be depleted by May 2 at the current usage rate. Officials have told the Washington Post that some documents appear to have been manipulated but some others were consistent with CIA World Intelligence Review reports that are shared at high levels within the White House, Pentagon, and State Department. The US media said that the leak could prove valuable to Russia by shedding light on how deeply US intelligence has penetrated parts of the Russian military structure.
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Post by Admin on Apr 12, 2023 20:56:54 GMT
Dozens of classified US documents have been leaked and are now circulating on the internet. Images of the classified files have appeared on messaging app Discord since early March. Complete with timelines and dozens of military acronyms, the documents, some marked "top secret", offer information on the war in Ukraine and other topics. Pentagon officials have been quoted as saying the documents are real.
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