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The
45-day review did not identify a single point of failure, but
the Pentagon said policies, including those related to
electronic devices in sensitive areas, were ambiguous and led to
inconsistencies in implementing them.
The Pentagon said the new measures included the appointment of
"Top Secret Control Officers," establishment of a new office for
insider threats, and plans for electronic device detection
systems in classified, secret and top-secret work areas.
Jack Douglas Teixeira, 21, of North Dighton, Massachusetts, was
indicted last month on six counts of wilful retention and
transmission of classified information relating to national
defense.
The leak of documents, posted largely on social media sites, was
believed to be the most serious security breach since more than
700,000 documents, videos and diplomatic cables appeared on the
WikiLeaks website in 2010.
Each charge of unauthorized retention and transmission of
national defense information provides for a sentence of up to 10
years in prison, up to three years of supervised release, and a
fine of up to $250,000, the Justice Department had said.
Prosecutors say Teixeira leaked classified documents to a group
of gamers on the messaging app Discord.
"I think what we see here is we have a growing ecosystem of
classified facilities and a body of personnel who are cleared,"
a senior U.S. defense official told reporters.
"As someone who has read a lot of DoD policies, they are not the
clearest documents," the official said.
The official said the Pentagon needed to be more clear about
policies related to classified information and spaces it can be
accessed in, along with greater accountability for personnel who
work with sensitive information.
(Reporting by Phil Stewart and Idrees Ali; editing by Franklin
Paul and Mark Heinrich)
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