美国空军周二表示，他们已经开始调查一名年轻飞行员是如何接触到数百份高度机密文件的他被指控在网上发帖。
高级官员还宣布，21岁的一级飞行员特谢拉被分配到马萨诸塞州科德角的奥的斯航空国民警卫队基地的单位已经从其情报任务中移除，其工作现在由其他单位完成。
空军部长弗兰克·肯德尔(Frank Kendall)告诉参议院拨款国防小组委员会说:“我已经责成我们的监察长去看看这个单位以及与这次泄漏有关的任何事情，从执行我们政策的角度来看，这些事情可能出了问题——看看是什么事情导致了这种情况的发生。”。
一份空军声明解释说，监察长的审查将“调查对政策、程序和标准的总体遵守情况，包括部队环境和第102情报联队与国家安全信息发布有关的遵守情况。”
空军发言人安·斯特凡内克(Ann Stefanek)说，“第102情报联队目前没有执行分配给它的情报任务。"这项任务已经被临时重新分配给空军的其他组织."
肯德尔对参议员们说:“关于这件事，有一场全面的新闻报道。”。“我们都对此感到不安，我们正在非常非常努力地调查此事，并采取纠正措施。”
国会小组成员表示不相信特谢拉据称能够在Discord网站上泄露信息数月而不被发现。
“这个卫兵怎么能把这些信息以电子方式传播几个星期，甚至几个月，而没有人知道呢?”该小组委员会主席、蒙大拿州民主党参议员乔恩·特斯说。
“这种情况似乎持续了好几个月，但据称飞行员并未被捕。当他被抓时，是因为调查性新闻，而不是空军内部的控制，”缅因州共和党参议员苏珊·科林斯说。“这同样令人不安。”
空军参谋长C.Q .布朗将军告诉委员会空军有保护机密信息的程序但是“显然在这种情况下，这一过程失败了。”
Brown提供的第一个迹象表明，虽然Teixeira拥有高度机密的TS-SCI(绝密-敏感分隔信息)许可，但作为IT专家，他没有“需要知道”这些文件的权利。
布朗说:“这个特殊的飞行员，因为他的特殊工作，他可以接触到信息，但他不一定需要知道一些信息。”
“由于他的职责，他作为网络管理员可以访问某些方面。他利用了这一点，”布朗说。
布朗还表示，空军将在未来30天内在每个空军单位内部开展一次全军种范围的安全程序审查。
空军声明说:“此次解散的重点将是重新评估我们的安全态势和程序，验证了解每个人的访问权限的必要性，并向所有飞行员和监护人强调我们被赋予的保护这些信息的责任，并执行和改善我们的安全要求。”
Air Force opens own investigation into secret documents leak
The Air Force on Tuesday said it has begun its own investigation into how a young airman allegedly was able to access possibly hundreds of highly classified documentshe's accused of posting on the internet.
Top officials also announced that the unit 21-year-old Airman 1st Class Teixeira was assigned to -- Otis Air National Guard Base in Cape Cod, Massachusetts -- has been removed from its intelligence mission and its work is now being done by other units.
"I've tasked our inspector general to go look at the unit and anything associated with this leak that could have gone wrong from the point of view of implementing our policies -- to see what things allowed this to happen," Secretary of the Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall told a Senate Appropriations defense subcommittee.
An Air Force statement explained that the IG's review would "investigate overall compliance with policy, procedures, and standards, including the unit environment and compliance at the 102nd Intelligence Wing related to the release of national security information."
"The 102nd Intelligence Wing is not currently performing its assigned intelligence mission," said Ann Stefanek, an Air Force spokesperson. "The mission has been temporarily reassigned to other organizations within the Air Force."
"There is a full court press going on about this," Kendall told senators. "We're all disturbed by it and we're working very very hard to get to the bottom of it and take corrective action."
Members of the congressional panel expressed disbelief that Teixeira allegedly had been able to leak information on to the Discord website for months without being detected.
Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall listens to opening comments while testifying before the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense for the Department of the Air Force fiscal year 2024 b...Show moreundefined
Eric R. Dietrich/USAF
"How could this guardsman take this information and distribute it electronically for weeks, if not months, and nobody knew about it?" said the subcommittee's chairman, Democratic Sen. Jon Tester of Montana.
"It appears that this was going on for many months without the airman allegedly being caught. And when he was caught, it was because of investigative journalism, not the controls within the Air Force," said GOP Sen. Susan Collins of Maine. "That is equally disturbing."
Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. C.Q. Brown told the committee that theAir Force has procedures in place to protect classified informationbut "obviously in this case this process fell apart."
Brown provided the first indications that while Teixeira had a highly classified TS-SCI (Top Secret – Sensitive Compartmented Information) clearance he did not have a "need to know" access to the documents as part of his job as a IT specialist.
"The aspect of this particular airman, for his particular job he had access to information, but he didn't necessarily have need to know for some of the information," said Brown.
"Because of his duties he had access to some aspects based on his job as a cyber administrator. He took advantage of that access," said Brown.
Brown also said the Air Force would put in place a service-wide review of security procedures to take place over the next 30 days within each Air Force unit.
"The focus of the standdown will be to reassess our security posture and procedures, validate the need to know for each person's access, and emphasize to all Airmen and Guardians the responsibility we are entrusted with to safeguard this information and to enforce and improve our security requirements," said the Air Force statement.
