how much do you know about the alleged document theft by a kid;

The Ukraine war documents leak is a very big deal. Among other things, the documents reveal that the Biden administration has been misleading the public about its upbeat assessment of the Ukrainian war effort. The leak lays bare the extent of US spying on friends and enemies alike, including the United Nations secretary general. It shows that friendly nations dependent on US largesse have quietly been undermining Washington’s geopolitical interests. It makes clear that the world came far closer to unimaginable catastrophe during last year’s September run-in between British and Russian pilots than we were told at the time. And it confirms that the United States and NATO allies do have boots on the ground in the war-torn country in the form of ninety-seven special forces personnel.

But for some reason, that is not what anyone is talking about in response to these leaks.

Rather than the jaw-dropping disclosures, which this brief list only scratches the surface of and which have major implications for US security, the political establishment has instead fixated on the leaker, his motives, his personal faults, and what the government is doing to make sure this doesn’t happen again. Before we even knew the identity of the leaker, major press institutions like the Washington Post proclaimed the leak a grave violation and threat to national security, practically calling for the leaker’s head on a plate.

Before long, a host of journalists at outlets like NPR and Vice were volunteering their time to help the Department of Justice (DOJ) track down the person responsible, poring over photos for possible clues — acting as “heroes of the hunt,” as one commentator approvingly put it. The New York Times and Washington Post — two outlets, incidentally, that have reported extensively on the content of the leaks, and therefore spread them much further than they otherwise would have gone — finally exposed him to the world last week, revealing details about a twenty-one-year-old National Guard airman who had sent the photos to his gamer buddies on Discord, including a seeming penchant for offensive and racist rhetoric. In the process, as the Intercept’s Nikita Mazurov pointed out, reporters cavalierly made public potentially identifying details that could incriminate the leaker’s teenage associates.........more.........