The Army kept sending sensitive emails out by mistake. Now immigrant recruits could be in danger.
Army officials repeatedly sent out out emails containing a spreadsheet of immigrant recruits' names, full Social Security numbers, and enlistment dates to the wrong people between July 2017 and Jan. 2018, The Washington Post reported on Wednesday. The list includes information on 4,200 recruits.
The emails were intended for internal coordination among recruiters, but were instead sent to recruits — not once, not twice, but three times. Per the Post, Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-N.J.), a former human rights official in the Obama administration, said that if the list is ever intercepted by a foreign government such as Russia or China, it could put recruits from those countries in danger, as they could potentially face persecution back home for colluding with a foreign government. There are reportedly 900 names of Chinese Mandarin speakers and dozens of Russian speakers on the list. At the moment, there is no knowledge that any non-U.S. government, let alone a hostile one, has access to the emails.
Still, the data breach now frequently serves as evidence in asylum claims, particularly for Chinese recruits.
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The Post also notes that, ironically, that among the recipients of the sensitive emails were recruits that the Pentagon considered may "present [an] elevated security risk." Read the full story at The Washington Post.
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Tim is a staff writer at The Week and has contributed to Bedford and Bowery and The New York Transatlantic. He is a graduate of Occidental College and NYU's journalism school. Tim enjoys writing about baseball, Europe, and extinct megafauna. He lives in New York City.
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