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narrator: funding was also provided by, the freeman foundation. by judy and peter blum kovler foundation; pursuing solutions for america's neglected needs. and by contributions to this pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. announcer: and now, "bbc news". >> i'm christian fra. this is the context. >> how is your son doing? are you surprised? >> no one would have predicted this six months ago that this kind of leak, this kind of material on such a massive scale would occur for such apparently triple your reason. >> it is not a matter of trusting 21-year-olds to do what they want, it is trusting them to have access to information

but controlling, monitoring, and preventing further distribution. >> welcome to the program. a deep dive coming up on the story that has dominated headlines. digging into the digital footprint that led investigators to the door. the laundry list of charges he's facing, and what it means for u.s. intelligence. hands-free driving on the u.k. motorways. afford's blue crew system allows them to take their hands off of the wheel at speeds up to 70 miles per hour. how advanced is it? we will talk firearms. the investigation into so-called ghost guns. we will check in on donald trump and his republican challengers in indianapolis seeking the blessing of the national rifle association.

interesting week to do that after the mass in louisville. starting with the frantic search for the leaguer of the classified pentagon documents that ended last night in massachusetts. he was arrested by the fbi at his mother's home still in his shorts. facing serious charges under the espionage act. how did he do it and how did they find him? he was assigned a specialist, he was responsible for maintaining and protecting military communications on the base where he worked at cape cod. in his downtime he spent hours on discord talking to a chat group. it was by invitation only. he had concerns about government overreach. the documents both to inform and impress and remain undetected on-site for months until a few weeks ago when the chat room sprung a leak. since the weekend, the new york

times and others have been sifting through these files looking for clues. the breakthrough came yesterday as they looked at a new batch of documents being photographed on a granite worktop. for days, they had been crossing off other members of the group to see if anyone was of interest with a username and profilehat stood out. there was one they cross-referenced with username on steam, the gaming platform. it led them to other social media he had used and a photograph of a young air man standing in fatigues in his kitchen. note the granite worktop and the white tiles that match the photo of the document. i'm joined by malachi brown from the new york times visual investigation team that did this incredible work. an impressive bit of internet sleuthing. what was the pivotal moment? >> it was on wednesday when two things happened.

the discord platforms where the documents were first shared no longer exists. we teamed up with -- the visual investigations team at the time, turning over these digital rocks and finding information. as you say, they were tracking down historic use it -- usernames from the steam gaming platform. with members of his private form, we knew he played certain games together. from the hundreds of usernames, we saw some of them changed in the past week. others were still together playing these games described to us. he was one of the people of interest. we started following his history usernames. one of his earliest was in his name. that led us to more public social media platforms, more

popular ones with family photographs inside their home. parallel to tha we were working a source to obtain more documents. they showed the granite worktop. the team very quickly over a couple of hours matched all of that together. we knew we had the airmen as a suspect in the document leak. his profile matched wt we were told by some of his gaming friends. >> you were trying to get the names for this 20 or 30 young people in the chat room. how do you go about that? how do you eliminate those that you were looking at to find this guy called jack? >> it was partly patterns you are looking for, but also a bit of luck narrowing down the ones who happen to be jack.

they play certain games together on certain platforms. project is another one of them. halo at times. there are records of those games being played online. you can see even groups of friends playing together as a band of fighters within the game. we had, from some of the sources we had spoken to, he was able to spot who was playing with who regularly. it led us to jack's list of usernames. we could run those down on other platforms, as well to see what information there was. when we had more public infoation, his family described him as enlisting with the national guard.

and found his name, the official facebook page of the intelligence wing of the national guard where he worked. we can see he had a promotion last year before he started sharing the documents. >> people are fascinated by the process. i'm trying to understand how it works. is it a bit like a situation room? how many were there? i know you're working different lines of inquiring. >> we are working a few things. it is a very busy life trapped dropping in links, someone runs it down elsewhere, excludes certain things very quickly. then really honing in. three of the team are doing that while we are trying to bring in these documents. when we have the documents, great interest in the newsroom running those down. we pass it off, writing down

some bullet points. our national security correspondence will report those out when we focus on identifying the leaguer. when we knew the authorities work closing in on him, we had to scramble quickly to get to his address to look at it in satellite imagery, talk to our security team. the team arrived early thursday morning as unmarked federal cars were driving by. a couple of hours after the story published, we wanted to talk to him first. ultimately we published, the authorities were announcing -- the team got trapped inside of the corridor. >> that is the incredible thing about this. you were working in a different

way to the fbi, who had gone to discord and asked for the record of a person they knew and uploaded the documents. on that file was his name and the home address. they were working in a very different way, a forensic way in which you were operating. he almost beat them to it. >> yes, they were taking one track and we were taking another. but we do know they spoke to one of the gamers who also spoke to erik told her. i think other news organizations have gone to that gamers home. they spoke to his parents. the authorities were close behind. that was easier to track down.

he used his first name. i think they found their information from that, the platforms themselves. we were taking a different approach with the information we could collect. >> i want to get into the national security aspects of all of this. paul pillar is a nonresident fellow at the quincy institute. formerly executive assistant to the deputy director for intelligence. i know you have been listening to that. i wonder if there is a bit of a dark spot for the fbi in the way they investigate these cases, because it is unique in the story being told. >> i suppose if there is a dark spot, it is the idea the motive of the young air man seems to be so trivial and private as compared to some of the other notorious leaders of the past suchs chelsea manning or

edward snowden, who were at least claiming to be whistleblowers trying to uncover some sort of official malfeasance or wrongdoing. it did not seem to be the case in terms of his motivation. i suppose those in the fbi and other counterintelligence components, when they think about the likely next leaguer, they would have to consider this scenario as the ones exemplified by edward snowden. >> someone has to build and protect the networks on which the intelligence is carried. it will follow these people have more access than most. you have been at a senior position. would you have access to the intelligence he has disseminated? >> the short answer is yes. the important thing you pointed out. why would such a junior person have access to this stuff?

if it is someone like edward snowden, a systems administrator, responsible for doing the nuts and bolts support work for the information systems through whi such classified material flows, there is no way for that person to do his job without being able to access the material systems. >> i've heard a number of intelligence communities speaking. some say the cia does it better than the military. what provisions of the cia put into place the military need to look at? >> when you come to things like bedding personnel, the cia has traditionally had more stringent ways of doing that, including the administration of a polygraph to everyone who will get a clearance. usually that has not been the case with other government organizati, many other

organizations, including the military. it is not a matter of having a clearance or not, there are various levels of compartmented information where traditional betting is done. with an agency like the cia who has lives of human agents at stake, that part has been taken extremely seriously. it should not be surprising there is some discrepancy, but there will be new looks in the military intelligence apparatus as to what the criteria and procedure should be. >> there was enormous naivety on the part of the national guardsmen. and there will be some people who feel some sympathy for the position he is in facing anything up to 15 years in prison. do you have sympathy for him, or do you need to impress on people how many lives he has put at risk? >> i don't feel any sympathy. we can acknowledge the naivety,

the mivations for these very private, monday and once involving the status within this group of gamers. i think it is a lesson that no matter what the motives are, no matter how junior the person they be, the damage of compromises can be the same. >> let's speak about the legal. he's facing two separate counts. the unauthorized retention and transmission of national defense and the unauthorized classi documents. he will remain detained until then. a possible sentence of 15 years in jail. mark has supervised the national security cases. thank you for being with us.

outline what these charges are and the seriousness of what he's facing. >> the first charge is on our -- unauthorized transmission of national defense information. this is called the espionage act enacted in 1917. it doesn't require the government to show this was classified information. they have to show it had the potential of benefiting a foreign nation or harming the u.s. i think they will be able to demonstrate that. if he had reason toelieve it would harm the u.s. and a foreign stationmay be looking at higher penalties. it is the first charge in the case. it will be succeeded by an

indictment the grand jury will work at -- look at. it will undoubtedly contain many more charges than what we are seeing. when you lookt the charges in the case, a judge can stack them together depending on the circumstances to go well above 15 years. when you look at chelsea manning, who had a similar case, it was charged under the espionage act. she received a sentence of 35 years in prison that was later commuted by president oba to seven years. it shows you the possibilities in a case like this. chelsea manning released 700,000 documents. that was probably in the scope of what was larger. the real-time nature of the

information potentially reveals sources and methods of intelligence gathering in the u.s. and provides information to the russians on munitions and other battlefield taccs with supply of ukraine by other countries. it also impacts to the extent they lack confidence in the u.s. ability to keep secrets. if the court does get convicted, it has to look at the gravity of the offense. >> the criminal court. >> it will be a civilian court, charged in the district of massachusetts. >> it would be a jury trial, but you've had classified information -- >> it is very complicated and it will cause -- if he wants to go to trial, looking at the chelsea manning case.

between the time of her charge and trial was three years. that is because of the complexity of getting this information classified, making sure the court staff has security clearance, and coming up with ways of preventing the information without disclosing more infmation. it has not previously been disclosed. a lot of the information is out there. published in the newspapers. russians are scrutinizing it as the u.s. government has determined what is out there. they have some impact on the complexity of the presentation of evidence. it will be a long battle. >> we talked about his naivete. hopefully he wasn't disseminating it to the enemy, not doing it for political reasons, does it get taken into the account? >> the court has wide discretion

in sentencing for a number of factors. i think that is a mitigating factor. when you look at the charging document itself, he was read in the top-secret security clearance. if he had an intelligence official that went over all of the requirements, the prohibitions of utilizing and having possession of this kind of information and not this mating it. he knew he was going to be in trouble. still past his chat room, he started to panic. >> he started searching in a government computer. stay with us. let me come back to you. i guess it reaffirms something we all know this. when you have something in your hands, something tangible, and you put it on the internet, it

goes digital. there is no going back. it is attached to your profile forever. >> we leave a trace of our digital activity. it enabled us to find this person. naming people in real life. you have to be careful. it was wrecked this what he did. he did share it into a trusted group. he was the administrator. he had a real affinity. voice chat together as they play games. it is not like these anonymized or more polished platforms like twitter. these guys were hanging out together on a regular basis. he did not expect them to leave the group.

in that group for those documents public about -- more than a month ago. >> there was no way once it was on the file you can take that back and prevent people from finding out were come from? >> he can delete it, of course. deleted that server. once they moved from that close group of about 10 or 12 active users into one where there is many more, people started downloading it. that is where we obtain it and other newsrooms, as well. >> we are talking about mitigating circumstances. let's look at the macro. the ukrainians say they don't share the sensitivity with the u.s. do you think it will have an impact on the willingness to share information? >> yes. that has been identifiable

damage of previous leaks. intelligence liaison sharing information about friends and allies is a major part of the u.s. intelligence community. you don't have to trust your own secrets will be kept. cut off at least for a time. they have been valua, cut off by countries very close to us. they cannot trty to keep a secret. >> people have said it is embarrassing for the u.s. we don't often see the intelligence the u.s. is acting upon, how it analyzes intelligence and uses it. here we see in the case of ukraine, we have heard from kurt volker, who said he's less worried about the leak and what allies will of the way that intelligence is being analyzed.

>> mostf the damage is not so much in this case the sourcesth. there are some ways they can be compromised. most of the material we are dealings called finished intelligence. not real reporting from a particular source. analysis that drew on that reporting. a lot of it is asuch political and diplomatic in a direct intelligence sense. y of the challenges the ukrainian military is facing, the subject of a lot of the material has not been a secret. the press has been reporting on that for quite some time. what is damaging for it to be seen as something to be discussed in the u.s. government , which will hurt the ability of the u.s. government. >> i get that.

what the ambassador to, we have intelligence on afghanistan. now we are underestimating the counteroffensive in ukraine. this is a repeating pattern. it is quite extensive. allies can look at that and say why did you make that decision? >> the proof will be in the eating of pudding. i'm sure after eight months go by, there will be all kinds of after-the-fact critiques of intelligence of what the analyst got right and what the analyst got wrong. we are not in position to say what is good and what is bad. >> let me give you the final word. is anyone likely to be

investigated? >> i would imagine they are going to expand it past him. although he is the one with the fiduciary trust that he's probably the top target. they will look at not only other actors that may have been involved, they will want cooperation as to how he disseminated it. it is a race to find chat rooms. >> he has been doing this for quite a while. it may be the tip of the iceberg. >> it is a fascinating conversation. many congratulations on the work you have done with the new york times. it is impressive. thank you for coming on the program. paul pillar, thank you for your expertise. interesting to hear the legal aspects.

we are going to leave that story alone. we will come back. we will talk about guns. the national rifle association meeting in the u.s. interesting investigation tonight about ghost guns. guns manufactured from parts without any serial numbers. stay with us for that. narrator: funding for this presentation of this program is provided by... narrator: financial services firm, raymond james. man: bdo. accountants and advisors. narrator: funding was also provided by, the freeman foundation. by judy and peter blum kovler foundation; pursuing solutions for america's neglected needs. and by contributions to this pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. ♪ ♪

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♪ ♪ narrator: funding for this presentation of this program is provided by... narrator: pediatric surgeon. volunteer. topiary artist. a raymond james financial advisor tailors advice to help you live your life. life well planned. brook: these are people who are trying to change the world. startups have this energy that energizes me.