so leaders are heavily disincentivised to ever let go of their intel, as they could never be sure that any of the people they're giving it to would not just run with it?
Also, what's to stop people from just tossing intel out an airlock (or hiding it somewhere in mainf)
Keeping your intel isn't terribly safe, either. Keep it on you - once the other factions figure out you're a leader, you might get an acute poisoning, of the regular or lead variety, and lose it anyway.
Keep it on an agent - you risk treason, same if you make a base and put it somewhere, plus bases can be raided.
Putting it in maint, quite similar - but you're just abandoning it for the first agent with maint access and time to spare to find if you don't watch it, or see above if you do by any means that allow you to scare off thieves.
Tossing it out works, I suppose, but there's a decent chance of it looping back to the station, whereupon agent HONK puts on an Emergency Space Suit and steals it, and even if you don't, you're losing out a chance to trade.
You don't *have* to do it, by any means, but you risk running a low-budget, low-tech operation that way and being out-gunned (even if the guns in question are the hilariously underpowered silenced Stetchkins). It is, quite simply, a gamble - and one where you can cheat the odds by being careful and being prepared. You know. Paranoid.