On the arrest of security leaker Jack Teixeira
You’ll read a lot in the coming days about the dangers of apps like Discord, or of online gaming groups, which counterintelligence officials told the Washington Post today are a “magnet for spies.” The Leaker tale will also surely be framed as reason to pass the RESTRICT Act, the wet dream of creepazoid Virginia Senator Mark Warner, which would give government wide latitude to crack down on “communication technology” creating “undue or unacceptable risk” to national security.
In crisis we have opportunity.
Taibbi points out a huge double standard about intelligence leaks, which is that intelligence agencies/agents themselves leak all over the place, mostly for political reasons, and that is treated as perfectly okay. In contrast, other leakers are heavily punished.
When civilians or whistleblowers like Edward Snowden, Julian Assange (in jail for an incredible four years now), Reality Winner and now the “Discord Leaker” bring leaked information to the public, the immediate threat is Espionage Act charges and decades of jail time. When a CIA head or a top FBI official does it, it’s just news. In fact, officials talk openly about using “strategic leaks” as a P.R. staple.
Teixeira is a mysterious leaker in that it’s not even clear how he could get access to the information leaked. But there’s no dearth of articles such as this one, claiming that it’s not unusual for low level military people to have plenty of access to very sensitive material. If so, it seems to me that it’s just one more thing that’s wrong with the system, and would make such leaks virtually inevitable.
But the Pentagon is having trouble explaining his access:
None of the rest of us could explain how an enlistee in the Air National Guard got his hands on highly classified military and diplomatic intelligence leaked over the past few months. Now it turns out that the Pentagon doesn’t have a good answer for that question, either. The Wall Street Journal refers to it as “among the most puzzling questions” of the case, and the Pentagon’s lack of explanation for it is not building much confidence in opsec…
Jack Teixeira served in the 102nd Intelligence Wing of the Massachusetts Air National Guard, based on Cape Cod. What would the MANG “need to know” about Mossad communications, Russian and Ukrainian military operations, and diplomat communications? The former chief of Massachusetts Homeland Security, Juliette Kayyem, doesn’t have an explanation for it either…
That raises a significant question of how Teixeira gained access to these documents. Did he get them from within American systems? Or did an outside source provide the documents to Teixeira, and if so, for what purpose?
This case is clear as mud.
I blame White Rage.
@ om:
Great name for a metal band.
Oh, neo, but they do! It was teh Russkies!
From the linked hotair article:
“Other possibilities have emerged, too. Microsoft president Brad Smith had noted this week that intelligence services have tried penetrating gaming-comms platforms like Discord for recruitment and especially for publication and distribution of propaganda. That specifically includes the Wagner Group, the Russian mercenary group participating in the invasion of Ukraine and vying for power in the Kremlin. Did “jackthedripper” obtain and publish these documents on his own, or did he get them from Wagner or another intel service for propaganda purposes?”
So yes, nothing to see here, move along now, citizen. I’m sure that a literal nobody’s leaking of classified information that he would have had no access to on his own has absolutely nothing – nothing!! – to do with pending legislation to vastly expand domestic spying authorities and capabilities.
And we all know, that just like the P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Act, those new powers will be used for the greater good and would never – never! – be turned against ordinary Americans. The government says so.
As far as access is concerned; even the most secure sites have low level clerical staff.
Back in the day, anyone might become an anti-war activist and decide to subvert the effort. As a broad statement, the more junior the individual the more likely.
The little I read about how he was vetted left the impression that it was pretty cursory for access to information as sensitive as that described. On the other hand, I don’t think that we actually know the classification or sensitivity. We have are rather breathless and generalized descriptions. Some of the described material seems very odd to be in the hands of a National Guard outfit. Was he fed stuff from other locations?
The real dilemma is how to blame it on Trump. Did they find a MAGA hat in the perp’s belongings?
Finally, while I’m on a commentary kick-
It is telling that the leaker is not being charged with taking the documents- only with retaining them. The linked hotair article tries to brush that over, saying that the government can add those charges later if evidence surfaces.
Sure, why yes they can. However, we know how federal prosecutors work. Standard procedure is to charge everything under the sun, then whittle it down as the case goes on to finally settle on a plea to one count of false statements.
I’m not in the government’s head, but I ponder why in this case they wouldn’t charge the obvious theft of classified material.
Unless they already know that he didn’t take it himself.
Grunt – If they don’t know how the guy obtained the documents, it wouldn’t be ethical to charge him with stealing the documents. If you don’t have the evidence to back up the underlying facts of a crime, you can’t bring a criminal charge.
OK, as an E-3 Airman I had a Top Secret clearance. I handled TS docs every day as part of my job. Not sure how I was vetted though. This was 1968-70.
I agree with Oldflyer on this: even the most secure facilities are manned in part by “worker bees” who do the scut work. They have security clearances, to be sure, but they are initially recruited on the basis of some skill that is needed. For example they have communication skills, or IT skills, or they are able to type and take dictation, or they are married to one of the regular employees who has gone through a full-field investigation. In some of the offices I worked in overseas a small number of the clerical staff were the spouse of an officer, and I sometimes wondered if their clearance was based on the supposition that their husband/wife had a Top Secret clearance, so they must be reliable too. A very sketchy basis, to be sure, but it fills a clerical need and it keeps the spouse from having idle hands.
Apparently Teixeira was hired into his clerical job on the basis of his IT skills which probably made good sense. Who could have guessed that those skills came with an interest in gamers’ chat rooms? Or that he would be the Old Guy (OG — his handle on one of the boards) and that the younger members would look to him for
inspiration and guidance — something that fed his need to prove himself?
I am not as surprised by his access as I am that he didn’t how likely it was his leaked documents would migrate off the chat boards and fall into hands who should not have access to them.
I was two years older than he is now when I got my first TS clearance, and it was drilled into us that we would be targets of nefarious forces. I can’t imagine he didn’t get a similar warning.
I thought the funniest part my clearance was swearing that I had never been a member of the George Washington or Abraham Lincoln brigades in the Spanish Civil War.
I remember that I was also given a printed copy of the espionage act that said that I could be put to death.
Bauxite: “If you don’t have the evidence to back up the underlying facts of a crime, you can’t bring a criminal charge.” Well, unless you’re Trump, or one of his associates, in which case, you are charged just because they want to, evidence be damned.
I’ve seen an interview with an ex CIA staffer who explains the guy arrested would never have had access to the FISA court doc or Israeli doc. Different silos of information and all. So someone gave it to him or planted it on him.
Which begs the questions, “from whom and for what purpose?”
“…it wouldn’t be ethical…”
You really kill me….
In any event, what are the odds he put them in an old box in his garage (if he has a garage) next to his Corvette (if he has a Corvette)…
– – – – – – – – –
“…from whom and for what purpose?”
“Merely” to confuse the hell out of everyone.
“Biden”‘s forte: Confusion, distraction, destruction.
And if “he” can pin it on Trump’s supporters then so much the better.
(One might expect that “Biden” will soon be going on another of his periodic “unity” jags…you know, first slam half of the country, then call for unity…)
I saw an interview with an ex CIA staffer who says the guy they arrested would never have had access to the FISA court doc or the Israeli doc. Different silos of information and all. Which implies the documents were given to him or planted on him.
Which begs the question “by whom and for what purpose?”
@ Yawrate:
I’ve seen that as well. While there is a lot of post-9/11 intelligence sharing in the “cleared professional” world, there are products and databases still walled off from one another.
I didn’t make that clear in my second post, but that’s what I meant when I said a “literal nobody”. Not that Texeira is a low-level clerk, but that the information he is accused of possessing would not have been available for him to access.
Hence why he’s not charged with the taking of the material.
Unless of course, the prosecutor handling this case is indeed one of the ethical ones, and is ensuring that the accused’s rights are respected and is waiting to bring the taking charge once he’s gathered the requisite probable cause. 🙂
Low level enlisted personnel have had access to highly damaging top secret documents for a long time now. Remember Bradley Manning? You would think that they would have fixed the problem by now.
they haven’t done in fifty years, with agee on one side, and boyce on the other,
the question lies, in the fact that the press has served as a handmaid for this deepstate, so the only truth comes through samizdat,
Bauxite. We’re talking about the feds here.
Meanwhile (while we’re wondering if Texeira has a Corvette or a garage to put it in)…
“IMF Unveils New Global Currency Known As The “Universal Monetary Unit” To “Transform” World Economy”—
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/imf-unveils-new-global-currency-known-universal-monetary-unit-transform-world-economy
“Merely” the reason why everyone has to be knee-capped financially.
(Well, “everyone” except the elites…)
…and the reason why AGW MUST be pushed and pushed hard (along with the food crisis…and all those food plants that mysteriously blow up!)
Hey, how ’bout another honorary degree for The Greta!
The puzzling thing…there are at least two, come to think of it…is not that he got hold of something classified, but that he got such a broad selection; Uke casualties, ammo orders, Israeli underhanded politics, and the aforementioned CIA doc which is not connected to the DoD system and would have to have been routed around the gap somehow. First-class posaage, likely.
A MANG big shot said the sorts of things listed do not come to the systems a MANG IT guy would be able to see even if he wanted to, in the course of his duties.
Yep, it’s time for “Biden” (and his WTF pals) to step in and “HELP” MAH FELLOW AMERCANS….(well, except those simply awful, beyond-the-pale Deplorables(TM)…but IF they should happen to “see the light”, well then they’ll get their food stamps!!)
“70% Of Americans Are Financially Stressed, 58% Live Paycheck-To-Paycheck”—
https://www.zerohedge.com/personal-finance/70-americans-are-financially-stressed-58-live-paycheck-paycheck
Yawrate on April 15, 2023 at 1:58 pm said:
I’ve seen an interview with an ex CIA staffer who explains the guy arrested would never have had access to the FISA court doc or Israeli doc. Different silos of information and all. So someone gave it to him or planted it on him.
Obviously someone gave them to him. Johnson, the ex-CIA guy says there is no way anyone below DNS level would have access. It will be interesting to see how this plays out. Will the kid be able to tell who gave them to him ? I doubt it.
Did I say, “Help”??
“Robin Hood in reverse: Biden green agenda raising prices for consumers, profits for Dem donors;
“Reverse transfer of wealth effects aggravated by new regulatory crackdown on gas cars.”—
https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/energy/ent-bidens-green-transition-could-spell-financial-chaos-americans-benefit
Opening graf:
“President Joe Biden announced plans on Wednesday to require that two-thirds of all U.S. car sales by 2032 be electric vehicles and impose the “strongest-ever” emissions restrictions on gas cars. Like much of the Biden green agenda, the proposals stand to raise costs for everyday Americans while swelling profits for Democrat megadonors….”
Remind me again. Have the found the guy who stole Trump’s and Bezos’ tax returns yet?(That’s a felony btw.) Also they find the person who leaked the Dobbs decision yet? I know, to ask the question is to answer it.
To Grunt @ 12:07
I knew a local band in high school in the 1970s named White Harvest. Great band … at the time.
Related:
The NYT is trash.
(But we already know that….)
“NYT military journalist rips his employer after exposing leaker: We would have protected him if he came to us”—
https://www.foxnews.com/media/nyt-military-journalist-rips-employer-after-exposing-leaker-would-have-protected-him-came-to-us
Barry Strictly speaking, NYT is an inanimate object. The people running it are the trash.
It all seems rather pat to me. How did the NYT, WAPO, and the intelligence services all mange to have simultaneous interlocking stories on the same day? Was Ray Epps involved?
it all came from bellingthecat which is an M1-6, CIA NSA contractor, next question,
As a quick note Neo
Under the kinds of circumstances that SHOULD BE I wouldn’t be that broken up about this, because intelligence agencies and agents SHOULD Leak for reasons very different from joe schmoe or the like. Intelligence is the Great Game and one of the highest of high stakes, and it is often a delicate dance of known, unknown, and known unknown where disinformation is crucial. One of the most potent weapons in that is the controlled leak, the “accidental” slip of the tongue or security breach that tells the enemy what you WANT them to think (whether in part or in whole) in a controlled fashion while you are actually keeping your cards very close to the chest. Operation Mincemeat and Operation Bodyguard are two examples of this working out spectacularly.
The issue of course is that this assumes the Intel Spooks are doing this in line with a strategy approved from up high or at least good intentions, which they often aren’t (as individual agents will want to) or that whistleblowers are a null factor. Neither stance is warranted and the Intel Orgs have certainly not warranted a huge amount of trust, especially for years.
It does seem passing strange the type of info he was putting online. Where is the connect ion to the need to know of the Mass. Air Guard? Many knowledgeable people are questioning this incident.
So, we just have to wait for more details and hope we get some truth.
Just one more way the Biden administration is looking inept.
No way is that kid the source of the leak. Just a fall guy. Its a virtual certainty that the leak was intentional.
He was supposedly in IT. One of the open secrets that the computer and IT world doesn’t like to talk about is that, with root access, *nothing* on the entire system is truly inaccessible. An individual file can be solidly encrypted by that file’s owner, but system-wide encryption is only an annoyance to the operator. Keep this in mind, “cloud” users.
Did he have root access? We’ll never know.
Yer absolutely correct, Richard.
As fish wrap and birdcage liner, it is PRECIOUS!
(Which is why only the print version should be bought….)
– – – – – – – – – –
In related spook news, just to flesh out that CIA officer story a bit more (see Yawrate and Mike K., above):
“Former CIA Officer Larry Johnson: This Is A Controlled Leak To Prepare The Public For “Crash Landing” Of U.S. Foreign Policy”—
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2023/04/14/former_cia_officer_larry_johnson_this_is_a_controlled_leak_to_prepare_the_public_for_crash_landing_of__us_foreign_policy.html
Key grafs:
‘ Former CIA officer Larry Johnson, who did presidential daily briefings during the George H.W. Bush administration, told “Judging Freedom” host Andrew Napolitano that he thinks the latest leak of Ukraine War documents is an inside job.
‘ About the source, he said: “I’d put it above the CIA. This is elements connected to the Director of National Intelligence… There’s no way that some National Guardsman doing [temporary duty] at Fort Bragg would have access to that.”
‘ “The information was leaked for [a purpose], to prepare the U.S. public for the crash landing that’s going to take place with respect to U.S. foreign policy,” he said….’ [Emphasis mine; Barry M.]
Related:
Kash Patel…
“…Kash Patel Questions Emerging Narrative on Pentagon Leaks: ‘This Is an Extensive Cover-Up’ “—
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2023/04/15/kash-patel-questions-emerging-narrative-pentagon-leaks-extensive-cover-up/
It just shows how unprepared our military and intelligence agencies are today. The stuff was out there for months and they didn’t know? I believe they did know and waited until it was discovered to react. This is how they want to get the Restrict Act.
Pingback:Sorta Blogless Sunday Pinup - Pirate's Cove » Pirate's Cove
The MA Air National Guard doesn’t need a whole military intelligence wing, but the ANG as a whole does. So when an Air National Guard unit deploys somewhere, a few folks from the MA Guard will go along.
Because of the job I was supposed to work in when I entered the Air Force in 1980, I had a very high clearance. I wound up doing something else and never really needed the clearance, but it was still there. I once was sent to fetch some stuff from the base command post because I was the only person on duty with the right clearance. My unit commander did not have it, although I was authorized to give him the docs once I had them.
So how does a low-ranking guardsman get access to such documents? The military intelligence wing would have a whole bunch of such things, in case they deploy alongside active-duty units. And it’s not officers who receive, process and file such documents. It’s low-ranking, but cleared, clerks.
So that’s how. I have serious mixed feelings about this whole thing. Bradley Manning, Winner Reality, Snowden et al, may have done us a favor by releasing such information. But they are not supposed to. They’re supposed to follow the rules and regs, and should they not, they’re supposed to be punished.
Of course, the head of the FBI should not be leaking either. And when we know Comey did just that, and even brags about it, it makes it pretty difficult to justify punishing some E-4.
When I–secret clearance fifty plus years ago–hear about how things are today, I am not convinced.
He had Ukraine status(es), Israeli politics, South Korean ammo orders, various other things. The breadth of his score is what interests me. With all the SCIFS and SCOFS and whatnot, I am prepared to think he found a hole from one place to another that either wasn’t supposed to exist, not be technically accessible, or a no-no.
But did that, and his attention, lead to all of what he has, including supposedly non-connected CIA work?
Let’s say both. He has an unauthorized access somewhere to something, so that takes care of the folks without a technical background. Far as they’re concerned, he can read love notes from Cronus to Venus or something.
Then somebody feeds him the rest of the stuff.
Being interested in the Uke issue, I’d be interested in the ammo order from South Korea. But Israeli politics?
Bradley Manning is a dumb person, but he got a clearance even while going through therapy.
There are a lot of people who can be trust with classifications, like me, but they should make an effort at it. Snowden isn’t a whistleblower, he was a data bomber.
assange never took anyones data, he only broadcast what was given to him. None of the examples are appropriate.
ANG does seem to have some genuine recruitment issues, though….
“Air National Guardsman arrested after applying online to be a hitman”—
https://nypost.com/2023/04/16/tennessee-air-national-guardsman-arrested-after-applying-to-be-hitman-online/
Has to have been other people in this spy ring or security is no longer what it guse to be.
Hey, remember when Ellsberg, Vindman, Manning and Ciaramella were heroes? Pepperidge Farm remembers!
Boy, you can’t say Ciaramella on Facebook or Wikipedia, but you can here! It feels so good! Ciaramella.
ciamarella is back at the carnegie endowment, where ages ago, the traitor alger hiss had his roost