Air National Guardsman led online group where US documents leaked..updated

[mountaineer]

Charlie Kirk
@charliekirk11
All these things can be true at once:

1) 21-year-old Jack Teixeira should not have leaked classified briefings
2) He probably should not have had access to the intel
3) He should be punished
4) "Our leaders" should stop lying and admit their Ukraine strategy is a failure.

3:38 PM · Apr 13, 2023

[Timber Rattler]

So they sent a camouflaged and heavily armed SWAT team and an armored vehicle to pick up this overgrown kid?

 

[mystery-ak]

The NYTimes found the leaker not the FBI

Although gaming friends would not identify the leader of an online group linked to the leak of classified United States intelligence files, a trail of digital evidence compiled by The New York Times led toward Jack Teixeira, a 21-year-old member of the intelligence wing of the Massachusetts Air National Guard.

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2023/04/13/us/documents-leak-pentagon

[mountaineer]

The NYTimes found the leaker not the FBI

The FBI have been known to ignore many crimes, I hear. (Hunter Biden, call your office).

[mystery-ak]

https://twitter.com/Breaking911/status/1646600063743938577

[Timber Rattler]

[Maj. Bill Martin]

Does anyone else find it strange that THIS leak can be tracked down in short order but we STILL don't know who the SCOTUS leaker is?

Not really.   Knowing how courts/law firms operate, I never thought they'd catch the SCOTUS leaker.

First, The SCOTUS leaker was much, much smarter.  They took photos of their screen with their phone, which meant there was no digital trail from a download or direct access.  Then, they gave them only to a journalist, so you'd never been able to identify the leaker unless the journalist disclosed their source.   That goes to the second point, which is that what the SCOTUS leaker did was not against the law.   That meant there wasn't any pressure that could be applied to the journalist to force him to disclose that source.  And finally, both the leaker and journalist were very well aware of all their legal rights so you weren't going to get any other leaks of self-incrimination.

This guy was an idiot.  He leaked the documents online to a group of 30 people who knew who he was, many of whom were minors.  All it would have taken was just one of those 30 to leak that information to someone willing to report it, and he was doomed.  Additionally, we know know that at least one of those people posted some of that in a different forum to which a bunch more people had access, including Russians.  So that would have let digital forensic investigators begin tracking/looking for more clues to trace it back to that initial group of 30.   And apparently some of the images he posted were photographed in a way that showed some of the background around his desk at work.  Which means that once those photos went public, anyone who saw them and recognized any of the personalized details that showed in the photos would be able to finger him as well.

But it all really comes down to the SCOTUS leaker being very, very smart, and this guy being an idiot.

[Maj. Bill Martin]

The NYTimes found the leaker not the FBI

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2023/04/13/us/documents-leak-pentagon

Actually, I just read that wasn't true.  The NYT got a leak of the investigation, and then published the story.  The FBI already had him under surveillance.   

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/pentagon-leak-suspect-jack-teixeira-appear-federal-court-friday

If I were to guess, the most likely scenario is that one of the guys in that group told a family member or something, who then contacted the FBI.  FBI comes to interview the member of that group, who after being interviewed, decides to talk to the NYT.  That seems most likely to me because the uFBI wouldn't/couldn't have made an arrest so quickly based solely on an NYT article.  They'd have had to have actual sworn evidence to get the warrant.

[Kamaji]

Not really.   Knowing how courts/law firms operate, I never thought they'd catch the SCOTUS leaker.

First, The SCOTUS leaker was much, much smarter.  They took photos of their screen with their phone, which meant there was no digital trail from a download or direct access.  Then, they gave them only to a journalist, so you'd never been able to identify the leaker unless the journalist disclosed their source.   That goes to the second point, which is that what the SCOTUS leaker did was not against the law.   That meant there wasn't any pressure that could be applied to the journalist to force him to disclose that source.  And finally, both the leaker and journalist were very well aware of all their legal rights so you weren't going to get any other leaks of self-incrimination.

This guy was an idiot.  He leaked the documents online to a group of 30 people who knew who he was, many of whom were minors.  All it would have taken was just one of those 30 to leak that information to someone willing to report it, and he was doomed.  Additionally, we know know that at least one of those people posted some of that in a different, forum to which a bunch more people had access, including Russians.  So that would have let digital forensic investigators begin tracking/looking for more clues to trace it back to that initial group of 30.   And apparently some of the images he posted were photographed in a way that showed some of the background around his desk at work.  Which means that once those photos went public, anyone who saw them and recognized any of the personalized details that showed in the photos would be able to finger him as well.

But it all really comes down to the SCOTUS leaker being very, very smart, and this guy being an idiot.

[Maj. Bill Martin]

So they sent a camouflaged and heavily armed SWAT team and an armored vehicle to pick up this overgrown kid?

 

Odds are that he is going to be turning big rocks into little rocks for a very long time, and likely knew that.  In that situation, it is entirely possible that he could have been sufficiently distraught to resist.  And given that he did have at least some basic weapons training, they likely figured it was better to be safe than sorry.

When it's ridiculous is when you're going after older people who have a stable life, and are being arrested for comparatively minor crimes.

[Maj. Bill Martin]

I really wish someone would just slap the hell out of that pan-faced skank Marjorie Taylor Greene:

Jake Teixeira is white, male, christian, and antiwar.

That makes him an enemy to the Biden regime.  And he told the truth about troops being on the ground in Ukraine and a lot more.

Ask yourself who is the real enemy?  A young low level national guardsmen?   Or the administration that is waging war in Ukraine, a non-NATO nation, against nuclear Russia without war powers?

https://twitter.com/RepMTG/status/1646615867285708802?s=20

I'm thinking that at least one of our enemies is a lying Republican member of Congress who is cheering on the leaking of highly classified information simply because she believes it helps her preferred narrative.

[Kamaji]

Odds are that he is going to be turning big rocks into little rocks for a very long time, and likely knew that.  In that situation, it is entirely possible that he could have been sufficiently distraught to resist.  And given that he did have at least some basic weapons training, they likely figured it was better to be safe than sorry.

When it's ridiculous is when you're going after older people who have a stable life, and are being arrested for comparatively minor crimes.

[Maj. Bill Martin]

I was initially thinking "what idiot let this kid have this much access to that kind of information", but as it becomes more clear what his job was, it is starting to make sense.  It also exposes what may be a major structural problem to which their may be no easy answer.

This kid was an IT techie whose job it was to maintain the computer system itself.  By the nature of those jobs, you are going to have access to data on a technical level that is going to be very difficult to protect against because that person necessarily has access to that system, and knows that system very well.  It would be like in any company that dealt with very sensitive information.  The focus is naturally on the people who access and use that data on a daily basis, but what about the IT folks who necessarily are working within that system itself?  And because they're the experts, there's really not much that non-expert superiors can do to detect/prevent/stop it.

[Maj. Bill Martin]

Remember when this leak was Russia's fault, and not that of some kid from Massachusetts?  Government media do. 
:silly:https://www.reuters.com/world/us/russia-likely-behind-us-military-document-leak-us-officials-say-2023-04-07/

It's not quite that bad.

The kid leaked the stuff to his gaming group, and apparently someone from the gaming group them posted it to a war discussion forum that apparently had Russians.  Either a Russian or someone who was pro-Russian then altered some of the documents to make them more pro-Russian.  It was on that other site where they were first discovered, and they worked backwards from that.

So for them to say last Friday that it appears to have had a Russian source seems understandable to me.

[mystery-ak]

Actually, I just read that wasn't true.  The NYT got a leak of the investigation, and then published the story.  The FBI already had him under surveillance.   

The result of early reporting when a story is just breaking...

Thanks for the additional info..

[DefiantMassRINO]

His superiors need close scrutiny.

This is the downstream effect of Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Donald Trump, and Mike Pence being careless with Classified and Sensitive documents.

Our leaders are setting a terrible example when it comes to the sacrifices made by, and risks taken by, intelligence assets in the field.

Why would I want to risk my life, or that of my family, only to have some careless American political chowderhead blow my cover?

[Kamaji]

His superiors need close scrutiny.

This is the downstream effect of Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Donald Trump, and Mike Pence being careless with Classified and Sensitive documents.

Our leaders are setting a terrible example when it comes to the sacrifices made by, and risks taken by, intelligence assets in the field.

Why would I want to risk my life, or that of my family, only to have some careless American political chowderhead blow my cover?