Teenager shares info about Pentagon leaker — both were members of a small Discord group

Originally published at: Teenager shares info about Pentagon leaker — both were members of small Discord group | Boing Boing

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Is the leaker enlisted? Also what a strange reason to undermine national security, impressing teenagers.

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Let’s ask Matt Gaetz what he thinks.

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The rest of the Post’s article is fascinating, long, and definitely worth a read.

The rest of the Post’s article is an astonishing apologia for what, reading between the lines, are clearly a group of gun-worshipping scumbags. According to the Post, they are “United by their mutual love of guns, military gear and God” and the leaker himself is “a young, charismatic gun enthusiast”. We learn further that they were “searching for companionship amid the isolation of the pandemic” and that they “joked around and prayed”.

Granted, there are hints that these lovable rascals might have had a darker side. They named their channel after a racist meme (God is presumably cool with that) and their “revered” leader sometimes “[yelled] a series of racial and antisemitic slurs into the camera, then [fired] several rounds at a target.”

But the picture that emerges of the leaker above all is of a thoughtful, helpful person who wanted to “offer the others protection from the troubled world around them”. Why, he even helpfully translated the document tag NOFORN for the benefit of those who didn’t know that it stood for “Not Releasable to Foreign Nationals” before he posted secret documents to a channel with a 50% overseas membership.

This whole thing is JFC along every possible dimension, from the WaPo’s weird hagiographic spin on these douchebags to the casualness with which this clown – whose security clearance clearly went above and beyond what you’d expect for a typical enlisted serviceman – broadcast the kind of secrets that get people killed in quantity.

I don’t know if the military tribunals will look quite so generously on his transgressions as the WaPo. Perhaps leaking classified intel only carries the harshest sentence if it makes the government look bad (c.f. Reality Winner, Chelsea Manning). But in an effort to impress his little friends, he has screwed himself so hard and deep that it’ll be a miracle if he sees daylight again this century.

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I doubt it. It says “worked” at a military base, which sounds like a civilian contractor. There are a lot of jobs on military bases which are performed by civilians. Though if he had access to these documents, he would have had a security clearance of some kind.

I would suspect if we know about this discord server, that the feds will be knocking on a door in the near future…

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gee, let’s see who gets prosecuted for taking documents first: ■■■■■ or this guy. :confused:

( they both deserve it, for sure )

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Maybe the kid will claim that as a US Nat Guardsman the docs were his to take?

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I get that every piece of classified information has to be known to some - possibly quite a few - people who need it to do their job. But what does this guy do that he needs access all that somewhat varied and pretty juicy material?

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It’s OK, he declassified them with his mind.

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I have a feeling that we are going to find out soon. It’s possible that someone who actually had a need to know shared them with this guy. :man_shrugging:

Maybe he is an asset to a foreign gov? So many questions…

Apparently the suspected gentleman is a Jack Teixeira. FBI are making themselves comfortable at his home right now.

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Maybe someone just had sloppy security practices and he wasn’t actually supposed to have access to it in the first place. That might also help explain why sharing it with others in a “look how cool I am for having secret shit!” kind of way would give him such a rush.

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the leaker being a disaffected young man with racist views and a preoccupation with guns

Teixeira is an Airman 1st Class in the Guard’s 102nd Intelligence Wing via FB

…annnnd he’s been arrested.

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I wonder if this will finally convince the fed alphabet agencies that these 2nd amendment advocates really are a danger to the country and stop ignoring them bc they are mostly white cis het men

“He just wants to inform his friends about stuff he’s finding online but didn’t want the documents to leak. It was just bad luck for him that the documents were real,” Kralj added.

Wtf is this nonsense? Bad luck?! At best this OG person is a patsy

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“Disaffected…”

:roll_eyes:

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I didn’t read it like that at all. Instead I am assuming they are using subtlety, and possibly even sarcasm, to paint the most accurate picture they can when their sources are underage kids. I think they can trust us readers to read between the lines and figure out that these clowns are absolute scum.

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So that eventually he could build up a following and become an Influencer?

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Drawn and quartered.

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He has now been arrested. Who would have thought.

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As others said - arrested. He is so fucked, trying to impress randos on the internet. LOLs.

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