Details of Pentagon secret document Discord leaker emerge

[RDKirk]

The level of this leak requires a proportionate response. Also, the levels of tolerance for dumb militarism and gun-ho racism may well be higher in the US military than in the general population.

That is absolutely NOT true. The very opposite, in fact.

Red flags are usually missed because the filters for certain kinds of behavior do not exist or because the command and control were implemented in only a haphazard fashion. But I can see that such an investigation could all too easily be politicized also. Keeping this investigation honest about the actual issues will require strong institutions.

As I pointed out, these red flags would be missed because the information was not provided to the investigators in one way or another. For instance, the investigators would do a criminal record check with the local and state police agencies. Do the police agencies even file information on a firearm license denial in criminal records? I'd bet they don't.

And how thoroughly do you think routinely tracing a person's Internet footprint can or should go? Think about that for a moment.

I would expect standards to be lower in the National Guard than the regular military but then why did they have the same level of access to the information also?

The same Defense Investigative Service carries out the investigations regardless of the service component and standards are identical.

 

[mindlight]

That is absolutely NOT true. The very opposite, in fact.

I am not in the US Military hence the question. But I can take your word for that.

As I pointed out, these red flags would be missed because the information was not provided to the investigators in one way or another. For instance, the investigators would do a criminal record check with the local and state police agencies. Do the police agencies even file information on a firearm license denial in criminal records? I'd bet they don't.

And how thoroughly do you think routinely tracing a person's Internet footprint can or should go? Think about that for a moment.

People could do a check on my online history and no doubt uncover some embarrassing things from my last 25 years online and some rather ad hoc searches for information that might be militarily significant but nothing life-threatening or illegal. I have charge of my company's information and can access all of it but to be honest, I find most of that rather boring as it is just numbers and none of it is really of any strategic importance and I have no criminal agenda with it. I can be trusted with all of it because that is my job. If I had Jack Teixeira's job with what I know about how to access information and the questions that I have, I think I would be an avid reader where that was permitted but would understand that it was not my role to reveal secrets and especially not for bragging rights. It seems Jack Teixeira had some pretty job-relevant secrets that really should have been part of his background test and would have shown he could not be trusted with secrets. You have ruled out that his military colleagues shared his prejudices. But what does that leave, incompetence and failed procedures not least the background tests?

 

[RDKirk]

I am not in the US Military hence the question. But I can take your word for that.



People could do a check on my online history and no doubt uncover some embarrassing things from my last 25 years online and some rather ad hoc searches for information that might be militarily significant but nothing life-threatening or illegal. I have charge of my company's information and can access all of it but to be honest, I find most of that rather boring as it is just numbers and none of it is really of any strategic importance and I have no criminal agenda with it. I can be trusted with all of it because that is my job.

What you have just said is that you would not have any problem with the government setting up the extensive and invasive surveillance apparatus necessary to routinely track every American's online activity, no matter how obscure or infrequent, because you have nothing to hide.

That's the kind of thinking in reaction to a single incident that got us the PATRIOT Act. Although I was a career intelligence analyst myself--and had access to most of the alphabet of compartments at one time or another over my career--I am opposed to the US setting up that kind of surveillance apparatus and using it routinely to investigate American citizens.

If I had Jack Teixeira's job with what I know about how to access information and the questions that I have, I think I would be an avid reader where that was permitted but would understand that it was not my role to reveal secrets and especially not for bragging rights. It seems Jack Teixeira had some pretty job-relevant secrets that really should have been part of his background test and would have shown he could not be trusted with secrets. You have ruled out that his military colleagues shared his prejudices. But what does that leave, incompetence and failed procedures not least the background tests?

People in the military have lots of political opinions, and some of them mirror Donald Trump's opinions...but Donald Trump's opinions are not illegal, nor do they denote a likelihood of releasing classified information for their own benefit.

Teixeira's crime was not because of his opinions. His crime was because he was personally deficient of the judgment not to use the information to which he had access to ingratiate himself with a narrow group of like-minded online acquaintances.

There are left-leaning people with SCI clearances who face the same moral situation. The US government has a lot of secret activities--things the US military has done in Africa, the Middle East, et cetera, that would be embarrassing if released and would endanger lives, but would suit left-wing causes.

 

[mindlight]

What you have just said is that you would not have any problem with the government setting up the extensive and invasive surveillance apparatus necessary to routinely track every American's online activity, no matter how obscure or infrequent, because you have nothing to hide.

That's the kind of thinking in reaction to a single incident that got us the PATRIOT Act. Although I was a career intelligence analyst myself--and had access to most of the alphabet of compartments at one time or another over my career--I am opposed to the US setting up that kind of surveillance apparatus and using it routinely to investigate American citizens.

Not every American citizen needs surveillance just those who are trusted with its secrets

People in the military have lots of political opinions, and some of them mirror Donald Trump's opinions...but Donald Trump's opinions are not illegal, nor do they denote a likelihood of releasing classified information for their own benefit.

Teixeira's crime was not because of his opinions. His crime was because he was personally deficient of the judgment not to use the information to which he had access to ingratiate himself with a narrow group of like-minded online acquaintances.

There are left-leaning people with SCI clearances who face the same moral situation. The US government has a lot of secret activities--things the US military has done in Africa, the Middle East, et cetera, that would be embarrassing if released and would endanger lives, but would suit left-wing causes.

If you know someone's politics then you know their area of temptation also when it comes to the use and abuse of secrets. People trusted with information should be held to a higher standard. These revelations can cost the lives of embedded sources and the stakes are as high as you can get. Allowing a fifth column to develop inside the military undermines security and gives the Chinese and Russians not to mention Islamic terrorist groups an advantage.

 

[RDKirk]

Not every American citizen needs surveillance just those who are trusted with its secrets

The people "entrusted with its secrets" are not kept cloistered in some closed community out in the Mohave Desert. Those people come from all walks of life. They participate in everything everyone else participates in. They live in the places everyone else lives.

Keeping them under surveillance would require an apparatus that keeps everyone under surveillance.

If you know someone's politics then you know their area of temptation also when it comes to the use and abuse of secrets. People trusted with information should be held to a higher standard. These revelations can cost the lives of embedded sources and the stakes are as high as you can get. Allowing a fifth column to develop inside the military undermines security and gives the Chinese and Russians not to mention Islamic terrorist groups an advantage.

And they are kept to a higher standard. They can't get into serious debt. They can't have gambling habits. They can't commit even petty crimes. They can't even be too promiscuous. They can't marry whomever they wish. And yes, there are people of certain political bents they can't associate with.

 

[Valletta]

The people "entrusted with its secrets" are not kept cloistered in some closed community out in the Mohave Desert. Those people come from all walks of life. They participate in everything everyone else participates in. They live in the places everyone else lives.

Keeping them under surveillance would require an apparatus that keeps everyone under surveillance.



And they are kept to a higher standard. They can't get into serious debt. They can't have gambling habits. They can't commit even petty crimes. They can't even be too promiscuous. They can't marry whomever they wish. And yes, there are people of certain political bents they can't associate with.

It sounds like you worked in an area that truly took proper precautions and where there was accountability. But there is a LOW standard for those who are part of the establishment. For example, Sandy Berger was caught stealing classified documents. Berger had stuffed the secret documents down his pants. His punishment? They took away his security clearance for three years. As to Teixeira, it seems clear to me there is much more that has been concealed from the American public. No one IT specialist should have access to such a variety of intelligence, including things like troop movements, without a need to know. The kind of information described should have been available to only a tiny number of people at high levels.

 

[RDKirk]

It sounds like you worked in an area that truly took proper precautions and where there was accountability. But there is a LOW standard for those who are part of the establishment. For example, Sandy Berger was caught stealing classified documents. Berger had stuffed the secret documents down his pants. His punishment? They took away his security clearance for three years. As to Teixeira, it seems clear to me there is much more that has been concealed from the American public. No one IT specialist should have access to such a variety of intelligence, including things like troop movements, without a need to know. The kind of information described should have been available to only a tiny number of people at high levels.

Teixeira's position gave him access to the room. He then stole documents from someone's desk.

And, no, that kind of information cannot be available to "only a tiny number of people at high levels" because it's the greater number of people at lower levels who actually do the work. That would be like a football team owner not sharing the playbook with the players.

 

[mindlight]

The people "entrusted with its secrets" are not kept cloistered in some closed community out in the Mohave Desert. Those people come from all walks of life. They participate in everything everyone else participates in. They live in the places everyone else lives.

Keeping them under surveillance would require an apparatus that keeps everyone under surveillance.

I think you know that is not true. Requests for access must be formally given and justified and can be limited in scope. The various provisions of the Patriot Act sec 215, and Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act sec 702 limit the scope and rationale for such surveillance. Given the stakes in the intelligence war with Russia, China, Iran and others this is a necessary intrusion. Snowden exposed sources and compromised necessary operations against foreign enemies of the USA and indeed the UK in a deliberate fashion and Teixeira did the same in an act of narcissistic stupidity. If the rules have now been tightened in response to the revelations of privacy violations made by Snowden then they have at the expense of security. Teixeira might have been picked up earlier in the pre-Snowden system. The fact of data collection is not as problematic as how that data is used. We are in a war with the aforementioned countries, even if it is not been formally declared and the stakes are often life and death. This is a question of whether we trust the US and UK intelligence services to do a better job protecting our physical freedoms than the Chinese or Russians or Iranians would do damage to them with access to the same information. I do not care if a few intelligence officials in the UK or USA have a few laughs at my expense I do care if my physical and free speech /worship freedoms and those of my family are curtailed by the kind of oppression that Chinese citizens endure.

And they are kept to a higher standard. They can't get into serious debt. They can't have gambling habits. They can't commit even petty crimes. They can't even be too promiscuous. They can't marry whomever they wish. And yes, there are people of certain political bents they can't associate with.

All very well but clearly not enough in this case.

 

[RDKirk]

I think you know that is not true. Requests for access must be formally given and justified and can be limited in scope. The various provisions of the Patriot Act sec 215, and Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act sec 702 limit the scope and rationale for such surveillance. Given the stakes in the intelligence war with Russia, China, Iran and others this is a necessary intrusion. Snowden exposed sources and compromised necessary operations against foreign enemies of the USA and indeed the UK in a deliberate fashion and Teixeira did the same in an act of narcissistic stupidity. If the rules have now been tightened in response to the revelations of privacy violations made by Snowden then they have at the expense of security. Teixeira might have been picked up earlier in the pre-Snowden system. The fact of data collection is not as problematic as how that data is used. We are in a war with the aforementioned countries, even if it is not been formally declared and the stakes are often life and death. This is a question of whether we trust the US and UK intelligence services to do a better job protecting our physical freedoms than the Chinese or Russians or Iranians would do damage to them with access to the same information. I do not care if a few intelligence officials in the UK or USA have a few laughs at my expense I do care if my physical and free speech /worship freedoms and those of my family are curtailed by the kind of oppression that Chinese citizens endure.

There was so much misunderstanding and conflation of completely difference situations in that massive paragraph.

Snowden was never discovered to be leaking information secretly, he uncovered it publicly.

In order for the NSA to use its methods to search for a suspected leak, there must first be the suspicion of a leak, and moreover, very specific suspicion of a specific leaker or the information that was leaked. The NSA can't just say, "We think there may be a leak, we want to check everybody." They have to use search tools that will follow a specific individual who they already come to suspect by other means or certain information that they know was leaked.

If they don't know the individual, they have to search for the specific elements of a known leak, which, in fact, they did in this case. They knew what information had been leaked and searched specifically for that information. Once they found where that information had been posted, they started tracking down who had access to it and who posted it.

But if they don't have anything specific to search for, they can't get a search warrant. That's no different from a search of a citizen's home...the warrant has to specify who, where, what, and why, and it must limit the search to those factors.

And a person is not a suspected leaker just because he holds a security clearance. The NSA has more than enough work to do tracking real, live, known enemy activities. Adding to that the continuous job of tracking all the thousands of people who hold security clearances--who have no reason to be suspected of a crime--would be absurdly impractical.

 

[mindlight]

There was so much misunderstanding and conflation of completely difference situations in that massive paragraph.

Snowden was never discovered to be leaking information secretly, he uncovered it publicly.

In order for the NSA to use its methods to search for a suspected leak, there must first be the suspicion of a leak, and moreover, very specific suspicion of a specific leaker or the information that was leaked. The NSA can't just say, "We think there may be a leak, we want to check everybody." They have to use search tools that will follow a specific individual who they already come to suspect by other means or certain information that they know was leaked.

If they don't know the individual, they have to search for the specific elements of a known leak, which, in fact, they did in this case. They knew what information had been leaked and searched specifically for that information. Once they found where that information had been posted, they started tracking down who had access to it and who posted it.

But if they don't have anything specific to search for, they can't get a search warrant. That's no different from a search of a citizen's home...the warrant has to specify who, where, what, and why, and it must limit the search to those factors.

And a person is not a suspected leaker just because he holds a security clearance. The NSA has more than enough work to do tracking real, live, known enemy activities. Adding to that the continuous job of tracking all the thousands of people who hold security clearances--who have no reason to be suspected of a crime--would be absurdly impractical.

Snowden was a programmer of the system and knew how to play it. His heartbeat program indexed many of the files. Teixeira was a low-level reader by comparison. Because of what Snowden did and his impact on privacy considerations, Teixeira's digital footprint of actual top secret documents online never appeared on the radar until they went searching for it. Too many people have security clearance.

The result; people on the ground are exposed as spies and their operations are shut down. A battle is lost in the war of information with the West's major rivals.

 

[RDKirk]

Snowden was a programmer of the system and knew how to play it. His heartbeat program indexed many of the files. Teixeira was a low-level reader by comparison. Because of what Snowden did and his impact on privacy considerations, Teixeira's digital footprint of actual top secret documents online never appeared on the radar until they went searching for it. Too many people have security clearance.

The result; people on the ground are exposed as spies and their operations are shut down. A battle is lost in the war of information with the West's major rivals.

That post was totally illogical. Not one sentence pertained to the one preceding it.

 

[Arcangl86]

Teixeira's position gave him access to the room. He then stole documents from someone's desk.

And, no, that kind of information cannot be available to "only a tiny number of people at high levels" because it's the greater number of people at lower levels who actually do the work. That would be like a football team owner not sharing the playbook with the players.

So I'm assuming since the SCIF itself is considered secure, there is no requirement to secure individual documents?

 

[RDKirk]

So I'm assuming since the SCIF itself is considered secure, there is no requirement to secure individual documents?

Exactly. Within the SCIF, documents of the classification compartments identified for that SCIF and its residents can be left in the open, as on a desk or in an unsecured desk drawer. The SCIF itself is literally a safe and has all the requirements for being physically secure as a cabinet-style safe would have in any other area. The door is a vault door, the place is alarmed, the walls are of specific thickness made of concrete and steel, there are no plumbing penetrations, entry and exits are monitored, et cetera.

There are some very modern SCIFs in the DC area, such as DIA headquarters itself, that have fancy things like windows with special visual and sonic anti-surveillance treatments, but most SCIFs don't have windows.

Interestingly, the Oval Office is not a SCIF. Someone is supposed to be accounting for and securing all the classified material in the Oval Office at the close of every day.

Officially published classified documents are registered and tracked, but unofficial documents are created every time someone writes a paragraph and prints it out. These days, though, there shouldn't be much "printing out." That was being actively discouraged by the 90s, and dealing with classified waste paper is a pain for everyone.

However, if someone knows he had a classified document in his possession and it suddenly disappeared...he should alert the SCIF security manager. Of course, we should expect someone to spend a lot of time searching for it before taking that step.

 

[Arcangl86]

Exactly. Within the SCIF, documents of the classification compartments identified for that SCIF and its residents can be left in the open, as on a desk or in an unsecured desk drawer. The SCIF itself is literally a safe and has all the requirements for being physically secure as a cabinet-style safe would have in any other area. The door is a vault door, the place is alarmed, the walls are of specific thickness made of concrete and steel, there are no plumbing penetrations, entry and exits are monitored, et cetera.

There are some very modern SCIFs in the DC area, such as DIA headquarters itself, that have fancy things like windows with special visual and sonic anti-surveillance treatments, but most SCIFs don't have windows. Interestingly, the Oval Office is not a SCIF.

Officially published classified documents are registered and tracked, but unofficial documents are created every time someone writes a paragraph and prints it out. These days, though, there shouldn't be much "printing out." That was being actively discouraged by the 90s, and dealing with classified waste paper is a pain for everyone.

However, if someone knows he had a classified document in his possession and it suddenly disappeared...he should alert the SCIF security manager. Of course, we should expect someone to spend a lot of time searching for it before taking that step.

Wait, the Oval is not a SCIF? Does that mean that POTUS can't receive the daily brief there?

Also in regards to this case, if documents are tracked, how was he able to remove items to what I assume was his home so he could photograph them?

 

[RDKirk]

Wait, the Oval is not a SCIF? Does that mean that POTUS can't receive the daily brief there?

The president goes to the Situation Room for his daily briefings, which is a SCIF. I'm supposing the Oval Office has never been made a SCIF because there are so many uncleared visitors every day. If it were a SCIF, it would have to be "sanitized" (a significant pain in the okole) for every one of them each time. The way they handle it now, classified documents are given to the presidents as they need to work on them and then secured when they're finished.

(Of course, we know that somehow not all documents are getting secured as they should. I suppose too many people have been too hesitant to ask presidents hard questions when documents go missing.)

Also in regards to this case, if documents are tracked, how was he able to remove items to what I assume was his home so he could photograph them?

I don't know if they were officially published documents or local printouts. If they were officially published documents, some people are breathing more easily now.

 

[Hans Blaster]

Wait, the Oval is not a SCIF? Does that mean that POTUS can't receive the daily brief there?

It has a lot of windows. Reporters have previously noted the presence and even moods of people meeting with POTUS in the Oval by looking from areas where reporters regularly work.

 

[wing2000]

More insight into Teixeira's mindset:

Jack Teixeira, dressed in camouflage fatigues, his finger wrapped around the trigger of a semiautomatic rifle, faced the camera and spoke as though reciting an oath.
“Jews scam, n-----s rape, and I mag dump.”

Teixeira raised his weapon, aimed at an unseen target and fired 10 times in rapid succession, emptying the magazine of bullets.

The six-second video, taken at a gun range near Teixeira’s home in Massachusetts, affords a brief but illuminating glimpse into the offline world of the 21-year-old National Guard member, who stands accused of leaking a trove of classified military intelligence on the group-chat platform Discord.

Previously unpublished videos and chat logs reviewed by The Washington Post, as well as interviews with several of Teixeira’s close friends, suggest that he was readying for what he imagined would be a violent struggle against a legion of perceived adversaries — including Blacks, political liberals, Jews, gay and transgender people — who would make life intolerable for the kind of person Teixeira professed to be: an Orthodox Christian, politically conservative and ready to defend, if not the government of the United States, a set of ideals on which he imagined it was founded.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/05/13/jack-teixeira-discord-leaked-documents/

 

[essentialsaltes]

Suspected Pentagon leaker was warned multiple times, prosecutors say​

The court filing from justice department prosecutors ... said that on one occasion he was seen taking notes and putting them in his pocket. His superiors then asked him to stop taking notes in any form on classified information, prosecutors said.

A month later, Mr Teixeira's bosses discovered he was "potentially ignoring a cease-and-desist order on deep diving into intelligence" after he went to a classified briefing and posed "very specific questions" about what was discussed. They told him to stop and "focus on his job", the court filing said.

Then, in February 2023, after someone saw the airman viewing intelligence information that was "not related to his primary duty", Mr Teixeira's supervisors were notified, according to the court document. It is unclear if he was disciplined.

Prosecutors claim the airman has bragged to people online about violating rules on classified information. They say he acknowledged in December that he was "breaking a ton of UD regs", a reference to unauthorised disclosure, but said, he did not care "what they say I can or can't share".

[This goes to the point that he potentially won't obey the court's instructions and should therefore be kept in custody. For me, it also raises the question of whether his superiors should have done more at the time.]

 

[RocksInMyHead]

Suspected Pentagon leaker was warned multiple times, prosecutors say​

The court filing from justice department prosecutors ... said that on one occasion he was seen taking notes and putting them in his pocket. His superiors then asked him to stop taking notes in any form on classified information, prosecutors said.

A month later, Mr Teixeira's bosses discovered he was "potentially ignoring a cease-and-desist order on deep diving into intelligence" after he went to a classified briefing and posed "very specific questions" about what was discussed. They told him to stop and "focus on his job", the court filing said.

Then, in February 2023, after someone saw the airman viewing intelligence information that was "not related to his primary duty", Mr Teixeira's supervisors were notified, according to the court document. It is unclear if he was disciplined.

Prosecutors claim the airman has bragged to people online about violating rules on classified information. They say he acknowledged in December that he was "breaking a ton of UD regs", a reference to unauthorised disclosure, but said, he did not care "what they say I can or can't share".

[This goes to the point that he potentially won't obey the court's instructions and should therefore be kept in custody. For me, it also raises the question of whether his superiors should have done more at the time.]

Yikes. ANG is definitely not coming out of this looking good. At least 3 instances of clearly violating security regs and he still had clearance?

 

[RDKirk]

Suspected Pentagon leaker was warned multiple times, prosecutors say​

The court filing from justice department prosecutors ... said that on one occasion he was seen taking notes and putting them in his pocket. His superiors then asked him to stop taking notes in any form on classified information, prosecutors said.

Yeah, that should have bought at the very least a formal letter of admonishment, which is a stern talking-to from his commander placed into his record. An LOA is a presumption that he was just young and dumb and was capable of doing the right thing once pointedly counseled.

It's the "putting them into his pocket" part that rings the alarm. We commonly took written notes (no tablets allowed in a SCIF). In fact, when I was at SAC heaquarters, our general would pointedly nail anyone who didn't take notes ("Don't you think what I have to say is important enough to write down?"). But those notes went into properly marked folders that also never left the SCIF.

Into his pocket? Oh, heck no.

A month later, Mr Teixeira's bosses discovered he was "potentially ignoring a cease-and-desist order on deep diving into intelligence" after he went to a classified briefing and posed "very specific questions" about what was discussed. They told him to stop and "focus on his job", the court filing said.

Then, in February 2023, after someone saw the airman viewing intelligence information that was "not related to his primary duty", Mr Teixeira's supervisors were notified, according to the court document. It is unclear if he was disciplined.

If he had gotten that formal letter of admonishment earlier, that would have triggered an investigation, probably an Article 15 investigation, with these additional issues.

I had a troop get a DUI, and my colonel and I had to argue vigorously with the commander that she be allowed to keep her clearances while the commander otherwise gave her an official slapping-around (she also lost a stripe). Obviously, the DUI had nothing to do with her security practices, but losing the clearance and being assigned to "weeds and seeds" or handing out towels in the gym was just something that normally came automatically with disciplinary action.