6 ms·

Would a guy in his position even have access to these documents? I'm thinking that there has to be someone who shared them or at least shared a way to gain acce

Would a guy in his position even have access to these documents? I'm thinking that there has to be someone who shared them or at least shared a way to gain access to them. I'm sure the FBI will be following the trail of bread crumbs to the original source. Now if it turns out he is the original source, we're in huge trouble. Because a 21 year old kid working night shift in some remote Cape Cod office for the Massachusetts Air National Guard shouldn't have this type of access.

morpheuskafka 4y ago
I agree. He claimed to have been working inside a SCIF on a regular basis. I'm sure the National Guard would have or have access to such a facility, and have the necessary clearances. But I don't see how an inactive or active-for-training guardsman could have a need to access that much information.
- thewildginger 4y ago
  There are 19 year olds with TS clearances. Some jobs just require it. It can be written into an enlistment contract. National guard and reserve units of different kinds are also kind of known for having serious racism problems. Racists use it to network and meet other racists, get the training and some credibility without actually committing to active duty. That shit in active duty is not tolerated, usually cause it's actually diverse unlike a reserve unit in a place like Massachusetts. Another problem with clearances in general is that often those eligible come from less diverse backgrounds due to parental citizenship considerations. fields that require a clearance are often less diverse because of this. People who have some time in the military probably won't be surprised if the situation is what the media is portraying it to be. As Abraham Lincoln pointed out about the US, the biggest problems for the country will come from within.
  - morpheuskafka 4y ago
    Yeah, my question was not that he got the clearance (presumably his MOS required it, whether full-time active or not), but why he was going into a facility and getting these documents when his unit was not called into active federal duty. There wouldn't have been any need to know so he shouldn't have had access since you need both a clearance and need to know.
r721 4y ago
According to new WaPo article, "he was a junior member of the military, but had access to highly sensitive information through his role as an IT tech within the military organization." https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/04/13/suspect-pentagon-documents-leak/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/04/13/... UPD They changed the wording, the current version: >Teixeira told members of the online group Thug Shaker Central that he worked as an technology support staffer for the Massachusetts Air National Guard and at a base on Cape Cod, and this was how he was able to access classified documents, one member of the Discord server told the Post.
- joezydeco 4y ago
  That's incredible. It's been a decade since Edward Snowden.
radicaldreamer 4y ago
There's a lot of trust on the internal systems, once you have clearance, to be able to access these docs. In this case, however, he might have been involved in creating some of these (or some kind of rollup product) and would therefore probably have access to different material to help support that creation. Or its a Snowden situation and he has access because he has privileges on the system due to being a sys admin of some sort.
mclide 4y ago
Given the large number of individuals that have access to such top secret documents, it is likely that enemies already are in the know of the sensitive information. Classifying information as top secret primarily functions to prevent the general public from the knowledge unless it is leaked to the press.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
ifyoubuildit 4y ago
It's not clear to me that he is confirmed to be the actual leaker and not just the owner of the group where the files were leaked.
- refulgentis 4y ago
  owner == leaker, multiple sources on that, then we see his family's reaction. Still not 100% clear its 100% confirmed but shy of him admitting it, probably best we'll get.
pocketsand 4y ago
The dirty not-so-secret about national defense apparatus in this country is that there are thousands of people in these various sub-sub-wings of our military along side mediocre contractors cashing in on defense contracts who go through rudimentary security clearance checks and have access to all this information. I grew up outside DC and every so often you hear of the security clearance spooks interviewing you or someone you know about some jamoke you went to high school with to determine if they're a security risk. They also ask those people really difficult questions, like, "Would you use drugs at work?" "If you did, would you download illegal documents?" "If you did get high at work and download illegal documents, would you post them on Myspace?" About half of the people actually fail to answer those questions in the expected way. The other half make 200,000 dollars a year from a subcontractor of a subcontractor of Northrop Grumman pushing paper at a desk all year. It's a national disgrace.
- rebuilder 4y ago
  It was reported in the news today that the USA is looking to tighten access to classified material as, currently, about one million US citizens have a top secret clearance.
  - LeifCarrotson 4y ago
    While it would be intractable to upend the status quo of about 0.5% of American adults using that access to get things done day-to-day, there's a lot that could be improved just by compartmentalizing that access and monitoring it. It's one thing for an IT admin on a Massachusetts national guard post to get access to a few local secrets. It's another when he's downloading hundreds of documents unrelated to his duties on a war thousands of miles away. Your average file share or web server for a medium-sized corporation with a negligible amount of confidential data probably has that level of monitoring, it's not particularly surprising that the slower-moving military doesn't yet but it probably should.
    - kevin_thibedeau 4y ago
      The shameful thing is this is the same scenario with the Manning leaks and nothing has been done to institute stronger access restrictions since. The military consistently refuses to operate by the same secrecy requirements that DoD contractors have to adhere to.
openasocket 4y ago
I was wondering the same thing. These leaks were briefings for the Joint Chiefs, right? He worked in intelligence, I could see him having some level of access, but I can't imagine him being read in on daily executive briefings
eternalban 4y ago
[flagged]
TurkishPoptart 4y ago
It's not even so much as database access as it was more likely a leak from on premises. AFAIK the leaked documents were photographs of physical printouts (they had visible creases in them).
TurkishPoptart 4y ago
Is it significant that the leaks were allegedly of photographs of printouts, with visible creases, as oppposed to being straight file-dumps? Maybe photographic a printout is better for opsec as opposed to files with some sort of DLP.
- refulgentis 4y ago
  nah, TL;DR: he got mad the teens on his Discord weren't reading his typeouts of them and started posting photos because it was more titillating to see it in all its glory, with markings etc. (also, saved him time in his weird little god simulation, why should someone as wise and talented as him A) be mostly ignored B) waste a ton of time trying to help these fools?)
- anthonygarcia21 4y ago
  It's possible that he fished the printouts out of a poorly-secured document disposal bin and then snuck them out.
  - sitzkrieg 4y ago
    everything is shredded within a proper scif so he probably reprinted or snuck out as is
ncphil 4y ago
It's the addiction of staff officer ranks (mostly Colonels, Generals), as well as senior agency executives and politicians, to paper hardcopies. They all want their briefing materials printed out so they can scribble in the margins and look important (and maybe share them with financial advisors and donors). Although some enlisted ranks have had authorized access to this stuff in the past (Chelsea Manning), in many cases they're downloading and printing it out for their superiors. Can't have these VIPs doing their own print jobs, can we? The lot of them should be fired as at best too stupid and lazy to serve.
rograndom 4y ago
I've done sub-sub-contract work for a few government and military orgs where standard procedure would be I would be mailed a thumb drive of what should just be images and word docs to add functionality to a small section of an internal website. Every single time there would be things on there, totally unrelated to the project, that I should definitely not have been given.

morpheuskafka 4y ago

I agree. He claimed to have been working inside a SCIF on a regular basis. I'm sure the National Guard would have or have access to such a facility, and have the necessary clearances. But I don't see how an inactive or active-for-training guardsman could have a need to access that much information.

thewildginger 4y ago
There are 19 year olds with TS clearances. Some jobs just require it. It can be written into an enlistment contract. National guard and reserve units of different kinds are also kind of known for having serious racism problems. Racists use it to network and meet other racists, get the training and some credibility without actually committing to active duty. That shit in active duty is not tolerated, usually cause it's actually diverse unlike a reserve unit in a place like Massachusetts. Another problem with clearances in general is that often those eligible come from less diverse backgrounds due to parental citizenship considerations. fields that require a clearance are often less diverse because of this. People who have some time in the military probably won't be surprised if the situation is what the media is portraying it to be. As Abraham Lincoln pointed out about the US, the biggest problems for the country will come from within.
- morpheuskafka 4y ago
  Yeah, my question was not that he got the clearance (presumably his MOS required it, whether full-time active or not), but why he was going into a facility and getting these documents when his unit was not called into active federal duty. There wouldn't have been any need to know so he shouldn't have had access since you need both a clearance and need to know.

r721 4y ago

According to new WaPo article, "he was a junior member of the military, but had access to highly sensitive information through his role as an IT tech within the military organization." https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/04/13/suspect-pentagon-documents-leak/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/04/13/... UPD They changed the wording, the current version: >Teixeira told members of the online group Thug Shaker Central that he worked as an technology support staffer for the Massachusetts Air National Guard and at a base on Cape Cod, and this was how he was able to access classified documents, one member of the Discord server told the Post.

joezydeco 4y ago
That's incredible. It's been a decade since Edward Snowden.

radicaldreamer 4y ago

There's a lot of trust on the internal systems, once you have clearance, to be able to access these docs. In this case, however, he might have been involved in creating some of these (or some kind of rollup product) and would therefore probably have access to different material to help support that creation. Or its a Snowden situation and he has access because he has privileges on the system due to being a sys admin of some sort.

mclide 4y ago

Given the large number of individuals that have access to such top secret documents, it is likely that enemies already are in the know of the sensitive information. Classifying information as top secret primarily functions to prevent the general public from the knowledge unless it is leaked to the press.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

ifyoubuildit 4y ago

It's not clear to me that he is confirmed to be the actual leaker and not just the owner of the group where the files were leaked.

refulgentis 4y ago
owner == leaker, multiple sources on that, then we see his family's reaction. Still not 100% clear its 100% confirmed but shy of him admitting it, probably best we'll get.

pocketsand 4y ago

The dirty not-so-secret about national defense apparatus in this country is that there are thousands of people in these various sub-sub-wings of our military along side mediocre contractors cashing in on defense contracts who go through rudimentary security clearance checks and have access to all this information. I grew up outside DC and every so often you hear of the security clearance spooks interviewing you or someone you know about some jamoke you went to high school with to determine if they're a security risk. They also ask those people really difficult questions, like, "Would you use drugs at work?" "If you did, would you download illegal documents?" "If you did get high at work and download illegal documents, would you post them on Myspace?" About half of the people actually fail to answer those questions in the expected way. The other half make 200,000 dollars a year from a subcontractor of a subcontractor of Northrop Grumman pushing paper at a desk all year. It's a national disgrace.

rebuilder 4y ago
It was reported in the news today that the USA is looking to tighten access to classified material as, currently, about one million US citizens have a top secret clearance.
- LeifCarrotson 4y ago
  While it would be intractable to upend the status quo of about 0.5% of American adults using that access to get things done day-to-day, there's a lot that could be improved just by compartmentalizing that access and monitoring it. It's one thing for an IT admin on a Massachusetts national guard post to get access to a few local secrets. It's another when he's downloading hundreds of documents unrelated to his duties on a war thousands of miles away. Your average file share or web server for a medium-sized corporation with a negligible amount of confidential data probably has that level of monitoring, it's not particularly surprising that the slower-moving military doesn't yet but it probably should.
  - kevin_thibedeau 4y ago
    The shameful thing is this is the same scenario with the Manning leaks and nothing has been done to institute stronger access restrictions since. The military consistently refuses to operate by the same secrecy requirements that DoD contractors have to adhere to.

openasocket 4y ago

I was wondering the same thing. These leaks were briefings for the Joint Chiefs, right? He worked in intelligence, I could see him having some level of access, but I can't imagine him being read in on daily executive briefings

eternalban 4y ago

[flagged]

TurkishPoptart 4y ago

It's not even so much as database access as it was more likely a leak from on premises. AFAIK the leaked documents were photographs of physical printouts (they had visible creases in them).

TurkishPoptart 4y ago

Is it significant that the leaks were allegedly of photographs of printouts, with visible creases, as oppposed to being straight file-dumps? Maybe photographic a printout is better for opsec as opposed to files with some sort of DLP.

refulgentis 4y ago
nah, TL;DR: he got mad the teens on his Discord weren't reading his typeouts of them and started posting photos because it was more titillating to see it in all its glory, with markings etc. (also, saved him time in his weird little god simulation, why should someone as wise and talented as him A) be mostly ignored B) waste a ton of time trying to help these fools?)
anthonygarcia21 4y ago
It's possible that he fished the printouts out of a poorly-secured document disposal bin and then snuck them out.
- sitzkrieg 4y ago
  everything is shredded within a proper scif so he probably reprinted or snuck out as is

ncphil 4y ago

It's the addiction of staff officer ranks (mostly Colonels, Generals), as well as senior agency executives and politicians, to paper hardcopies. They all want their briefing materials printed out so they can scribble in the margins and look important (and maybe share them with financial advisors and donors). Although some enlisted ranks have had authorized access to this stuff in the past (Chelsea Manning), in many cases they're downloading and printing it out for their superiors. Can't have these VIPs doing their own print jobs, can we? The lot of them should be fired as at best too stupid and lazy to serve.

rograndom 4y ago

I've done sub-sub-contract work for a few government and military orgs where standard procedure would be I would be mailed a thumb drive of what should just be images and word docs to add functionality to a small section of an internal website. Every single time there would be things on there, totally unrelated to the project, that I should definitely not have been given.