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☆ Extremism Finds Fertile Ground in Chat Rooms for Gamers
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-18 | by ( Steven Lee Myers | Kellen Browning | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

There are rules people must agree to before joining Unloved, a private discussion group on Discord, the messaging service popular among players of video games. They share some harmless memes but also joke about school shootings and debate the attractiveness of women of different races. Users in the group — known as a server on Discord — can enter smaller rooms for voice or text chats. The name for one of the rooms refers to rape. In the vast and growing world of gaming, views like these have become easy to come across, both within some games themselves and on social media services and other sites, like Discord and Steam, used by many gamers.

☆ Pentagon leak suspect was caught stuffing notes he'd taken in a top-secret room inside his pocket, prosecutors say
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-18 | by ( Sophia Ankel | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

He was caught taking notes on classified information before his arrest, prosecutors said Wednesday. Superiors had warned Teixeira on multiple occasions, but he didn't listen, they said. The 21-year-old Massachusetts Air National Guardsman has been indicted in connection to a classified information leak that involved hundreds of Pentagon documents. Some of the documents Teixeira is accused of leaking online included details about Russia's spy agencies' activities and details about aid to Ukraine. However, federal prosecutors are arguing that Texeira poses a security risk because he must still be in possession of classified documents.

☆ Accused Leaker Received Repeated Warnings Over Handling of Classified Information, Prosecutors Say
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-17 | by ( Nancy A. Youssef | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

A courtroom sketch shows Massachusetts Air National Guardsman Jack Teixeira in U.S. District Court in Boston last month. Photo: Margaret Small/Associated PressNearly seven months before federal authorities charged an airman with unauthorized retention and transmission of national defense information, members of his unit saw him take notes from classified information, access classified information not related to his job and repeatedly told him to stop, according to memos submitted as part of prosecutors’ latest court filings.

CNN —At least three people were killed and nine others wounded in an attack near a synagogue on the Tunisian island of Djerba on Tuesday, according to the Tunisian Interior Ministry. Tunisia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Wednesday that a 30-year-old Tunisian and a 42-year-old French national were among those killed. The attack came amid an annual pilgrimage to the island of Djerba that draws hundreds of Jews from Europe and Israel, Reuters reported. La Ghriba is Africa’s oldest synagogue, a revered and iconic location at the heart of the island, according to Reuters. One of the most well-known attacks is the 2002 truck bombing by al Qaeda militants, which killed 21 Western tourists – prompting high security at the synagogue in the following years.

CNN —Iran smuggled weapons and military equipment into Syria using humanitarian aid shipments as a cover following a devastating earthquake there in February, two sources familiar with US intelligence and an Israeli defense official told CNN. Intelligence officials believe the weapons were destined for Iranian proxy groups in Syria, who have repeatedly attacked US military personnel stationed there as part of the anti-ISIS coalition. “The humanitarian assistance of Iran to Syria was used as an umbrella of moving weapons capabilities into the region,” the Israeli defense official said. Reuters earlier reported that regional and western officials believed Iran was smuggling the weapons under the guise of earthquake relief. Foreign aid poured into Syria and Turkey after February’s earthquake, which killed more than 50,000 people.

☆ Jack Teixeira appeared to be stockpiling weapons just before his arrest for leaking classified Pentagon documents, chat logs show
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-06 | by ( Katie Balevic | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Prior to his arrest for leaking classified Pentagon documents, Jack Teixeira was stockpiling weapons, The New York Times reported. The Times spoke to a Discord user who was in frequent contact with the 21-year-old Air National Guardsman. The user said Teixeira often spoke of his fascination with mass shootings and acquiring new weapons. The user, who spoke to The Times on the condition of anonymity, said Teixeira claimed to be stockpiling weapons and military gear. The anonymous source told The Times that Teixeira spoke of his aspirations to confront protestors he might come in contact with during the 2024 presidential campaign.

Jack Teixeira, the Air National Guardsman implicated in a vast leak of classified documents, was fixated on weapons, mass shootings, shadowy conspiracy theories — and proving he was in the right, and in the know. Even as he relished the respectability and access to intelligence he gained through his military service and top secret clearance, he seethed with contempt about the government, accusing the United States of a host of secret, nefarious activities: making biological and chemical weapons in Ukrainian labs, creating the Islamic State, even orchestrating mass shootings. “The FBI and other 3 letter agencies contact these unhinged mentally ill kids and convince them to do mass shootings,” Airman Teixeira, 21, wrote in an online chat group, sharing a debunked conspiracy theory after a gunman killed three people at a mall in Indiana last summer. In messages posted on Discord, a social media platform popular among gamers, Airman Teixeira claimed that the 20-year-old gunman behind the rampage at Greenwood Park Mall was one of many mass shooters groomed by the American government as part of a secret plot “to make people vote for” gun control.

☆ Ukrainian president says he learned of Pentagon leak from news reports
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-02 | by ( Jack Forrest | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +2 min

CNN —Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had no conversations with the White House after a trove of classified US intelligence documents were posted on social media, he told The Washington Post Monday. In an interview with the Post, Zelensky said he learned about the Pentagon leak through news coverage and claimed he “did not receive information from the White House or the Pentagon beforehand.”“We did not have that information. “I don’t want to speak for President Zelensky. While FBI and Pentagon officials piece together how a junior enlisted airman allegedly smuggled classified intelligence documents off a secure air base, defense and intelligence sources say the leak exposed glaring weaknesses in how the Pentagon safeguards its most sensitive secrets. Teixeira faces charges under the Espionage Act after allegedly posting the sensitive intelligence to the social media platform Discord, but has yet to enter a plea.

☆ John Blake: The story about race I didn't know how to tell
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-02 | by ( John Blake | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +14 min

John Blake, seen here in a second-grade photo, grew up as the son of a White mother and Black father. What I didn’t know was that my community had died long before the Freddie Gray protests. That’s the story I wanted to tell, but I didn’t know how. I didn’t know how to tell Harlow any of that because my story doesn’t fit traditional narratives about race or identity. My white family members didn’t change because I shamed them with an impressive lecture on systemic racism.

☆ Denied a Gun License Over School Threat, Accused Leaker Jack Teixeira Later Got Top-Secret Clearance
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-28 | by ( Nancy A. Youssef | Sadie Gurman | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Photo Illustration: Madeline MarshallAs a high-school student, the Air National Guardsman charged with leaking classified intelligence documents admitted he made violent threats that prevented him from getting a firearms license. Two years later, however, he secured a top-secret security clearance.

☆ Jack Teixeira: Accused Pentagon leaker's violent rhetoric raises fresh questions about top secret vetting process
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-28 | by ( Natasha Bertrand Sean Lyngaas Zachary Cohen Haley Britzky | Natasha Bertrand | Sean Lyngaas | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +10 min

But that didn’t stop the Pentagon from granting a top-secret security clearance to Jack Teixeira, who prosecutors say had an arsenal of weapons at home and a history of violent online rhetoric. And the Air Force’s Inspector General investigation is specifically examining the Pentagon’s vetting process and whether any procedures were violated or ignored, Pentagon officials said. Gen. Patrick Ryder told reporters on Thursday that when vetting someone for a security clearance, the adjudicator examines “a sufficient period” in someone’s life to determine if they are eligible. That program – largely run by the Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency (DCSA) – aims to continuously vet security clearance holders for warning signs than periodically investigate them every five to 10 years. “Social media is a new world that the government really hasn’t gotten ahold of yet,” said Brad Moss, a lawyer who specializes in national security and security clearance law.

Photo Illustration: Madeline MarshallFederal prosecutors and the defense team representing a Massachusetts Air National Guardsman charged with taking and sharing highly classified intelligence documents argued ahead of a high-profile court hearing Thursday over whether he should remain in custody while his criminal case proceeds. Prosecutors are seeking Airman First Class Jack Teixeira’s continued detention, saying he might still have access to sensitive material that could aid foreign adversaries. He has been jailed since his arrest earlier this month.

☆ Jack Teixeira Could Still Have Access to Classified Documents, Prosecutors Say
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-27 | by ( Sadie Gurman | Jon Kamp | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Photo Illustration: Madeline MarshallThe Massachusetts Air National Guardsman charged with taking and sharing highly classified intelligence documents might still have access to sensitive material that could aid foreign adversaries, federal prosecutors said Wednesday in court filings seeking his continued detention. Airman First Class Jack Teixeira, who has been jailed since his arrest earlier this month, “accessed and may still have access to a trove of classified information that would be of tremendous value to hostile nation states that could offer him safe harbor and attempt to facilitate his escape from the United States,” prosecutors said late Wednesday in a filing.

Photo Illustration: Madeline MarshallA judge was considering Thursday whether to further detain Airman First Class Jack Teixeira, the Massachusetts Air National Guardsman charged with taking and sharing highly classified intelligence documents, after prosecutors argued he would obstruct their probe if he were freed. “I’m going to take the matter under advisement,” Magistrate Judge David H. Hennessy said after nearly an hour and a half of arguments from both sides.

☆ U.S. military leak suspect to appear in court; had arsenal, prosecutors say
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-27 | by ( Tim Mclaughlin | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

Jack Douglas Teixeira was arrested by the FBI on April 13 at his home in Massachusetts and charged with violating the Espionage Act. He is scheduled to appear in U.S. District Court in Worcester, Massachusetts on Thursday afternoon for his detention hearing. Prosecutors say the 21-year-old leaked classified documents, including some relating to troop movements in the Russia-Ukraine conflict, to a group of gamers on the messaging app Discord. In 2018, while in high school, Teixeira was suspended after he was overheard making racial threats and remarks about guns. Teixeira attributed those remarks to a reference in a video game, according to prosecutors.

☆ Pentagon leak suspect Jack Teixeira boasted online he'd thought of everything and was untraceable, FBI investigator says. Now he faces decades in prison.
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-27 | by ( Grace Eliza Goodwin | Jake Epstein | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

The Pentagon leak suspect allegedly boasted on social media that he was untraceable and had thought of everything. But FBI investigators found him by asking Discord for the subscriber info connected to his username. Teixeira is suspected of leaking hundreds of classified documents and faces up to 25 years in prison. In new court documents filed late Wednesday evening, an FBI investigator, special agent Luke Church, revealed a number of incriminating text exchanges between Teixeira and other users on the platform. Teixeira was arrested on April 13 and now faces up to 25 years in prison.

WORCESTER, Mass. — Jack Teixeira, the Massachusetts Air National Guardsman accused of posting classified documents online, will remain in custody while a judge considers new evidence that raised serious questions about the military’s decision to grant him a high-level security clearance. During a tense 90-minute hearing on Thursday, lawyers for the Justice Department asked a federal magistrate judge in Massachusetts to detain Airman Teixeira indefinitely pending his trial, arguing that his history of violent and racist remarks, coupled with his attempts to obstruct its investigation, made him a “serious flight risk.”The magistrate judge, David. H. Hennessy, did not immediately rule on the matter, saying he needed more time to consider that motion and a request by the airman’s court-appointed lawyers that he be immediately released to his parents’ custody on $20,000 bond.

☆ Airman Accused of Leak Has History of Racist and Violent Remarks, Filing Says
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-27 | by ( Glenn Thrush | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

WASHINGTON — Jack Teixeira, the Massachusetts Air National Guardsman accused of posting classified documents online, repeatedly tried to obstruct federal investigators and has a “troubling” history of making racist and violent remarks, Justice Department lawyers said in a court filing late Wednesday. In an 18-page memo, released before a detention hearing scheduled for Thursday in a Massachusetts federal court, the department’s lawyers argued that Airman Teixeira needed to be detained indefinitely because he posed a “serious flight risk” and might still have information that would be of “tremendous value to hostile nation states.”Airman Teixeira tapped into vast reservoirs of sensitive information, an amount that “far exceeds what has been publicly disclosed” so far, they wrote. Prosecutors pointedly questioned Airman Teixeira’s overall state of mind, disclosing that he was suspended from high school in 2018 for alarming comments about the use of Molotov cocktails and other weapons, and trawled the internet for information about mass shootings. He engaged in “regular discussions about violence and murder” on the same social media platform, Discord, that he used to post classified information, the filing said, and he surrounded his bed at his parents’ house with firearms and tactical gear.

[1/6] Photo evidence collected during the investigation into U.S. Air National Guardsman Jack Teixeira, who is accused of leaking classified documents online, is released in a document by the U.S. Department of Justice. Department of Justice/Handout via REUTERSApril 26 (Reuters) - U.S. Air National Guardsman Jack Teixeira, accused of leaking classified documents online, may still have access to classified materials, federal prosecutors said in court documents filed on Wednesday. Teixeira also "took steps to obstruct the government's investigation" into the leaks, prosecutors said, in a motion filed ahead of a hearing into his detention. "His release would heighten the risk that he would make further unauthorized disclosures of classified national defense information," prosecutors said in the documents. The motion said that in February 2022 Teixeira began to access hundreds of classified documents that had no bearing on his job.

☆ Feds found a smashed Xbox and more in a dumpster at Pentagon leak suspect Jack Teixeira's house. Prosecutors allege he was covering his tracks.
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-27 | by ( Jake Epstein | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Jack Teixeira, who is suspected of leaking secret Pentagon documents, is due back in court. In court documents, they also allege that he tried to cover up his tracks by destroying evidence. Prosecutors allege they were destroyed to try and cover his tracks. "These efforts appeared calculated to delay or prevent the government from gaining a full understanding of the seriousness and scale of his conduct," prosecutors allege in the court documents. The documents contain sensitive information about US allies — like Israel, South Korea, and Egypt — and also its adversaries, like China, Russia, and North Korea.

☆ The Pentagon treats top secret information 'like toilet paper,' says the Vietnam War whistleblower
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-26 | by ( Matthew Loh | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

There's no reason to think the Discord leak has damaged US national security, Daniel Ellsberg said. "Top secret is like toilet paper" at the Pentagon, said Ellsberg, who leaked the Pentagon Papers. Ellsberg told The Washington Post that the US government tends to keep a "mystique of secrecy." "At the Pentagon, top secret is like toilet paper, it's nothing," the former military analyst told the outlet. Like Teixeira, Ellsberg was charged by the US government in January 1973 for revealing classified information.

☆ Leak of Government Secrets Adds Pressure to Overhaul Security Clearances
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-23 | by ( Ben Kesling | Dustin Volz | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

How the U.S. government clears personnel to see and share its secrets is coming under new pressure after the alleged leak of classified information by Air National Guardsman Jack Teixeira, according to federal reviews of the process and lawmakers. The widespread number of both government and civilian jobs requiring access to classified information make the system that provides security clearances to millions of people hard to run effectively, those who study it say. Additionally, an explosion of the amount of classified material produced by the government—estimated to be in the billions of records annually—has eroded the significance of classification levels and complicated efforts to create walls around what is truly sensitive, say former officials and outside analysts who study the system.

☆ Limit access to most secret US documents, Senate intel panel head says
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-23 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

WASHINGTON, April 23 (Reuters) - Too many people have access to the U.S. government's closest secrets and a central entity should oversee the classification process, the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee said on Sunday, addressing leaks of documents in an online chat group. The United States has numerous intelligence gathering entities and Warner said the situation needed to be dealt with. "We need somebody fully in charge of the whole classification process and I think for those classified documents there ought to be a smaller universe," he said. As an example, Warner said the National Security Agency has suffered leaks in the past and internal controls limit the copying of documents. Warner also said that not everyone handling a document needs to see the whole document and that just seeing the header could be enough.

☆ Russia's war on Ukraine latest: Moscow expels German diplomats
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-22 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

April 22 (Reuters) - Russia said it was expelling a number of German diplomats in a tit-for-tat move. Germany did not immediately confirm any expulsions of its own, but said the arrival of a Russian government plane in Berlin was connected to the issue. Russia's RIA Novosti news agency said Germany had decided to expel more than 20 Russians. TANKS, BATTLE* Russia's Defence Ministry said Russian forces had captured three more blocks in the western part of the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut. * The U.S. said on Friday it would soon start training Ukrainian troops to use its Abrams tanks as Germany announced a deal to establish a hub in Poland to repair German Leopard tanks deployed in Ukraine.

This chat room was publicly listed on a YouTube channel and was easily accessible, the newspaper added. The Pentagon declined to comment on the new information reported by the New York Times. The 21-year-old U.S. Air National Guardsman facing criminal charges for leaking top-secret military intelligence records online was arrested last week. The user claimed to be posting information from the National Security Agency, the Central Intelligence Agency and other intelligence agencies, according to the New York Times. The leaks did not come to light until they were reported by the New York Times in early April even though the documents were posted earlier.

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