A 22 year-old former member of the US Air Nationwide Guard has been sentenced to fifteen years in jail for stealing categorised American navy secrets and techniques and sharing them on a Discord server ostensibly centered on Minecraft (thanks, The Register). Jack Teixeira had been employed by the service since September 2019 and labored for the 102nd Intelligence Wing at Otis Air Nationwide Guard Base in Massachusetts till his arrest final 12 months.
Teixeira’s first few years handed with out notable incident earlier than, in early 2022, he started to entry high secret paperwork and images. A few of these he would later submit on the non-public Discord server in February 2022, from the place they discovered their approach onto public social media channels.
The key paperwork included particulars of America’s involvement within the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine, details about negotiations between South Korea and the USA over ammunition, and China’s growth of a supersonic spy drone.
A US Air Power report made public final 12 months concluded Teixeira was the one airman behind the leak, although decided that his chain of command bears some duty for letting the categorised information dump occur on its watch. It mentioned Teixeira “was noticed viewing intelligence content material on TS-SCI [Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information] web sites” in August 2022, an incident that his supervisor didn’t doc as they need to have, and that shortly afterwards Teixeira was caught viewing secret paperwork whereas making notes on a Submit-It.
Teixeira would later admit he had begun posting categorised info as a approach of boasting to his buddies. He was a eager gamer and the Discord server involved had round 25 members, all of whom appeared to share comparable pursuits in cheery matters like assassination, conspiracy theories and mass homicide, in addition to poor previous Minecraft. Teixeira would initially write down particulars from paperwork he was viewing at work, take the notes residence, and transcribe them: Later, as he grew bolder, he started printing out secret recordsdata on a not often used printer on the bottom.
Teixeira initially pleaded not responsible to 6 counts of willful retention and transmission of nationwide protection info, earlier than altering his plea in March this 12 months to keep away from further expenses underneath the Espionage Act (which might have risked the demise penalty).
“The paperwork and data Teixeira posted to social media are extremely categorised and include very important nationwide protection info,” mentioned prosecutors in a sentencing memorandum to the court docket. “By posting intelligence merchandise on the social media platform Discord to feed his personal ego and impress his nameless buddies, Teixeira induced exceptionally grave injury to the nationwide safety of the USA. The scope of his betrayal is breathtaking. The quantity of harm he induced is immeasurable.”
Among the many eyebrow-raising particulars are Teixeira clearly admitting on the server that he was conscious of the illegality of his actions. In March 2022 one of many server members requested Teixeira to submit details about navy casualties in Ukraine: “If I wish to go to jail for the remainder of my life, yeah”, replied Teixeira. He additionally dismissed his navy oath, calling it “not an oath, an NDA… The oath is simply the protection of America towards all threats and the next of orders.”
The paperwork subsequently unfold from the non-public Discord server to different on-line haunts, and in a single case had been doctored earlier than being re-posted to overstate Ukrainian casualties and downplay these of Russian forces. At this level Teixeira realised he was in hassle, informed members of the server to delete any materials they’d saved (“[i]f anybody comes trying, don’t inform them shit”), shut down the server, deleted his account, and went on to bodily destroy his PC and iPad earlier than, brilliantly, leaving the smashed-up remnants of the latter in a dumpster behind his home the place they have been discovered by the authorities. Teixeira was arrested in April 2023 after Discord gave up his handle.
Teixeira was sentenced by a federal court docket in Boston to fifteen years in jail, plus an extra three on probation. “This sentencing is a stark warning to all these entrusted with defending nationwide protection info: betray that belief, and you can be held accountable,” mentioned FBI director Christopher Wray. “Jack Teixeira’s prison conduct positioned our nation, our troops, and our allies at nice threat.”
