Saturday, May 11

Jack Teixeira: Who’s the 21-year-old nationwide guardsman suspected of US intelligence leaks?

A 21-year-old nationwide guardsman within the US is dealing with espionage costs over the leaking on-line of extremely labeled army paperwork.

The disclosure of confidential particulars in regards to the Ukraine warfare and different spying actions has prompted embarrassment in Washington and threatens to pressure ties with key allies.

The Pentagon has described it as a “very serious risk to national security”.

Ukarine newest: Pentagon leak suspect to look in courtroom

So who’s Jack Teixeira, detained by the authorities over the unauthorised launch, believed to be probably the most severe safety breach for the reason that damaging WikiLeaks knowledge dump in 2010?

The 21-year-old was an airman 1st class at Otis Air National Guard Base in Massachusetts, in line with his service document.

He joined the Air National Guard in 2019 and labored as a “cyber transport systems journeyman”, which is basically an IT specialist liable for army communications networks and making certain their safety.

Security clearance

As such he would have had the next stage of safety clearance

Teixeira was arrested on Thursday by armed FBI brokers at his residence within the small city of Dighton, which lies round 50 miles (80km) south of Boston and has a inhabitants of 8,000.

A neighbour stated he had beforehand attended Dighton-Rehoboth Regional High School.

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Moment suspected recordsdata leaker arrested

‘Just a quiet man’

Former schoolmate Eddy Souza, 22, stated: “He’s a good kid, not a troublemaker, just a quiet guy.

“It sounds prefer it was a silly child’s mistake.”

Read extra:
What do the extremely labeled paperwork say?
How did somebody so younger have entry to such delicate recordsdata?

Teixeira glided by the deal with “OG” in a chat group on the instant messaging site Discord, where the documents are believed to have originated.

Called Thug Shaker Central it had around two dozen mostly young members who talked about their favourite types of guns and also shared memes and jokes, some of them racist.

Teixeira is believed to have been active on the site for years.

Closely guarded US secrets

Some who chatted with him said he also posted about closely guarded US secrets, although Teixeira has been depicted as motivated more by bravado than ideology.

Originally typing the delicate materials out along with his personal notations, a number of months in the past he switched to posting pictures of folded-up papers as a result of he felt he was not being taken critically, in line with one member.

Threat of prolonged jail sentence

Held “in connection with an investigation into alleged unauthorised removal, retention, and transmission of classified
national defence information” – Teixeira faces being charged underneath the Espionage Act and could possibly be handed a prolonged jail sentence if convicted.

Content Source: information.sky.com