During the pandemic, a young Massachusetts Air National Guardsmen named Jack Teixera was part of an online gaming community on Discord. From the early months of 2022 to April 2023, Teixera proceeded to share hundreds of classified documents with his online friends, which included intelligence on the war in Ukraine, U.S. spying methods, cyber intelligence, and much more. The leak has been deemed by the U.S. Intelligence Community as extremely damaging to national security.
Jack Teixera was born in December 2001 and attended Dighton-Rehoboth Regional High School in North Dighton, Massachusetts. Upon finishing high school in 2020, he skipped graduation to complete the Air Force’s basic training at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas. After joining the Massachusetts Air National Guard, he joined the 102nd Intelligence Wing located at Otis Air National Guard Base as a Cyber Transport System Journeyman. This job, despite his relatively young age, granted him a top secret security clearance with access to sensitive classified information. For many in the U.S. military with jobs related to cyber operations or intelligence, possessing a top secret clearance is very common and often essential for the job.
When Russia invaded Ukraine in early 2022, Teixera began to reveal snippets of classified information on the war to his Discord friends. Many of his friends on Discord were younger, and didn’t realize that what he was sharing could land him (and them) into jail. The first person who was approached by law enforcement in relation to the leak was a 17 year old with the online name of ‘Lucca’ who lives in Southern California. ‘Lucca’ reposted pictures of the leaked documents into other Discord servers. He wasn’t prosecuted in connection with the leak. A Discord admin who spoke to ABC said, “He is a hyperactive kid and he wants to tell everyone everything all the time.”
The Espionage Act of 1917 was designed to prosecute individuals who have committed “willful retention and transmission of national defense information”. After a few months of only revealing snippets of information, Teixera began to take classified documents home with him. He took pictures of these documents, and shared them with his online friends. According to an anonymous source who was friends with Teixera and spoke to the Washington Post, up to 300 pictures of highly classified documents were shared. These documents contained battle assessments of the war in Ukraine, cyber intelligence, and intelligence on other countries including U.S. allies.
A military investigation found that there were numerous failures in keeping the documents secure. On several instances, Teixera was observed taking notes from classified documents and was warned not to. He also conducted unauthorized searches of intelligence databases, and printed hundreds of documents from these databases that he wasn’t supposed to. A lapse in oversight gave Teixera the ability to print these documents without detection. His direct supervisors refrained from referring him to the chain of command, for fear of an over-reaction. In the wake of the leaks, 15 airmen were disciplined, and the 102nd Intelligence Wing was removed from its intelligence assignments. When interviewed by the Washington Post, former Air National Guard Director Brian G. Neal stated that if he observed one of his subordinates viewing classified documents not related to their job, he would “immediately pull them off the line.”
After these documents were shared by Teixera, they remained in the dark corners of the internet for months without being detected by authorities. In early April of 2023, the Pentagon realized the magnitude of the leak that was occurring and took immediate action. By April 13th, the FBI closed in on Jack’s home in Dighton, Massachusetts. The footage of the arrest was captured by helicopter and seen around the world.
The Pentagon and the Intelligence Community had just lost some of the country’s most sensitive secrets. This sparked a diplomatic crisis between the U.S. and the Five Eyes, which is an intelligence-sharing alliance comprised of the five major English speaking democracies: The U.S., the U.K., Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Many of the documents leaked described those country’s spying programs.
One document that was leaked described how the U.S. spied on South Korea’s government, which the South Korean president shrugged off as “utterly false”. Another document describes how Russian hackers had infiltrated Canadian gas infrastructure, and that the Russian intelligence agency (FSB) had encouraged them to do so. One document describes how Chinese surveillance equipment has spied on U.S. military supply chains. The former was particularly alarming, since there are widespread concerns amongst cybersecurity experts that foreign countries have hijacked critical infrastructure in the U.S.
Jack Teixera’s online history has caused much concern in the wake of the leaks. In a Washington Post investigation, Teixera was found to have been involved in many Discord servers where anti-semitism and racism was common. He eventually created a Discord server named ‘Thug Shaker Central’ where he and his friends promoted hateful ideologies. Teixera was a lover of firearms, and posted many videos of himself at shooting ranges. In one video, he is seen holding an assault weapon, and saying to the camera, “Jews scam, (n-words) rape, and I mag dump.” after which he rapidly fires his weapon. In many instances, Teixera vowed to kill federal law enforcement officers and ranted about how much he wanted to kill minorities. In high school, he had a history of threats and hateful statements. He once threatened to use a molotov cocktail at school, which prompted his friends to report him to administration. Local police investigated the threats made by Teixera, and made him take a psychological-risk assessment. He was suspended for one day.
These incidents have created a debate as to whether or not Teixera should have been granted a security clearance. In the Washington Post investigation, it was found that the security clearance questionnaire doesn’t ask for social media handles. On Discord, servers are very private, and the Pentagon doesn’t have the legal authority to search someone’s profile. Because of this, those responsible for investigating Teixera and granting him a security clearance couldn’t have known what his online footprint looked like.
On Monday, March 4th, Jack Teixera pleaded guilty to six counts of illegal retention and transmission of national defense information. He initially pleaded not guilty upon his arrest in April 2023, but later withdrew that plea and agreed to a deal that would land him between 11 and 16 years in prison. This plea resulted in a much shorter sentence than he would receive in a trial. Given the size and scope of his leak, he could have received a sentence of decades, but a guilty plea and him being young helped his case.
