Security Long Gone, Pentagon Shuts Barn Door
Jack Douglas Teixeira
Massachusetts Air National Guardsman Jack Teixeira was charged in the U.S. District Court in Boston with unauthorized removal and retention of classified and national defense information. A magistrate is deciding the conditions of his detention, if any.
Prosecutors said government records show that as early as February 2022, Teixeira “began to access hundreds of classified documents containing national defense information that had no bearing on his role” as an IT specialist in his unit.
He was arrested by federal agents for allegedly posting documents about the Ukraine war and other top national security issues on a social media platform called Discord.
“Some (documents) featured detailed charts of battlefield conditions in Ukraine and highly classified satellite images of the aftermath of Russian missile strikes on Ukrainian electrical facilities. Others sketched the potential trajectory of North Korean ballistic nuclear missiles that could reach the United States.”
The embarrassing leak is causing some introspection at the Pentagon.
Pentagon reviewing how it vets for security clearances
BY ELLEN MITCHELL
The Pentagon is looking into how it vets individuals for security clearances after an alleged leaker of hundreds of pages of secret U.S. documents gained authorized access despite past issues.
“The department is looking not only at our intelligence processes and procedures as it relates to security or sensitive information and who has that information, but also looking at the process by which we clear and vet individuals for security clearances, and that work is ongoing,” Defense Department spokesman Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder told reporters Thursday.
Ryder noted that the U.S. military has “a continuous vetting process” for individuals that hold a security clearance, a process which includes “automated record checks that pull data from several different data sources including criminal financial and public records throughout an individual’s period of eligibility.”
Teixeira also posted the extent American intelligence had penetrated the Russian military, that Egypt planned to sell Russia tens of thousands of rockets, and Russian mercenaries had approached Turkey to buy weapons to fight against Ukraine.
Why the Massachusetts National Guard has a need to know about NORK missiles comes to mind. When the story first broke the new Pentagon spox Air Force BG Pat Ryder emphasized the rules in place such as everyone that has a security clearance signs a nondisclosure agreement.
Brilliant.
Clearly a review is badly needed. Somehow the current security clearance process missed some red flags in young Mr. Teixeira’s very recent past. This seems to be epidemic in the entire Federal Government.
Big shoes to fill
Category: Big Pentagon, Dick Stepping, Get woke
When these things happen, there’s usually a sweeping requirement to do AKO/NKO/JKO courses, in this case addressing security.
Dismissing flag ranks might help.
Not to mention professional Robert McNamara-type staff wienies, too:
The first S3 MAJ younger SGT D worked for had one absolute rule that was not open for discussion or interpretation: “This shop is NOT the battalion mission. You exist only to provide the line companies the information they need to complete THEIR mission. You work for them. If you fail, they fail, and warfighters fail.” Nobody ever questioned MAJ J and nobody ever forgot how shit should be run.
Curious if we’ll ever learn how he got a hold of the things that he’d have never had access to in the first place.
🙃
There’s stuff floating around on SIPR that shouldn’t be seen by anyone without a need to know, but is accessible by anyone with SIPR access. I’d bet dollars to dogturds that’s how this asshat (or some other asshat) got it.
Paraphrasing Doctor Jones from The Last Crusade;
Security would be better off in the hands of the Marx Brothers.
I hope Disney doesn’t screw up my childhood hero with the upcoming new one. I am tentatively very excited for the Dial of Destiny.
Navy Chiefs had a childhood. Who knew?
*grin*
If only you guys knew about our secret hidden Lego sets and Sega/Nintendo setups in the Mess….
Credit to Disney where it’s due, they’ve been pretty good about not fucking up their classics.
Peter Pan and other classics come with a bullshit message for a few seconds before the films begin, but the films remain unabridged.
Dude goes deep into exposing the idiocy of the propaganda network(s) for {checks notes} the lolz and attabois in his social group.
More or less of a sin that what The They have been doing; UraniumOne, Burisma, Alphabet agencies subverting Rights with approval of ONE party (what up Susan “President Obama began the conversation by stressing his continued commitment to ensuring that every aspect of this issue is handled by the intelligence and law enforcement communities ‘by the book,’”…“The president stressed that he is not asking about, initiating or instructing anything from a law enforcement perspective. He reiterated that our law enforcement team needs to proceed as it normally would by the book.” Rice?), working with tech to extinguish talk of their High Crimes….?
Tiexeria is a cast stone, the administrative police-state working in concert with international cabals is a LANDSLIDE.
Plan accordingly.
I guess he won’t be getting the whistle blower ree-ward monies?
Basic Requirements 1 Have a Clearance. 2. Have a need to know. 3. Have Access. 4 Have a signed NDA. Those were still the requirements earlier this year when I finally retired and no longer am in a national security position.
I remember 40 years ago when my organization had a Tech Controller attached for some of our unique work, and we routinely were assigned the guy awaiting his TS/SCI clearance. When that came through he got sucked back into big COMM for the AUTODIN switch located elsewhere on out base. The only reason those guys had the clearance was because they might be incidentally exposed to info that was in there facility. NOT to going searching around a perusing what ever they could find.
This miscreant was unsupervised and poking around where he didn’t belong.
Judging by the news reports, his Commander (who was suspended recently) appears to be traditional Guardsmen. Also caught up was the Det Commander of his unit who if things haven’t changed among AF comm units is the full time Command presence (either Technician or AGR) for day to day operations. I suspect they will get their pp pees whacked for laxity of procedures/processes that enabled the clown to surf the classified web and download info and remove it from secure facilities
Need to know, and all that jazz…
By and large, I’d argue that few, if any, National Guard units need access to national-level classified information, outside of deployment or mobilization under Title10. The National Guard is, after all, a state entity most of the time. No junior enlisted member or officer, for that matter, needs steady access to classified information.
Then again, based on the classified documents found in the residences of current and former executive-level officials, we should probably reassess the need for all but a very select few to access certain information, perhaps with a series of “checkers”, for lack of a better term, to ensure information isn’t removed from its secure location, or compromised otherwise. I currently manage gun inventory for a retailer. Before a gun leaves the store, we have the ATF-mandated first and second check, then me or a counterpart have to do one final check to ensure the “I’s” are crossed and “T’s” are dotted (or something like that). A SCIF could easily have a similar system: task enlisted SMs outside and inside to check IDs, ensure no bags or electronic devices enter, and so on. The outside detail wouldn’t necessarily need clearances themselves, while the inside detail would but could be located far enough away from classified material to avoid additional risk. Someone like soon-to-be Federal Prisoner First Class Texeira could have rotated as a “checker” on the inside and maybe have learned to respect how important a SCIF and its contents are.
Let’s face it, though, the Hillarys, Bidens, and even Trumps aren’t going to be the ones paying for improperly secured or even leaked classified information. It’ll be the rank-and-file SMs who get additional training and scrutiny from their leadership.
There is no evidence any Trump leaked any classified information. Moreover, as president, he could, and said he did, declassify every formerly classified document locked up at Mira Lago, per the FBI’s request.
In that pic, the Airman has a certain Applewhite look on his mug.
Speaking of shoes to fill, what size are their pumps or high heels in men’s sizes? Asking for not a friend.