Makkaramestari
Kapteeni
Linkkkaa nyt vielä sputnikin tulokset, niin alkaa olla asia selvä
Antares
Respected Leader
Pari New York Times kirjoitusta tästä "vuotajasta", hänen "tuttujensa" mukaan kyseessä ei olisi samanlainen tietovuotaja kuten Snowden tai Manning aikaisemmin (ilmeisesti kyseessä oli nuoren miehen tarve rehvastella "internet-kavereille", tosin kun vuotaa tällaisia tietoja, ei voi koskaan olla varma kenen luettavaksi ne päätyvät):
What Airman Teixeira was not, a close Discord friend said, was a whistle-blower in the vein of Snowden and Manning, whose outrage over perceived injustices led them to break the law and reveal closely held government secrets.
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Kopioin ensimmäisestä viestistä löytyvän artikkelin kokonaisuudessaan spoilerin taakse:
Law enforcement personnel outside the home of Airman First Class Jack Teixeira’s mother in North Dighton, Mass., on Thursday. The F.B.I. had been zeroing in on him for several days.Credit...Haley Willis/The New York Times
By Haley Willis, Thomas Gibbons-Neff, Aric Toler, Christiaan Triebert, Julian E. Barnes and Malachy Browne
NORTH DIGHTON, Mass. — The F.B.I. arrested a 21-year-old member of the Massachusetts Air National Guard on Thursday in connection with the leak of dozens of highly classified documents containing an array of national security secrets, including the breadth of surveillance the United States is able to conduct on Russia.
Airman First Class Jack Douglas Teixeira was taken into custody to face charges of leaking classified documents after federal authorities said he had posted batches of sensitive intelligence to an online gaming chat group, called Thug Shaker Central.
As reporters from The New York Times gathered near the house on Thursday afternoon, about a half-dozen F.B.I. agents pushed into the home of Airman Teixeira’s mother in North Dighton, with a twin-engine government surveillance plane keeping watch overhead.
Some of the agents arrived heavily armed. Law enforcement officials learned before the search that Airman Teixeira was in possession of multiple weapons, according to a person familiar with the investigation, and the F.B.I. found guns at the house.
Not long after, cameras caught a handcuffed Airman Teixeira, wearing red shorts and boots, being led away from the home by two heavily armed men.
(Video - F.B.I. Arrests Air National Guardsman in Massachusetts)
Federal authorities arrested Jack Teixeira, a 21-year-old Air National Guardsman, who they believe is linked to a trove of leaked classified U.S. intelligence documents.
In Washington, Attorney General Merrick B. Garland, in a brief statement, announced the arrest and said Airman Teixeira would be arraigned at the Federal District Court in Massachusetts. Mr. Garland said he was arrested in connection with the “unauthorized removal, retention and transmission of classified national defense information,” a reference to the Espionage Act, which is used to prosecute the mishandling and theft of sensitive intelligence.
The arrest raised questions about why such a junior enlisted airman had access to such an array of potentially damaging secrets, why adequate safeguards had not been put in place after earlier leaks and why a young man would risk his freedom to share intelligence about the war in Ukraine with a group of friends he knew from a video game social media site.
A motive in the case for now remains elusive. But, according to people who knew him online, Airman Teixeira was no whistle-blower. Unlike previous huge leaks of information, from the Pentagon Papers to WikiLeaks to Edward Snowden’s disclosures, outrage about wrongdoing or government policies does not appear to have been a factor.
Indeed, the disclosures were potentially damaging to all parties in the Ukraine war as well as future intelligence collection. While some officials, including President Biden, have downplayed the damage from the leak, it will take months to learn whether U.S. intelligence loses access to important methods of collection because of the disclosures.
The F.B.I. had been zeroing in on Airman Teixeira for several days, tracking its own investigative clues as well as some of the same information that The Times and The Washington Post had developed about the Discord group where he had shared the documents, officials said.
Still, as reporters uncovered more information, law enforcement officials had to speed up their investigation.
While federal investigators believed that Airman Teixeira could pose a danger to agents conducting the search, his online friends knew him as a sometimes hectoring leader of their small community.
Several months ago, a user of Thug Shaker Central known as O.G. began uploading hundreds of pages of intelligence briefings into the small chat group. The group also discussed guns and military equipment, as well as the original subject of their group, video games.
While the members of the chat group would not identify the group’s leader by name, a trail of digital evidence compiled by The Times led to Airman Teixeira. American officials have confirmed that they believe he uploaded the information taken improperly from U.S. military computers.
As he posted the material, O.G. lectured the group’s members, who had bonded during the isolation of the pandemic, on the importance of staying abreast of world events.
Airman Teixeira was trained as a cyber transport systems specialist, a job that could entail a variety of duties, such as keeping his unit’s communication networks running. He was assigned to the 102nd Intelligence Wing at Otis Air National Guard Base, part of Joint Base Cape Cod, according to an Air Force spokeswoman. The 102nd Intelligence Wing’s official Facebook page congratulated Airman Teixeira and colleagues on their promotion to airmen first class in July.
Officials would not answer questions about what in Airman Teixeira’s duties would necessitate his having access to daily slides about the Ukraine war, much less the daily deluge of intelligence reports from the C.I.A., the National Security Agency and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. There are units at the base that process intelligence collected from drones and U-2 spy planes, though it is doubtful that work alone would require the sort of access to the broad array of classified information that has been leaked on the Discord server.
But he could also have gained access to the documents in other ways. U.S. government officials with security clearance often receive such documents through daily emails on a classified computer network, one official told The Times, and those emails might then be automatically forwarded to other people.
Jack Teixeira, an Air National Guardsman, in a photo posted on social media.
Airman Teixeira’s mother, Dawn, speaking outside her home in North Dighton on Thursday, confirmed that her son was a member of the Air National Guard and said he had recently been working overnight shifts at a base on Cape Cod. In the past few days, he had changed his phone number, she said.
Later, someone who appeared to be Airman Teixeira drove onto the property in a red pickup truck.
When Times reporters approached the house again, the truck was parked in the driveway. Airman Teixeira’s mother and his stepfather were standing in the driveway.
When asked if Airman Teixeira was there and willing to speak, his stepfather, Thomas P. Dufault, said: “He needs to get an attorney if things are flowing the way they are going right now. The feds will be around soon, I’m sure.”
Within a few hours, the prediction of Mr. Dufault, a retired Air Force master sergeant, proved correct as F.B.I. and other government personnel drove onto the property.
A neighbor, Paul Desousa, looked on as the F.B.I. agents yelled Airman Teixeira’s name. The neighbor said the young man then walked out of the house.
Mr. Desousa did not know Airman Teixeira, but said he had frequently heard him fire weapons in the woods behind his house.
After Airman Teixeira was led away, the search of the property continued. And as the sun began to set, a food delivery truck arrived for the F.B.I. agents scouring Airman Teixeira’s family home, a sign that the search was likely to continue for several hours.
Members of Thug Shaker Central who spoke to The Times said that the documents they discussed online were meant to be purely informative. While many pertained to the war in Ukraine, the members said they took no side in the conflict.
The documents, they said, started to get wider attention only when one of the teenage members of the group took a few dozen of them and posted them to a public online forum. From there they were picked up by Russian-language Telegram channels and then The Times, which first reported on them.
In Washington, the crisis over the leaks began late last week, as some documents began surfacing on Telegram and Twitter.
Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III was initially briefed on the leak on the morning of April 6. Pentagon officials tried to get some of the Telegram and Twitter posts showing pictures of some of the documents that initially came to light deleted, but they were unsuccessful.
The next day, last Friday, Mr. Austin began convening departmentwide meetings to address the growing disclosures. Pentagon and other U.S. officials began contacting congressional leaders and allies to alert them to the leaks, which have ignited political firestorms in some countries.
Also last Friday, the military’s Joint Staff, which had produced many of the briefing slides that were leaked, instituted procedures to limit the distribution of highly sensitive briefing documents and restrict attendance at meetings where briefing books containing paper copies of the documents were available.
On Tuesday, in his first public comments about the leaks, Mr. Austin struggled to explain why the Defense Department only learned about the leaks long after they first surfaced on Discord.
“Well, they were somewhere in the web,” Mr. Austin said of the leaked documents. “And where exactly and who had access at that point, we don’t know. We simply don’t know at this point.”
Even as Mr. Austin spoke, news outlets began writing about discoveries of more documents.
On Thursday morning, Mr. Austin called a meeting with senior staff members to discuss the crisis.
But by then the F.B.I. was already preparing the search warrant for the home in North Dighton, and investigators began assuring Pentagon officials that the leaker would soon be caught.
-
Reporting and research were contributed by Riley Mellen, Adam Goldman, Michael Schwirtz, Helene Cooper, Eric Schmitt, John Ismay, C.J. Chivers, Michael D. Shear, Kitty Bennett and Sheelagh McNeill.
Haley Willis is a journalist with the Visual Investigations team. She has shared in two Pulitzer Prizes for investigations into the U.S. military’s dismissal of civilian casualty claims and police killings during traffic stops. @heytherehaley
Thomas Gibbons-Neff is a Ukraine correspondent and a former Marine infantryman. @tmgneff
Christiaan Triebert is a journalist with the Visual Investigations team. He has shared two Pulitzer Prizes for investigations that revealed basic flaws in the U.S. military's dismissal of civilian casualty claims, and that exposed Russian bombing of hospitals in Syria. @trbrtc
Julian E. Barnes is a national security reporter based in Washington, covering the intelligence agencies. Before joining The Times in 2018, he wrote about security matters for The Wall Street Journal. @julianbarnes • Facebook
Malachy Browne is a senior story producer on the Visual Investigations team. His work has received four Emmys, and he shared in a Pulitzer Prize in 2020 for reporting that showed Russian culpability in bombing hospitals in Syria. @malachybrowne • Facebook
A version of this article appears in print on April 14, 2023, Section A, Page 1 of the New York edition with the headline: Airman Arrested By F.B.I. Over Leak of Secrets on War. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe
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Tässä tuon toisessa viestissä jaetun artikkelin teksti ja kuvat:
What Airman Teixeira was not, a close Discord friend said, was a whistle-blower in the vein of Snowden and Manning, whose outrage over perceived injustices led them to break the law and reveal closely held government secrets.
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Kopioin ensimmäisestä viestistä löytyvän artikkelin kokonaisuudessaan spoilerin taakse:
F.B.I. Arrests National Guardsman in Leak of Classified Documents
Authorities say Jack Teixeira, a 21-year-old member of the Massachusetts Air National Guard, posted sensitive materials in an online chat group.
Law enforcement personnel outside the home of Airman First Class Jack Teixeira’s mother in North Dighton, Mass., on Thursday. The F.B.I. had been zeroing in on him for several days.Credit...Haley Willis/The New York Times
By Haley Willis, Thomas Gibbons-Neff, Aric Toler, Christiaan Triebert, Julian E. Barnes and Malachy Browne
- April 13, 2023
NORTH DIGHTON, Mass. — The F.B.I. arrested a 21-year-old member of the Massachusetts Air National Guard on Thursday in connection with the leak of dozens of highly classified documents containing an array of national security secrets, including the breadth of surveillance the United States is able to conduct on Russia.
Airman First Class Jack Douglas Teixeira was taken into custody to face charges of leaking classified documents after federal authorities said he had posted batches of sensitive intelligence to an online gaming chat group, called Thug Shaker Central.
As reporters from The New York Times gathered near the house on Thursday afternoon, about a half-dozen F.B.I. agents pushed into the home of Airman Teixeira’s mother in North Dighton, with a twin-engine government surveillance plane keeping watch overhead.
Some of the agents arrived heavily armed. Law enforcement officials learned before the search that Airman Teixeira was in possession of multiple weapons, according to a person familiar with the investigation, and the F.B.I. found guns at the house.
Not long after, cameras caught a handcuffed Airman Teixeira, wearing red shorts and boots, being led away from the home by two heavily armed men.
(Video - F.B.I. Arrests Air National Guardsman in Massachusetts)
Federal authorities arrested Jack Teixeira, a 21-year-old Air National Guardsman, who they believe is linked to a trove of leaked classified U.S. intelligence documents.
In Washington, Attorney General Merrick B. Garland, in a brief statement, announced the arrest and said Airman Teixeira would be arraigned at the Federal District Court in Massachusetts. Mr. Garland said he was arrested in connection with the “unauthorized removal, retention and transmission of classified national defense information,” a reference to the Espionage Act, which is used to prosecute the mishandling and theft of sensitive intelligence.
The arrest raised questions about why such a junior enlisted airman had access to such an array of potentially damaging secrets, why adequate safeguards had not been put in place after earlier leaks and why a young man would risk his freedom to share intelligence about the war in Ukraine with a group of friends he knew from a video game social media site.
A motive in the case for now remains elusive. But, according to people who knew him online, Airman Teixeira was no whistle-blower. Unlike previous huge leaks of information, from the Pentagon Papers to WikiLeaks to Edward Snowden’s disclosures, outrage about wrongdoing or government policies does not appear to have been a factor.
Indeed, the disclosures were potentially damaging to all parties in the Ukraine war as well as future intelligence collection. While some officials, including President Biden, have downplayed the damage from the leak, it will take months to learn whether U.S. intelligence loses access to important methods of collection because of the disclosures.
The F.B.I. had been zeroing in on Airman Teixeira for several days, tracking its own investigative clues as well as some of the same information that The Times and The Washington Post had developed about the Discord group where he had shared the documents, officials said.
Still, as reporters uncovered more information, law enforcement officials had to speed up their investigation.
While federal investigators believed that Airman Teixeira could pose a danger to agents conducting the search, his online friends knew him as a sometimes hectoring leader of their small community.
Several months ago, a user of Thug Shaker Central known as O.G. began uploading hundreds of pages of intelligence briefings into the small chat group. The group also discussed guns and military equipment, as well as the original subject of their group, video games.
While the members of the chat group would not identify the group’s leader by name, a trail of digital evidence compiled by The Times led to Airman Teixeira. American officials have confirmed that they believe he uploaded the information taken improperly from U.S. military computers.
As he posted the material, O.G. lectured the group’s members, who had bonded during the isolation of the pandemic, on the importance of staying abreast of world events.
Airman Teixeira was trained as a cyber transport systems specialist, a job that could entail a variety of duties, such as keeping his unit’s communication networks running. He was assigned to the 102nd Intelligence Wing at Otis Air National Guard Base, part of Joint Base Cape Cod, according to an Air Force spokeswoman. The 102nd Intelligence Wing’s official Facebook page congratulated Airman Teixeira and colleagues on their promotion to airmen first class in July.
Officials would not answer questions about what in Airman Teixeira’s duties would necessitate his having access to daily slides about the Ukraine war, much less the daily deluge of intelligence reports from the C.I.A., the National Security Agency and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. There are units at the base that process intelligence collected from drones and U-2 spy planes, though it is doubtful that work alone would require the sort of access to the broad array of classified information that has been leaked on the Discord server.
But he could also have gained access to the documents in other ways. U.S. government officials with security clearance often receive such documents through daily emails on a classified computer network, one official told The Times, and those emails might then be automatically forwarded to other people.
Jack Teixeira, an Air National Guardsman, in a photo posted on social media.
Airman Teixeira’s mother, Dawn, speaking outside her home in North Dighton on Thursday, confirmed that her son was a member of the Air National Guard and said he had recently been working overnight shifts at a base on Cape Cod. In the past few days, he had changed his phone number, she said.
Later, someone who appeared to be Airman Teixeira drove onto the property in a red pickup truck.
When Times reporters approached the house again, the truck was parked in the driveway. Airman Teixeira’s mother and his stepfather were standing in the driveway.
When asked if Airman Teixeira was there and willing to speak, his stepfather, Thomas P. Dufault, said: “He needs to get an attorney if things are flowing the way they are going right now. The feds will be around soon, I’m sure.”
Within a few hours, the prediction of Mr. Dufault, a retired Air Force master sergeant, proved correct as F.B.I. and other government personnel drove onto the property.
A neighbor, Paul Desousa, looked on as the F.B.I. agents yelled Airman Teixeira’s name. The neighbor said the young man then walked out of the house.
Mr. Desousa did not know Airman Teixeira, but said he had frequently heard him fire weapons in the woods behind his house.
After Airman Teixeira was led away, the search of the property continued. And as the sun began to set, a food delivery truck arrived for the F.B.I. agents scouring Airman Teixeira’s family home, a sign that the search was likely to continue for several hours.
Members of Thug Shaker Central who spoke to The Times said that the documents they discussed online were meant to be purely informative. While many pertained to the war in Ukraine, the members said they took no side in the conflict.
The documents, they said, started to get wider attention only when one of the teenage members of the group took a few dozen of them and posted them to a public online forum. From there they were picked up by Russian-language Telegram channels and then The Times, which first reported on them.
In Washington, the crisis over the leaks began late last week, as some documents began surfacing on Telegram and Twitter.
Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III was initially briefed on the leak on the morning of April 6. Pentagon officials tried to get some of the Telegram and Twitter posts showing pictures of some of the documents that initially came to light deleted, but they were unsuccessful.
The next day, last Friday, Mr. Austin began convening departmentwide meetings to address the growing disclosures. Pentagon and other U.S. officials began contacting congressional leaders and allies to alert them to the leaks, which have ignited political firestorms in some countries.
Also last Friday, the military’s Joint Staff, which had produced many of the briefing slides that were leaked, instituted procedures to limit the distribution of highly sensitive briefing documents and restrict attendance at meetings where briefing books containing paper copies of the documents were available.
On Tuesday, in his first public comments about the leaks, Mr. Austin struggled to explain why the Defense Department only learned about the leaks long after they first surfaced on Discord.
“Well, they were somewhere in the web,” Mr. Austin said of the leaked documents. “And where exactly and who had access at that point, we don’t know. We simply don’t know at this point.”
Even as Mr. Austin spoke, news outlets began writing about discoveries of more documents.
On Thursday morning, Mr. Austin called a meeting with senior staff members to discuss the crisis.
But by then the F.B.I. was already preparing the search warrant for the home in North Dighton, and investigators began assuring Pentagon officials that the leaker would soon be caught.
-
Reporting and research were contributed by Riley Mellen, Adam Goldman, Michael Schwirtz, Helene Cooper, Eric Schmitt, John Ismay, C.J. Chivers, Michael D. Shear, Kitty Bennett and Sheelagh McNeill.
Haley Willis is a journalist with the Visual Investigations team. She has shared in two Pulitzer Prizes for investigations into the U.S. military’s dismissal of civilian casualty claims and police killings during traffic stops. @heytherehaley
Thomas Gibbons-Neff is a Ukraine correspondent and a former Marine infantryman. @tmgneff
Christiaan Triebert is a journalist with the Visual Investigations team. He has shared two Pulitzer Prizes for investigations that revealed basic flaws in the U.S. military's dismissal of civilian casualty claims, and that exposed Russian bombing of hospitals in Syria. @trbrtc
Julian E. Barnes is a national security reporter based in Washington, covering the intelligence agencies. Before joining The Times in 2018, he wrote about security matters for The Wall Street Journal. @julianbarnes • Facebook
Malachy Browne is a senior story producer on the Visual Investigations team. His work has received four Emmys, and he shared in a Pulitzer Prize in 2020 for reporting that showed Russian culpability in bombing hospitals in Syria. @malachybrowne • Facebook
A version of this article appears in print on April 14, 2023, Section A, Page 1 of the New York edition with the headline: Airman Arrested By F.B.I. Over Leak of Secrets on War. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe
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Tässä tuon toisessa viestissä jaetun artikkelin teksti ja kuvat:
VISUAL INVESTIGATIONS
By Aric Toler, Christiaan Triebert, Haley Willis, Malachy Browne, Michael Schwirtz and Riley Mellen
April 13, 2023
Sign up for The Next Pandemic newsletter. Insights and guidance for preparing for future outbreaks. Get it sent to your inbox.
The 21-year-old National Guard airman was frantic as he joined a call with members of a small online gamer community that has improbably ended up at the center of a federal investigation into a major U.S. security breach.
It sounded as if the airman, Jack Teixeira, was in a speeding car, said a member of the group who uses the screen name Vahki.
“Guys, it’s been good — I love you all,” Airman Teixeira said, Vahki recounted. “I never wanted it to get like this. I prayed to God that this would never happen. And I prayed and prayed and prayed. Only God can decide what happens from now on.”
On Thursday, the F.B.I. arrested Airman Teixeira, an hour and a half after The New York Times identified him as the administrator of the online group, Thug Shaker Central, where a cache of leaked intelligence documents that riveted the world for a week first appeared.
It was Airman Teixeira, a member of the Massachusetts National Guard, his friends in the group said, who somehow obtained the classified documents and posted them to the group. From there, they eventually spilled into the open, potentially compromising U.S. intelligence gathering and damaging relations with allies.
In interviews, members of Thug Shaker Central said their group had started out as a place where young men and teenage boys could gather amid the isolation of the pandemic to bond over their love of guns, share memes — sometimes racist ones — and play war-themed video games.
But Airman Teixeira, who one member of the group called O.G. and was also its unofficial leader, wanted to teach the young acolytes who gravitated to him about actual war, members said.
And so, beginning in at least October, Airman Teixeira, who was attached to the Guard’s intelligence unit, began sharing descriptions of classified information, group members and law enforcement officials said, eventually uploading hundreds of pages of documents, including detailed battlefield maps from Ukraine and confidential assessments of Russia’s war machine.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/12/...on=CompanionColumn&contentCollection=Trending
His goal, group members said, was both to inform and impress.
A photograph of Jack Teixeira posted on social media.
Airman Teixeira’s access to secret information and his ability to know about major global events before they appeared on front pages stoked the curiosity of the group, which numbered 20 to 30 people.
“Everyone respected O.G.,” Vahki said in an interview. “He was the man, the myth. And he was the legend. Everyone respected this guy.”
What Airman Teixeira was not, Vahki said, was a whistle-blower in the vein of Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning, whose outrage over perceived injustices led them to break the law and reveal closely held government secrets.
The secret documents in the news now, Airman Teixeira’s friends said, were never meant to leave their small corner of the internet.
“This guy was a Christian, antiwar, just wanted to inform some of his friends about what’s going on,” said Vahki, a 17-year-old recent high school graduate who identified himself by the screen name he used. “We have some people in our group who are in Ukraine. We like fighting games; we like war games.”
Now, their world is crumbling around them.
A New York Times report last week about the discovery of classified Ukraine war documents circulating online prompted the Pentagon to open an investigation, followed by national security officials racing to close down access to sensitive materials and reassure distraught allies that the U.S. government was still in control of its secrets.
The extent of the damage caused by the leak is not yet fully known.
The materials Airman Teixeira is accused of sharing revealed how deeply the Russian government had been penetrated by U.S. and allied intelligence agencies, which gained the ability to provide near-real-time information to the Ukrainians about planned Russian strikes.
They also showed that America’s spy services were eavesdropping on allies like Israel and South Korea, as well as the Ukrainian leadership, embarrassing revelations that could erode trust at a time when Washington was trying to present a unified front in the conflict with Moscow.
The police blocking Maple Street in North Dighton, Mass., near the home of Airman Teixeira, on Thursday.Credit...Alex Gagne for The New York Times
On Thursday, F.B.I. agents wearing helmets and flak jackets and carrying military-style assault rifles descended on the home where Airman Teixeira lived with his mother and took him into custody.
It all started innocuously, his online circle of friends said. As the pandemic closed schools and workplaces, plunging the world into isolation, the young men in Thug Shaker Central gravitated to one another online, finding solace in their shared interests, mostly video games like Project Zomboid, in which players try to survive in a post-apocalyptic Kentucky overrun by zombies.
They first met on a server called Oxide Hub, a large military-focused community on Discord, a social media platform popular among gamers — but abandoned it in favor of a closed, tighter-knit group.
They did not hide some of their extreme ideological views. On Steam, another popular gamer platform, members of the group traded racist and antisemitic epithets and appeared in other groups featuring Nazi iconography.
Vahki admitted to retweeting racist memes. “There’s no point hiding it,” Vahki said. “I’m not a good person.”
Airman Teixeira named the group Thug Shaker Central, which members acknowledged was an inside joke based on an internet meme. The investigative collective Bellingcat first reported that the group was the original source of the leaks. The Washington Post also reported details about the group.
Airman Teixeira, the friends said, was popular online and known as an active creator of memes. Online, he went by a number of different screen names, among them TheExcaliburEffect, jackdjdtex and TexKilledYou.
He grew up in North Dighton, Mass. Photographs from family members’ social media accounts show him curled up with his family’s two dogs, riding ATVs and wearing Boston Celtics gear. His mother posted pictures of his family members in the military every Veterans Day.
Following their footsteps, the young man joined the military after he graduated from Dighton-Rehoboth Regional High School in the summer of 2020, missing his graduation ceremony to attend his basic training obligations at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas. He finished his technical training the following year and officially entered active duty with the Massachusetts Air National Guard’s 102nd Intelligence Wing on Oct. 1, 2021.
Among the dozens of birthday wishes and baby pictures of Airman Teixeira on his sister’s social media feeds was a clue that he might be the leaker. One photograph captured a kitchen countertop that appeared identical to the surface on which the classified documents were photographed.
In addition to games, Airman Teixeira’s online group also shared an interest in guns. Vahki said he was a good marksman, and records unearthed by The Times show that he exchanged gun equipment with his fellow gamers.
“We’re gunners, we’re gear nerds,” Vahki said, adding that group members have spent hundreds of dollars on gear both in the virtual world and in real life.
But Airman Teixeira also began posting a different sort of content.
It started as long daily memos with complicated and, at times, confusing summaries of international events that members of the group found difficult to follow. Sometimes he would admonish his younger friends for not taking the information seriously, Vahki said.
Around October last year, his frustration led him to start posting original documents, including detailed battle maps from the war in Ukraine marked “TOP SECRET.” From October to March, Vahki said, the airman posted about 350 documents to the group.
The documents might have remained confined to Thug Shaker Central were it not for a member of the group named Lucca, a 17-year-old from California, who might not have fully grasped the gravity of the documents he had been given access to.
On March 2, Lucca was involved in a conversation about the Ukraine war in a public Discord group called #War-Posting when he published several dozen documents from the cache that had been uploaded to Thug Shaker Central.
For a month, the documents bounced around esoteric chat groups, including one popular with players of the online game Minecraft and another for fans of a moderately popular British YouTuber. They went seemingly unnoticed by anyone who understood their importance until early April, when some of the documents began appearing on the Telegram messaging app channels of supporters of Russia’s war against Ukraine.
As the news began to spread, Airman Teixeira started closing down his online accounts and bidding farewell to online friends.
“He was very freaked out,” Vahki said. “This isn’t something like an ‘oopsie-daisy — I’m going to be reprimanded.’ This is life-in-prison type stuff.”
The entrance to to the base where Airman Teixeira served in Pocasset, Mass.Credit...Cj Gunther/EPA, via Shutterstock
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Kitty Bennett and Sheelagh McNeill contributed research.
Christiaan Triebert is a journalist with the Visual Investigations team. He has shared two Pulitzer Prizes for investigations that revealed basic flaws in the U.S. military's dismissal of civilian casualty claims, and that exposed Russian bombing of hospitals in Syria. @trbrtc
Haley Willis is a journalist with the Visual Investigations team. She has shared in two Pulitzer Prizes for investigations into the U.S. military’s dismissal of civilian casualty claims and police killings during traffic stops. @heytherehaley
Malachy Browne is a senior story producer on the Visual Investigations team. His work has received four Emmys, and he shared in a Pulitzer Prize in 2020 for reporting that showed Russian culpability in bombing hospitals in Syria. @malachybrowne • Facebook
Michael Schwirtz is an investigative reporter with the International desk. With The Times since 2006, he previously covered the countries of the former Soviet Union from Moscow and was a lead reporter on a team that won the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for articles about Russian intelligence operations. @mschwirtz • Facebook
A version of this article appears in print on April 14, 2023, Section A, Page 1 of the New York edition with the headline: Love of Games and Guns in Forum. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe
The Airman Who Gave Gamers a Real Taste of War
The group liked online war games. But then Jack Teixeira, a 21-year-old National Guard airman, began showing them classified documents, members say.By Aric Toler, Christiaan Triebert, Haley Willis, Malachy Browne, Michael Schwirtz and Riley Mellen
April 13, 2023
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The 21-year-old National Guard airman was frantic as he joined a call with members of a small online gamer community that has improbably ended up at the center of a federal investigation into a major U.S. security breach.
It sounded as if the airman, Jack Teixeira, was in a speeding car, said a member of the group who uses the screen name Vahki.
“Guys, it’s been good — I love you all,” Airman Teixeira said, Vahki recounted. “I never wanted it to get like this. I prayed to God that this would never happen. And I prayed and prayed and prayed. Only God can decide what happens from now on.”
On Thursday, the F.B.I. arrested Airman Teixeira, an hour and a half after The New York Times identified him as the administrator of the online group, Thug Shaker Central, where a cache of leaked intelligence documents that riveted the world for a week first appeared.
It was Airman Teixeira, a member of the Massachusetts National Guard, his friends in the group said, who somehow obtained the classified documents and posted them to the group. From there, they eventually spilled into the open, potentially compromising U.S. intelligence gathering and damaging relations with allies.
In interviews, members of Thug Shaker Central said their group had started out as a place where young men and teenage boys could gather amid the isolation of the pandemic to bond over their love of guns, share memes — sometimes racist ones — and play war-themed video games.
But Airman Teixeira, who one member of the group called O.G. and was also its unofficial leader, wanted to teach the young acolytes who gravitated to him about actual war, members said.
And so, beginning in at least October, Airman Teixeira, who was attached to the Guard’s intelligence unit, began sharing descriptions of classified information, group members and law enforcement officials said, eventually uploading hundreds of pages of documents, including detailed battlefield maps from Ukraine and confidential assessments of Russia’s war machine.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/12/...on=CompanionColumn&contentCollection=Trending
His goal, group members said, was both to inform and impress.
A photograph of Jack Teixeira posted on social media.
Airman Teixeira’s access to secret information and his ability to know about major global events before they appeared on front pages stoked the curiosity of the group, which numbered 20 to 30 people.
“Everyone respected O.G.,” Vahki said in an interview. “He was the man, the myth. And he was the legend. Everyone respected this guy.”
What Airman Teixeira was not, Vahki said, was a whistle-blower in the vein of Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning, whose outrage over perceived injustices led them to break the law and reveal closely held government secrets.
The secret documents in the news now, Airman Teixeira’s friends said, were never meant to leave their small corner of the internet.
“This guy was a Christian, antiwar, just wanted to inform some of his friends about what’s going on,” said Vahki, a 17-year-old recent high school graduate who identified himself by the screen name he used. “We have some people in our group who are in Ukraine. We like fighting games; we like war games.”
Now, their world is crumbling around them.
A New York Times report last week about the discovery of classified Ukraine war documents circulating online prompted the Pentagon to open an investigation, followed by national security officials racing to close down access to sensitive materials and reassure distraught allies that the U.S. government was still in control of its secrets.
The extent of the damage caused by the leak is not yet fully known.
The materials Airman Teixeira is accused of sharing revealed how deeply the Russian government had been penetrated by U.S. and allied intelligence agencies, which gained the ability to provide near-real-time information to the Ukrainians about planned Russian strikes.
They also showed that America’s spy services were eavesdropping on allies like Israel and South Korea, as well as the Ukrainian leadership, embarrassing revelations that could erode trust at a time when Washington was trying to present a unified front in the conflict with Moscow.
The police blocking Maple Street in North Dighton, Mass., near the home of Airman Teixeira, on Thursday.Credit...Alex Gagne for The New York Times
On Thursday, F.B.I. agents wearing helmets and flak jackets and carrying military-style assault rifles descended on the home where Airman Teixeira lived with his mother and took him into custody.
It all started innocuously, his online circle of friends said. As the pandemic closed schools and workplaces, plunging the world into isolation, the young men in Thug Shaker Central gravitated to one another online, finding solace in their shared interests, mostly video games like Project Zomboid, in which players try to survive in a post-apocalyptic Kentucky overrun by zombies.
They first met on a server called Oxide Hub, a large military-focused community on Discord, a social media platform popular among gamers — but abandoned it in favor of a closed, tighter-knit group.
They did not hide some of their extreme ideological views. On Steam, another popular gamer platform, members of the group traded racist and antisemitic epithets and appeared in other groups featuring Nazi iconography.
Vahki admitted to retweeting racist memes. “There’s no point hiding it,” Vahki said. “I’m not a good person.”
Airman Teixeira named the group Thug Shaker Central, which members acknowledged was an inside joke based on an internet meme. The investigative collective Bellingcat first reported that the group was the original source of the leaks. The Washington Post also reported details about the group.
Airman Teixeira, the friends said, was popular online and known as an active creator of memes. Online, he went by a number of different screen names, among them TheExcaliburEffect, jackdjdtex and TexKilledYou.
He grew up in North Dighton, Mass. Photographs from family members’ social media accounts show him curled up with his family’s two dogs, riding ATVs and wearing Boston Celtics gear. His mother posted pictures of his family members in the military every Veterans Day.
Following their footsteps, the young man joined the military after he graduated from Dighton-Rehoboth Regional High School in the summer of 2020, missing his graduation ceremony to attend his basic training obligations at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas. He finished his technical training the following year and officially entered active duty with the Massachusetts Air National Guard’s 102nd Intelligence Wing on Oct. 1, 2021.
Among the dozens of birthday wishes and baby pictures of Airman Teixeira on his sister’s social media feeds was a clue that he might be the leaker. One photograph captured a kitchen countertop that appeared identical to the surface on which the classified documents were photographed.
In addition to games, Airman Teixeira’s online group also shared an interest in guns. Vahki said he was a good marksman, and records unearthed by The Times show that he exchanged gun equipment with his fellow gamers.
“We’re gunners, we’re gear nerds,” Vahki said, adding that group members have spent hundreds of dollars on gear both in the virtual world and in real life.
But Airman Teixeira also began posting a different sort of content.
It started as long daily memos with complicated and, at times, confusing summaries of international events that members of the group found difficult to follow. Sometimes he would admonish his younger friends for not taking the information seriously, Vahki said.
Around October last year, his frustration led him to start posting original documents, including detailed battle maps from the war in Ukraine marked “TOP SECRET.” From October to March, Vahki said, the airman posted about 350 documents to the group.
The documents might have remained confined to Thug Shaker Central were it not for a member of the group named Lucca, a 17-year-old from California, who might not have fully grasped the gravity of the documents he had been given access to.
On March 2, Lucca was involved in a conversation about the Ukraine war in a public Discord group called #War-Posting when he published several dozen documents from the cache that had been uploaded to Thug Shaker Central.
For a month, the documents bounced around esoteric chat groups, including one popular with players of the online game Minecraft and another for fans of a moderately popular British YouTuber. They went seemingly unnoticed by anyone who understood their importance until early April, when some of the documents began appearing on the Telegram messaging app channels of supporters of Russia’s war against Ukraine.
As the news began to spread, Airman Teixeira started closing down his online accounts and bidding farewell to online friends.
“He was very freaked out,” Vahki said. “This isn’t something like an ‘oopsie-daisy — I’m going to be reprimanded.’ This is life-in-prison type stuff.”
The entrance to to the base where Airman Teixeira served in Pocasset, Mass.Credit...Cj Gunther/EPA, via Shutterstock
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Kitty Bennett and Sheelagh McNeill contributed research.
Christiaan Triebert is a journalist with the Visual Investigations team. He has shared two Pulitzer Prizes for investigations that revealed basic flaws in the U.S. military's dismissal of civilian casualty claims, and that exposed Russian bombing of hospitals in Syria. @trbrtc
Haley Willis is a journalist with the Visual Investigations team. She has shared in two Pulitzer Prizes for investigations into the U.S. military’s dismissal of civilian casualty claims and police killings during traffic stops. @heytherehaley
Malachy Browne is a senior story producer on the Visual Investigations team. His work has received four Emmys, and he shared in a Pulitzer Prize in 2020 for reporting that showed Russian culpability in bombing hospitals in Syria. @malachybrowne • Facebook
Michael Schwirtz is an investigative reporter with the International desk. With The Times since 2006, he previously covered the countries of the former Soviet Union from Moscow and was a lead reporter on a team that won the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for articles about Russian intelligence operations. @mschwirtz • Facebook
A version of this article appears in print on April 14, 2023, Section A, Page 1 of the New York edition with the headline: Love of Games and Guns in Forum. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe
Viimeksi muokattu:
tienvarsipummi
Kenraali
Antares
Respected Leader
Suuren ja Mahtavan armeija liikkuu vain yhteen suuntaan:
Today, I received an interesting video featuring recorded intercepts of Russian radio communication, revealing orders to shoot their own retreating troops.
I have translated and added subtitles to the video for greater accessibility and understanding.
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Kommenteissa häneltä kysyttiin näin: What is a "group" in terms of personnel? The german word "Gruppe" is the equivalent of squad, so I wonder if it's similar or not
Johon Tatarigami_UA vastasi näin: I assume that these are “assault groups” from assault detachments. I covered this topic a while ago
Toisen kommentoijan vastaus alkuperäiseen kysymykseen: It's not numerical afaik, just a collective term
Today, I received an interesting video featuring recorded intercepts of Russian radio communication, revealing orders to shoot their own retreating troops.
I have translated and added subtitles to the video for greater accessibility and understanding.
-
Kommenteissa häneltä kysyttiin näin: What is a "group" in terms of personnel? The german word "Gruppe" is the equivalent of squad, so I wonder if it's similar or not
Johon Tatarigami_UA vastasi näin: I assume that these are “assault groups” from assault detachments. I covered this topic a while ago
Toisen kommentoijan vastaus alkuperäiseen kysymykseen: It's not numerical afaik, just a collective term
Kuulostaa siltä että keskustelijat on ottaneet votkulia ainakin lääkkeeksi.
Ymmärsin, toki suomalaisen "asiantuntijan" selvityksestä, että Usassa annetaan sotilashenkilölle turvallisuusluokitus, jolla oikeuksilla hän sitten surffailee eri verkkopalveluissa. Eli jos sulle on lätkästy väärä turvaluokitus niin siinä se sitten on. Se, kuka olet tai missä asemassa tai missä organisaatiossa olet, ei itsessään takaa mitään. Myös sekin on mahdollista että ylemmän turvaluokituksen omaavia dokumentteja talletetaan alemman turvaluokituksen palveluun. Kaksi kappaletta inhimillistä tekijää joten mikä voisi mennä pieleen ? Ihan kaikki.
Antares
Respected Leader
Yksi hyvä esimerkki Venäjän asevoimien pitkään jatkuneesta alennustilasta, Su-34 prototyypin ensilento tapahtui 13.4.1990 ja ensimmäisen sarjatuotantokoneen ensilento tapahtui 12.10.2006 (toki pitkä aikaväli tarkoittaa, ettei puhuta 100% samoista koneista):
#OTD The first flight of the T-10V-1, the Su-34 prototype, took place on April 13, 1990. The first flight of a serial Su-34 aircraft took place on October 12, 2006. How it showed itself in a real war, we are now witnessing.
As for me its very concept is a product of a bygone era. Even the Su-17 with high-precision gliding bombs is better than this "ugly duckling" dropping "cast iron" (at least at the 1st year of war).
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Kommenteissa häneltä kysytään näin: This definitely has nothing to do with the aircraft. The RuAF has more of a reconnaissance, procedural and weapons problem than an aircraft problem. Incidentally, your comparison is flawed in several respects.
Johon hän vastasi näin: Initialy Soviet AF planned Strike Eagle analouge, but chief designer pressed to buld such strange design with armored cocpit like Shturmovik+Su-27 - completly unjustified design
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Su-34 ei tietysti ole yksin kun puhutaan kylmän sodan viimeisistä prototyypeistä ja niiden pitkästä tiestä valmiiksi koneiksi: Su-57 ja F-22 ovat molemmat tällaisia, muitakin esimerkkejä löytyy.
Kylmän sodan päättyminen ja sitä seuranneet leikkaukset eivät koskeneet yksin Venäjää - tosin Venäjän alennustila jatkui huomattavan pitkään, hävittäjäkaluston modernisointi alkoi vasta 2008 ja maavoimien panssarivaunujen osalta sen voidaan katsoa alkaneen vuonna 2012 (jos jätetään pois laskuista pieni määrä T-90A panssarivaunuja, ne valmistettiin uustuotantona aikavälillä 2004-2010).
#OTD The first flight of the T-10V-1, the Su-34 prototype, took place on April 13, 1990. The first flight of a serial Su-34 aircraft took place on October 12, 2006. How it showed itself in a real war, we are now witnessing.
As for me its very concept is a product of a bygone era. Even the Su-17 with high-precision gliding bombs is better than this "ugly duckling" dropping "cast iron" (at least at the 1st year of war).
-
Kommenteissa häneltä kysytään näin: This definitely has nothing to do with the aircraft. The RuAF has more of a reconnaissance, procedural and weapons problem than an aircraft problem. Incidentally, your comparison is flawed in several respects.
Johon hän vastasi näin: Initialy Soviet AF planned Strike Eagle analouge, but chief designer pressed to buld such strange design with armored cocpit like Shturmovik+Su-27 - completly unjustified design
-
Su-34 ei tietysti ole yksin kun puhutaan kylmän sodan viimeisistä prototyypeistä ja niiden pitkästä tiestä valmiiksi koneiksi: Su-57 ja F-22 ovat molemmat tällaisia, muitakin esimerkkejä löytyy.
Kylmän sodan päättyminen ja sitä seuranneet leikkaukset eivät koskeneet yksin Venäjää - tosin Venäjän alennustila jatkui huomattavan pitkään, hävittäjäkaluston modernisointi alkoi vasta 2008 ja maavoimien panssarivaunujen osalta sen voidaan katsoa alkaneen vuonna 2012 (jos jätetään pois laskuista pieni määrä T-90A panssarivaunuja, ne valmistettiin uustuotantona aikavälillä 2004-2010).
Viimeksi muokattu:
Erkki
Ylipäällikkö
Näille rokotemouhottajille Sputnik taitaa olla ihan halal ja kosher. Putiniakaan ei haukuttu, vaikka se mainosti sputnikia.Linkkkaa nyt vielä sputnikin tulokset, niin alkaa olla asia selvä
Antares
Respected Leader
Aikaisemmin aamulla tähän ketjuun jaettiin Helsingin Sanomien artikkeli, jossa haastateltiin yhtä wagnerilaista, linkki viestiin: LINKKI
Suora linkki artikkeliin (julkaistu 14.4.2023): LINKKI
Kurkistin Wagner-sotilaan sielunmaisemaan
Ivan kohtaa taas sotamiehen ravintolavaunussa. Tällä kertaa matkaseuralainen on venäläinen palkkasotilas.Ulkomaat | Kirjeitä Venäjältä
Erään venäläisen juna-aseman laiturilla.
2:00
”OLEN menossa sotaan”, sanoi mies.
Tapasimme junassa. Se onkin helpoin paikka tavata aktiivisotilaita Venäjällä.
Aiemmin kerroin teille junassa kohtaamastani miehestä, joka oli menossa sodasta kotiin. Nyt kanssamatkustajakseni osui tämä, joka oli matkalla päinvastaiseen suuntaan.
Tai ehkä vedän puoleeni sotilaspuvussa liikkuvia ihmisiä. Joka tapauksessa käytän usein junaa. Ravintolavaunu on tietenkin tyypillinen kohtaamispaikka.
Nyt yksi asia poikkesi selvästi edellisestä kerrasta. Aiemmin juttuseurakseni osunut sotilas ei ollut kovin innokas puhumaan. Hänen kielenkantansa löystyivät viinin myötä.
Tämänkertainen, noin 40-vuotias mies oli ilmeisen innokas löytämään kuulijan, vaikka ei hänkään sylkenyt lasiin.
Hän oli matkustanut kotiin mennäkseen naimisiin, mutta hanke meni myttyyn. Mies päätteli tulevan vaimonsa olevan kiinnostuneempi hänen rahoistaan kuin hänestä itsestään, eikä avioliittoa solmittu. Tällaisille epäilyksille on ilmeisen vahvoja perusteitakin. Wagner-sotilas ansaitsee kuukaudessa suunnilleen yhtä paljon rahaa kuin tavallinen Murmanskin alueen asukas koko vuodessa.
Loppuosa tästä kirjeestä koostuu meidän välisemme keskustelun katkelmista. Kyselin, hän vastasi.
Päätin kirjata pitkän keskustelun lomassa esitetyt kysymykset ja niiden vastaukset sellaisenaan niin tarkkaan kuin pystyn, koska minun olisi liian vaikeata yrittää tulkita tai kuvailla häntä.
En ole pitkän journalistin urani aikana ikinä voinut kuvitellakaan, että näin saattaisi käydä.
Mutta näin tapahtui. En saanut kiinni hänen sielunmaisemastaan.
Ravintolavaunussa keskustelukumppanit vaihtuvat, tarjoilut ovat samat.
OLEN menossa sotaan, hän siis sanoi ja minä kysyin, miksi.
”No en ainakaan huvin vuoksi, usko pois”, hän vastasi.
”Katsos nyt, yhden kaverini jalka repeytyi irti tehdastyössä. Hänen kuukausipalkkansa oli 30 000 ruplaa [noin 340 euroa nykykurssilla, joka vaihtelee koko ajan]. Se on puhdasta matematiikkaa.”
Mutta luulisin, että sodassa on paljon suurempi todennäköisyys kuolla kuin tehtaassa, eikö?
”Ilman muuta on. Äläkä ikinä usko virallisia lukuja kaatuneista. Minä uskon, että kaatuneita ja haavoittuneita on molemmilla puolilla yhteensä jo noin puoli miljoonaa. Lentokoneet vievät Venäjälle ruumisarkkuja ja tuovat takaisin alokkaita. Joka ikinen päivä.”
Mitä sinulle tapahtuisi, jollet ilmaantuisi takaisin yksikköösi lomasi päättyessä?
”Saan potkut, ei muuta. Enkä tietenkään saisi rahojani. Siellä on oikeastaan aika helppoa, koska emme ole etulinjassa vaan heti sen takana. Etulinjassa on rikollisia. He ovat todella vainajia. On puhtaasti tilastollinen poikkeama, jos siellä jää henkiin.”
Kuinka paikalliset ihmiset suhtautuvat teihin?
”Kuin miehittäjiin. Emme me ole tervetulleita sinne, me olemme maahantunkeutujia. He voivat hymyillä sinulle yhtenä iltana ja tappaa sinut seuraavana.”
HÄN puhui lisää ukrainalaisista, joita vastaan hän sotii ja joita hän tappaa.
”Olen pahoillani ukrainalaisten puolesta. Menisin mieluummin Afrikkaan. Afrikkalaiset eivät ainakaan ole slaaveja, joten heitä vastaan olisi ollut helpompi sotia. Enkä ole koskaan ollut ulkomailla.”
”Ukrainassa on olemassa tiettyjä syitä ja olosuhteita. Mutta ukrainalaiset ovat kuitenkin ihan samanlaisia kuin mekin, joten ei se ihan helppoa ole.”
”Toisen ihmisen tappaminen on vaikeata. Ensimmäiset kaksi ovat yleensä helppoja kaikille, mutta kolmannen jälkeen päässäsi alkaa liikkua outoja ajatuksia. Ja se on vaikeata. Ainoa ratkaisu on lakata ajattelemasta ja lopettaa myös uhrien laskeminen. Muutoin tulet hulluksi. Ja toinen ongelma on jokainen paluu siviilielämään. On vaikeata elää jälleen siviilisääntöjen mukaan. Esimerkiksi silloin, kun juttelet jollekulle ja hän sanoo jotakin omalta kannaltasi epämiellyttävää tai sopimatonta. Tuijotat häntä ja ajattelet, että ’tapan sinut tähän paikkaan’. Tajuat toki, ettei niin pitäisi olla, että se on epänormaalia ja järjetöntä. Niinpä yritän rauhoittua, mutta ei se helppoa ole.”
HALUSIN tietää lisää Wagner-joukoista. Kohta kysyin: mitä mieltä olet palkka-armeijasta?
”Haluaisin, että ЧВК:n jäsenet olisivat samassa asemassa kuin tavanomaisen armeijan sotilaat ja muut työntekijät. Niin, että saisimme eläkkeitä ja veteraaneille tulevia etuja. Jos minut ammutaan hengiltä huomenna, sukulaiseni saavat vain 150 000 ruplaa eikä seitsemää miljoonaa ruplaa, jonka armeijan sotilaiden omaiset saavat. Mutta onhan minun palkkani paljon suurempi. Tavallisessa armeijassa maksimi on 200 000 ruplaa kuussa. Meillä on 240 000 ruplan peruspalkka ja samansuuruinen bonus. Joka kuukausi. Ne ovat todella hyviä numeroita.”
Kummalla on paremmat varusteet?
”ЧВК:lla, tietenkin! Tavallisen armeijan sotilaiden on ostettava varusteita omilla rahoillaan. Minä en ostanut itselleni mitään! Meille annettiin kaikki tarvittava, sukista luotiliiveihin samalla, kun valtion sotilaat ovat kuin rääsyläisiä. Heillä ei ole sen paremmin kunnon vaatetusta kuin varusteitakaan. Mutta jos ЧВК jonain päivänä tekee konkurssin tai hajoaa, en saisi yhtään mitään. Ei eläkettä, ei etuja, ei rahaa … puhtaan nollan.”
Kuinka eläisit, jos sotaa ei olisi?
TÄTÄ sotilas mietti hieman. Miten hän eläisi ilman sotaa?
”Hmm, tänään en enää pysty kuvittelemaan elämääni ilman sotaa. Mutta totta kai se olisi parempaa. Haluaisin normaalin perheen ja lapsia. Haluaisin mennä rakennusalalle ja pyörittää omaa liiketoimintaa. Ja arvaas mitä? Olisi hienoa päästä naimisiin jonkun ukrainalaisnaisen kanssa. He ovat kauniita.”
Puhutaan paljon raiskauksista sodassa.
”En ole koskaan nähnyt saati sitten tehnyt mitään sellaista. Se on selvästi vastoin kaikkia lakeja ja periaatteita.”
Onko sinulla ystäviä, jotka eivät hyväksy sitä mitä olet tekemässä?
”On yksi, Moskovassa. Hän on kotoisin Ukrainasta. Kun allekirjoitin ensimmäisen sopimukseni, hän kysyi, olenko ääliö tai jotakin sellaista? Hän painostaa yhä kovaa. Hän kutsuu meitä valloittajiksi. Ja onhan hän oikeassa. Me olemme valloittajia. Hän on silti yhä ystäväni.”
Sinulle tämä on siis kuin töihin menisi?
”Joo, vähän niin kuin vuorotöihin menisi. Siellä on kuitenkin parasta ajatella mahdollisimman vähän. Se on tärkein asia siellä.”
Mitä pelkäät eniten?
”Sitä, että kaikki meille kerrottu onkin silkkaa valetta. Että jonakin päivänä sodan jälkeen tapaan jossakin niiden ihmisten sukulaisia, jotka ovat nyt rintaman vastakkaisella puolella. Ja että ne sukulaiset tappavat koko perheeni. Koska niillä kavereilla siellä toisella puolella, kaikilla niilläkin on perheet. Nämä ovat pelottavimpia sotaan liittyviä ajatuksia. Monet meikäläisistä ovat tulleet hulluiksi niiden takia. Tämä on yksi tärkeimmistä syistä, joiden vuoksi kaikki ryyppäävät siellä raskaasti. Ollessani siellä ensimmäistä kertaa olin kerran niin kännissä, että minut lukittiin kellariin 24 tunniksi. Hyvä. Minulla ei ole aavistustakaan, mitä kauheuksia olisin muuten tehnyt. En ole koskaan ennen ollut niin juovuksissa.”
Joten mikä tarkoitus tällä kaikella on?
”En minä tiedä. HÄN...
Sotilas osoittaa sormellaan kattoon.
”...haluaa, että Venäjä on todella riippumaton muista, ja toivon todella, että hän on laskenut kaiken. Meille kerrottiin, että sodimme Natoa vastaan ja että Ukraina on pelkkä harjoitusvastustaja. Ja totta kai HÄN haluaa päästä tämän maapallon historiaan. Kuten Pietari Suuri tai Stalin…”
Sotilas miettii taas hetken.
”Tai ehkä kuten Hitler, en tiedä.”
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Kirjeitä Venäjältä -sarjassa Helsingin Sanomiin kirjoittavat nyt Pietarista paennut Mihail, moskovalainen Jan ja Venäjän Karjalassa töitä tekevä Ivan. Heidän oikeita nimiään ei julkaista turvallisuussyistä. Työ riippumattomana journalistina on tekijöille uhka, joka voi johtaa Venäjällä pidätykseen tai vankeuteen. Jutut kootaan ja tiedonhankintaa tehdään myös HS:n toimituksessa. Tuotanto ja editointi: Tuija Pallaste / HS
Kurkistin Wagner-sotilaan sielunmaisemaan
Ivan kohtaa taas sotamiehen ravintolavaunussa. Tällä kertaa matkaseuralainen on venäläinen palkkasotilas.
Erään venäläisen juna-aseman laiturilla.
2:00
”OLEN menossa sotaan”, sanoi mies.
Tapasimme junassa. Se onkin helpoin paikka tavata aktiivisotilaita Venäjällä.
Aiemmin kerroin teille junassa kohtaamastani miehestä, joka oli menossa sodasta kotiin. Nyt kanssamatkustajakseni osui tämä, joka oli matkalla päinvastaiseen suuntaan.
Tai ehkä vedän puoleeni sotilaspuvussa liikkuvia ihmisiä. Joka tapauksessa käytän usein junaa. Ravintolavaunu on tietenkin tyypillinen kohtaamispaikka.
Nyt yksi asia poikkesi selvästi edellisestä kerrasta. Aiemmin juttuseurakseni osunut sotilas ei ollut kovin innokas puhumaan. Hänen kielenkantansa löystyivät viinin myötä.
Tämänkertainen, noin 40-vuotias mies oli ilmeisen innokas löytämään kuulijan, vaikka ei hänkään sylkenyt lasiin.
MIES kertoi asuvansa pienessä kylässä Karjalan ja Murmanskin alueen rajalla. Hän oli matkalla takaisin rintamalle lyhyen loman jälkeen. Hän on Wagner-sotilas, vaikkei käytä nimeä Wagner, vaan pelkkää lyhennettä ЧВК (TŠVK eli suomeksi palkka-armeija).
Hän oli matkustanut kotiin mennäkseen naimisiin, mutta hanke meni myttyyn. Mies päätteli tulevan vaimonsa olevan kiinnostuneempi hänen rahoistaan kuin hänestä itsestään, eikä avioliittoa solmittu. Tällaisille epäilyksille on ilmeisen vahvoja perusteitakin. Wagner-sotilas ansaitsee kuukaudessa suunnilleen yhtä paljon rahaa kuin tavallinen Murmanskin alueen asukas koko vuodessa.
Loppuosa tästä kirjeestä koostuu meidän välisemme keskustelun katkelmista. Kyselin, hän vastasi.
Päätin kirjata pitkän keskustelun lomassa esitetyt kysymykset ja niiden vastaukset sellaisenaan niin tarkkaan kuin pystyn, koska minun olisi liian vaikeata yrittää tulkita tai kuvailla häntä.
En ole pitkän journalistin urani aikana ikinä voinut kuvitellakaan, että näin saattaisi käydä.
Mutta näin tapahtui. En saanut kiinni hänen sielunmaisemastaan.
Ravintolavaunussa keskustelukumppanit vaihtuvat, tarjoilut ovat samat.
OLEN menossa sotaan, hän siis sanoi ja minä kysyin, miksi.
”No en ainakaan huvin vuoksi, usko pois”, hän vastasi.
”Katsos nyt, yhden kaverini jalka repeytyi irti tehdastyössä. Hänen kuukausipalkkansa oli 30 000 ruplaa [noin 340 euroa nykykurssilla, joka vaihtelee koko ajan]. Se on puhdasta matematiikkaa.”
Mutta luulisin, että sodassa on paljon suurempi todennäköisyys kuolla kuin tehtaassa, eikö?
”Ilman muuta on. Äläkä ikinä usko virallisia lukuja kaatuneista. Minä uskon, että kaatuneita ja haavoittuneita on molemmilla puolilla yhteensä jo noin puoli miljoonaa. Lentokoneet vievät Venäjälle ruumisarkkuja ja tuovat takaisin alokkaita. Joka ikinen päivä.”
Mitä sinulle tapahtuisi, jollet ilmaantuisi takaisin yksikköösi lomasi päättyessä?
”Saan potkut, ei muuta. Enkä tietenkään saisi rahojani. Siellä on oikeastaan aika helppoa, koska emme ole etulinjassa vaan heti sen takana. Etulinjassa on rikollisia. He ovat todella vainajia. On puhtaasti tilastollinen poikkeama, jos siellä jää henkiin.”
Kuinka paikalliset ihmiset suhtautuvat teihin?
”Kuin miehittäjiin. Emme me ole tervetulleita sinne, me olemme maahantunkeutujia. He voivat hymyillä sinulle yhtenä iltana ja tappaa sinut seuraavana.”
HÄN puhui lisää ukrainalaisista, joita vastaan hän sotii ja joita hän tappaa.
”Olen pahoillani ukrainalaisten puolesta. Menisin mieluummin Afrikkaan. Afrikkalaiset eivät ainakaan ole slaaveja, joten heitä vastaan olisi ollut helpompi sotia. Enkä ole koskaan ollut ulkomailla.”
”Ukrainassa on olemassa tiettyjä syitä ja olosuhteita. Mutta ukrainalaiset ovat kuitenkin ihan samanlaisia kuin mekin, joten ei se ihan helppoa ole.”
Onko sinulle vaikeata surmata toinen ihminen?
”Toisen ihmisen tappaminen on vaikeata. Ensimmäiset kaksi ovat yleensä helppoja kaikille, mutta kolmannen jälkeen päässäsi alkaa liikkua outoja ajatuksia. Ja se on vaikeata. Ainoa ratkaisu on lakata ajattelemasta ja lopettaa myös uhrien laskeminen. Muutoin tulet hulluksi. Ja toinen ongelma on jokainen paluu siviilielämään. On vaikeata elää jälleen siviilisääntöjen mukaan. Esimerkiksi silloin, kun juttelet jollekulle ja hän sanoo jotakin omalta kannaltasi epämiellyttävää tai sopimatonta. Tuijotat häntä ja ajattelet, että ’tapan sinut tähän paikkaan’. Tajuat toki, ettei niin pitäisi olla, että se on epänormaalia ja järjetöntä. Niinpä yritän rauhoittua, mutta ei se helppoa ole.”
HALUSIN tietää lisää Wagner-joukoista. Kohta kysyin: mitä mieltä olet palkka-armeijasta?
”Haluaisin, että ЧВК:n jäsenet olisivat samassa asemassa kuin tavanomaisen armeijan sotilaat ja muut työntekijät. Niin, että saisimme eläkkeitä ja veteraaneille tulevia etuja. Jos minut ammutaan hengiltä huomenna, sukulaiseni saavat vain 150 000 ruplaa eikä seitsemää miljoonaa ruplaa, jonka armeijan sotilaiden omaiset saavat. Mutta onhan minun palkkani paljon suurempi. Tavallisessa armeijassa maksimi on 200 000 ruplaa kuussa. Meillä on 240 000 ruplan peruspalkka ja samansuuruinen bonus. Joka kuukausi. Ne ovat todella hyviä numeroita.”
Kummalla on paremmat varusteet?
”ЧВК:lla, tietenkin! Tavallisen armeijan sotilaiden on ostettava varusteita omilla rahoillaan. Minä en ostanut itselleni mitään! Meille annettiin kaikki tarvittava, sukista luotiliiveihin samalla, kun valtion sotilaat ovat kuin rääsyläisiä. Heillä ei ole sen paremmin kunnon vaatetusta kuin varusteitakaan. Mutta jos ЧВК jonain päivänä tekee konkurssin tai hajoaa, en saisi yhtään mitään. Ei eläkettä, ei etuja, ei rahaa … puhtaan nollan.”
Kuinka eläisit, jos sotaa ei olisi?
TÄTÄ sotilas mietti hieman. Miten hän eläisi ilman sotaa?
”Hmm, tänään en enää pysty kuvittelemaan elämääni ilman sotaa. Mutta totta kai se olisi parempaa. Haluaisin normaalin perheen ja lapsia. Haluaisin mennä rakennusalalle ja pyörittää omaa liiketoimintaa. Ja arvaas mitä? Olisi hienoa päästä naimisiin jonkun ukrainalaisnaisen kanssa. He ovat kauniita.”
Puhutaan paljon raiskauksista sodassa.
”En ole koskaan nähnyt saati sitten tehnyt mitään sellaista. Se on selvästi vastoin kaikkia lakeja ja periaatteita.”
Onko sinulla ystäviä, jotka eivät hyväksy sitä mitä olet tekemässä?
”On yksi, Moskovassa. Hän on kotoisin Ukrainasta. Kun allekirjoitin ensimmäisen sopimukseni, hän kysyi, olenko ääliö tai jotakin sellaista? Hän painostaa yhä kovaa. Hän kutsuu meitä valloittajiksi. Ja onhan hän oikeassa. Me olemme valloittajia. Hän on silti yhä ystäväni.”
Sinulle tämä on siis kuin töihin menisi?
”Joo, vähän niin kuin vuorotöihin menisi. Siellä on kuitenkin parasta ajatella mahdollisimman vähän. Se on tärkein asia siellä.”
Mitä pelkäät eniten?
”Sitä, että kaikki meille kerrottu onkin silkkaa valetta. Että jonakin päivänä sodan jälkeen tapaan jossakin niiden ihmisten sukulaisia, jotka ovat nyt rintaman vastakkaisella puolella. Ja että ne sukulaiset tappavat koko perheeni. Koska niillä kavereilla siellä toisella puolella, kaikilla niilläkin on perheet. Nämä ovat pelottavimpia sotaan liittyviä ajatuksia. Monet meikäläisistä ovat tulleet hulluiksi niiden takia. Tämä on yksi tärkeimmistä syistä, joiden vuoksi kaikki ryyppäävät siellä raskaasti. Ollessani siellä ensimmäistä kertaa olin kerran niin kännissä, että minut lukittiin kellariin 24 tunniksi. Hyvä. Minulla ei ole aavistustakaan, mitä kauheuksia olisin muuten tehnyt. En ole koskaan ennen ollut niin juovuksissa.”
Joten mikä tarkoitus tällä kaikella on?
”En minä tiedä. HÄN...
Sotilas osoittaa sormellaan kattoon.
”...haluaa, että Venäjä on todella riippumaton muista, ja toivon todella, että hän on laskenut kaiken. Meille kerrottiin, että sodimme Natoa vastaan ja että Ukraina on pelkkä harjoitusvastustaja. Ja totta kai HÄN haluaa päästä tämän maapallon historiaan. Kuten Pietari Suuri tai Stalin…”
Sotilas miettii taas hetken.
”Tai ehkä kuten Hitler, en tiedä.”
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Kirjeitä Venäjältä -sarjassa Helsingin Sanomiin kirjoittavat nyt Pietarista paennut Mihail, moskovalainen Jan ja Venäjän Karjalassa töitä tekevä Ivan. Heidän oikeita nimiään ei julkaista turvallisuussyistä. Työ riippumattomana journalistina on tekijöille uhka, joka voi johtaa Venäjällä pidätykseen tai vankeuteen. Jutut kootaan ja tiedonhankintaa tehdään myös HS:n toimituksessa. Tuotanto ja editointi: Tuija Pallaste / HS
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Lainaan artikkelista pätkän:
Mitä pelkäät eniten?
”Sitä, että kaikki meille kerrottu onkin silkkaa valetta. Että jonakin päivänä sodan jälkeen tapaan jossakin niiden ihmisten sukulaisia, jotka ovat nyt rintaman vastakkaisella puolella. Ja että ne sukulaiset tappavat koko perheeni. Koska niillä kavereilla siellä toisella puolella, kaikilla niilläkin on perheet. Nämä ovat pelottavimpia sotaan liittyviä ajatuksia. Monet meikäläisistä ovat tulleet hulluiksi niiden takia. Tämä on yksi tärkeimmistä syistä, joiden vuoksi kaikki ryyppäävät siellä raskaasti. Ollessani siellä ensimmäistä kertaa olin kerran niin kännissä, että minut lukittiin kellariin 24 tunniksi. Hyvä. Minulla ei ole aavistustakaan, mitä kauheuksia olisin muuten tehnyt. En ole koskaan ennen ollut niin juovuksissa.”
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Venäläiseen sodankäyntiin on perinteisesti kuulunut raskas ryyppäys (samoin kuin heidän yhteiskuntansa arkeen). Kaikki eivät sitä tietysti tee, oletan että ammattimaisimmat joukot eivät, mutta hyvin suuri osa heidän armeijastaan on tällä hetkellä mobikkeja. Lisäksi jokin määrä "värvättyjä" vankeja lienee vielä hengissä, heillä tuskin on ongelmaa vetää tajua pois tai huumeilla itseä tunnottomaksi (ymmärtävät miten vaikeaan paikkaan ovat joutuneet).
Oletan että samaa tapahtunee jossain määrin myös Ukrainan joukkojen parissa.
ak.tied
Respected Leader
Miksi Kansalliskaartin ilmavoimien tiedustelulla on pääsy Ukrainan sodan kansainväliseen yhteistyöhän liittyviin suunnitelmiin? Ja vielä "Airman First Class" eli sotilasarvovastaavudeltaan käsittääkseni korpraali.Pari New York Times kirjoitusta tästä "vuotajasta", hänen "tuttujensa" mukaan kyseessä ei olisi samanlainen tietovuotaja kuten Snowden tai Manning aikaisemmin (ilmeisesti kyseessä oli nuoren miehen tarve rehvastella "internet-kavereille", tosin kun vuotaa tällaisia tietoja, ei voi koskaan olla varma kenen luettavaksi ne päätyvät):
What Airman Teixeira was not, a close Discord friend said, was a whistle-blower in the vein of Snowden and Manning, whose outrage over perceived injustices led them to break the law and reveal closely held government secrets.
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Kopioin ensimmäisestä viestistä löytyvän artikkelin kokonaisuudessaan spoilerin taakse:
F.B.I. Arrests National Guardsman in Leak of Classified Documents
Authorities say Jack Teixeira, a 21-year-old member of the Massachusetts Air National Guard, posted sensitive materials in an online chat group.
Law enforcement personnel outside the home of Airman First Class Jack Teixeira’s mother in North Dighton, Mass., on Thursday. The F.B.I. had been zeroing in on him for several days.Credit...Haley Willis/The New York Times
By Haley Willis, Thomas Gibbons-Neff, Aric Toler, Christiaan Triebert, Julian E. Barnes and Malachy Browne
- April 13, 2023
NORTH DIGHTON, Mass. — The F.B.I. arrested a 21-year-old member of the Massachusetts Air National Guard on Thursday in connection with the leak of dozens of highly classified documents containing an array of national security secrets, including the breadth of surveillance the United States is able to conduct on Russia.
Airman First Class Jack Douglas Teixeira was taken into custody to face charges of leaking classified documents after federal authorities said he had posted batches of sensitive intelligence to an online gaming chat group, called Thug Shaker Central.
As reporters from The New York Times gathered near the house on Thursday afternoon, about a half-dozen F.B.I. agents pushed into the home of Airman Teixeira’s mother in North Dighton, with a twin-engine government surveillance plane keeping watch overhead.
Some of the agents arrived heavily armed. Law enforcement officials learned before the search that Airman Teixeira was in possession of multiple weapons, according to a person familiar with the investigation, and the F.B.I. found guns at the house.
Not long after, cameras caught a handcuffed Airman Teixeira, wearing red shorts and boots, being led away from the home by two heavily armed men.
(Video - F.B.I. Arrests Air National Guardsman in Massachusetts)
Federal authorities arrested Jack Teixeira, a 21-year-old Air National Guardsman, who they believe is linked to a trove of leaked classified U.S. intelligence documents.
In Washington, Attorney General Merrick B. Garland, in a brief statement, announced the arrest and said Airman Teixeira would be arraigned at the Federal District Court in Massachusetts. Mr. Garland said he was arrested in connection with the “unauthorized removal, retention and transmission of classified national defense information,” a reference to the Espionage Act, which is used to prosecute the mishandling and theft of sensitive intelligence.
The arrest raised questions about why such a junior enlisted airman had access to such an array of potentially damaging secrets, why adequate safeguards had not been put in place after earlier leaks and why a young man would risk his freedom to share intelligence about the war in Ukraine with a group of friends he knew from a video game social media site.
A motive in the case for now remains elusive. But, according to people who knew him online, Airman Teixeira was no whistle-blower. Unlike previous huge leaks of information, from the Pentagon Papers to WikiLeaks to Edward Snowden’s disclosures, outrage about wrongdoing or government policies does not appear to have been a factor.
Indeed, the disclosures were potentially damaging to all parties in the Ukraine war as well as future intelligence collection. While some officials, including President Biden, have downplayed the damage from the leak, it will take months to learn whether U.S. intelligence loses access to important methods of collection because of the disclosures.
The F.B.I. had been zeroing in on Airman Teixeira for several days, tracking its own investigative clues as well as some of the same information that The Times and The Washington Post had developed about the Discord group where he had shared the documents, officials said.
Still, as reporters uncovered more information, law enforcement officials had to speed up their investigation.
While federal investigators believed that Airman Teixeira could pose a danger to agents conducting the search, his online friends knew him as a sometimes hectoring leader of their small community.
Several months ago, a user of Thug Shaker Central known as O.G. began uploading hundreds of pages of intelligence briefings into the small chat group. The group also discussed guns and military equipment, as well as the original subject of their group, video games.
While the members of the chat group would not identify the group’s leader by name, a trail of digital evidence compiled by The Times led to Airman Teixeira. American officials have confirmed that they believe he uploaded the information taken improperly from U.S. military computers.
As he posted the material, O.G. lectured the group’s members, who had bonded during the isolation of the pandemic, on the importance of staying abreast of world events.
Airman Teixeira was trained as a cyber transport systems specialist, a job that could entail a variety of duties, such as keeping his unit’s communication networks running. He was assigned to the 102nd Intelligence Wing at Otis Air National Guard Base, part of Joint Base Cape Cod, according to an Air Force spokeswoman. The 102nd Intelligence Wing’s official Facebook page congratulated Airman Teixeira and colleagues on their promotion to airmen first class in July.
Officials would not answer questions about what in Airman Teixeira’s duties would necessitate his having access to daily slides about the Ukraine war, much less the daily deluge of intelligence reports from the C.I.A., the National Security Agency and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. There are units at the base that process intelligence collected from drones and U-2 spy planes, though it is doubtful that work alone would require the sort of access to the broad array of classified information that has been leaked on the Discord server.
But he could also have gained access to the documents in other ways. U.S. government officials with security clearance often receive such documents through daily emails on a classified computer network, one official told The Times, and those emails might then be automatically forwarded to other people.
Jack Teixeira, an Air National Guardsman, in a photo posted on social media.
Airman Teixeira’s mother, Dawn, speaking outside her home in North Dighton on Thursday, confirmed that her son was a member of the Air National Guard and said he had recently been working overnight shifts at a base on Cape Cod. In the past few days, he had changed his phone number, she said.
Later, someone who appeared to be Airman Teixeira drove onto the property in a red pickup truck.
When Times reporters approached the house again, the truck was parked in the driveway. Airman Teixeira’s mother and his stepfather were standing in the driveway.
When asked if Airman Teixeira was there and willing to speak, his stepfather, Thomas P. Dufault, said: “He needs to get an attorney if things are flowing the way they are going right now. The feds will be around soon, I’m sure.”
Within a few hours, the prediction of Mr. Dufault, a retired Air Force master sergeant, proved correct as F.B.I. and other government personnel drove onto the property.
A neighbor, Paul Desousa, looked on as the F.B.I. agents yelled Airman Teixeira’s name. The neighbor said the young man then walked out of the house.
Mr. Desousa did not know Airman Teixeira, but said he had frequently heard him fire weapons in the woods behind his house.
After Airman Teixeira was led away, the search of the property continued. And as the sun began to set, a food delivery truck arrived for the F.B.I. agents scouring Airman Teixeira’s family home, a sign that the search was likely to continue for several hours.
Members of Thug Shaker Central who spoke to The Times said that the documents they discussed online were meant to be purely informative. While many pertained to the war in Ukraine, the members said they took no side in the conflict.
The documents, they said, started to get wider attention only when one of the teenage members of the group took a few dozen of them and posted them to a public online forum. From there they were picked up by Russian-language Telegram channels and then The Times, which first reported on them.
In Washington, the crisis over the leaks began late last week, as some documents began surfacing on Telegram and Twitter.
Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III was initially briefed on the leak on the morning of April 6. Pentagon officials tried to get some of the Telegram and Twitter posts showing pictures of some of the documents that initially came to light deleted, but they were unsuccessful.
The next day, last Friday, Mr. Austin began convening departmentwide meetings to address the growing disclosures. Pentagon and other U.S. officials began contacting congressional leaders and allies to alert them to the leaks, which have ignited political firestorms in some countries.
Also last Friday, the military’s Joint Staff, which had produced many of the briefing slides that were leaked, instituted procedures to limit the distribution of highly sensitive briefing documents and restrict attendance at meetings where briefing books containing paper copies of the documents were available.
On Tuesday, in his first public comments about the leaks, Mr. Austin struggled to explain why the Defense Department only learned about the leaks long after they first surfaced on Discord.
“Well, they were somewhere in the web,” Mr. Austin said of the leaked documents. “And where exactly and who had access at that point, we don’t know. We simply don’t know at this point.”
Even as Mr. Austin spoke, news outlets began writing about discoveries of more documents.
On Thursday morning, Mr. Austin called a meeting with senior staff members to discuss the crisis.
But by then the F.B.I. was already preparing the search warrant for the home in North Dighton, and investigators began assuring Pentagon officials that the leaker would soon be caught.
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Reporting and research were contributed by Riley Mellen, Adam Goldman, Michael Schwirtz, Helene Cooper, Eric Schmitt, John Ismay, C.J. Chivers, Michael D. Shear, Kitty Bennett and Sheelagh McNeill.
Haley Willis is a journalist with the Visual Investigations team. She has shared in two Pulitzer Prizes for investigations into the U.S. military’s dismissal of civilian casualty claims and police killings during traffic stops. @heytherehaley
Thomas Gibbons-Neff is a Ukraine correspondent and a former Marine infantryman. @tmgneff
Christiaan Triebert is a journalist with the Visual Investigations team. He has shared two Pulitzer Prizes for investigations that revealed basic flaws in the U.S. military's dismissal of civilian casualty claims, and that exposed Russian bombing of hospitals in Syria. @trbrtc
Julian E. Barnes is a national security reporter based in Washington, covering the intelligence agencies. Before joining The Times in 2018, he wrote about security matters for The Wall Street Journal. @julianbarnes • Facebook
Malachy Browne is a senior story producer on the Visual Investigations team. His work has received four Emmys, and he shared in a Pulitzer Prize in 2020 for reporting that showed Russian culpability in bombing hospitals in Syria. @malachybrowne • Facebook
A version of this article appears in print on April 14, 2023, Section A, Page 1 of the New York edition with the headline: Airman Arrested By F.B.I. Over Leak of Secrets on War. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe
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Tässä tuon toisessa viestissä jaetun artikkelin teksti ja kuvat:
VISUAL INVESTIGATIONS
The Airman Who Gave Gamers a Real Taste of War
The group liked online war games. But then Jack Teixeira, a 21-year-old National Guard airman, began showing them classified documents, members say.
Federal authorities arrested Jack Teixeira, a 21-year-old Air National Guardsman, who they believe is linked to a trove of leaked classified U.S. intelligence documents.
By Aric Toler, Christiaan Triebert, Haley Willis, Malachy Browne, Michael Schwirtz and Riley Mellen
April 13, 2023
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The 21-year-old National Guard airman was frantic as he joined a call with members of a small online gamer community that has improbably ended up at the center of a federal investigation into a major U.S. security breach.
It sounded as if the airman, Jack Teixeira, was in a speeding car, said a member of the group who uses the screen name Vahki.
“Guys, it’s been good — I love you all,” Airman Teixeira said, Vahki recounted. “I never wanted it to get like this. I prayed to God that this would never happen. And I prayed and prayed and prayed. Only God can decide what happens from now on.”
On Thursday, the F.B.I. arrested Airman Teixeira, an hour and a half after The New York Times identified him as the administrator of the online group, Thug Shaker Central, where a cache of leaked intelligence documents that riveted the world for a week first appeared.
It was Airman Teixeira, a member of the Massachusetts National Guard, his friends in the group said, who somehow obtained the classified documents and posted them to the group. From there, they eventually spilled into the open, potentially compromising U.S. intelligence gathering and damaging relations with allies.
In interviews, members of Thug Shaker Central said their group had started out as a place where young men and teenage boys could gather amid the isolation of the pandemic to bond over their love of guns, share memes — sometimes racist ones — and play war-themed video games.
But Airman Teixeira, who one member of the group called O.G. and was also its unofficial leader, wanted to teach the young acolytes who gravitated to him about actual war, members said.
And so, beginning in at least October, Airman Teixeira, who was attached to the Guard’s intelligence unit, began sharing descriptions of classified information, group members and law enforcement officials said, eventually uploading hundreds of pages of documents, including detailed battlefield maps from Ukraine and confidential assessments of Russia’s war machine.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/12/...on=CompanionColumn&contentCollection=Trending
His goal, group members said, was both to inform and impress.
A photograph of Jack Teixeira posted on social media.
Airman Teixeira’s access to secret information and his ability to know about major global events before they appeared on front pages stoked the curiosity of the group, which numbered 20 to 30 people.
“Everyone respected O.G.,” Vahki said in an interview. “He was the man, the myth. And he was the legend. Everyone respected this guy.”
What Airman Teixeira was not, Vahki said, was a whistle-blower in the vein of Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning, whose outrage over perceived injustices led them to break the law and reveal closely held government secrets.
The secret documents in the news now, Airman Teixeira’s friends said, were never meant to leave their small corner of the internet.
“This guy was a Christian, antiwar, just wanted to inform some of his friends about what’s going on,” said Vahki, a 17-year-old recent high school graduate who identified himself by the screen name he used. “We have some people in our group who are in Ukraine. We like fighting games; we like war games.”
Now, their world is crumbling around them.
A New York Times report last week about the discovery of classified Ukraine war documents circulating online prompted the Pentagon to open an investigation, followed by national security officials racing to close down access to sensitive materials and reassure distraught allies that the U.S. government was still in control of its secrets.
The extent of the damage caused by the leak is not yet fully known.
The materials Airman Teixeira is accused of sharing revealed how deeply the Russian government had been penetrated by U.S. and allied intelligence agencies, which gained the ability to provide near-real-time information to the Ukrainians about planned Russian strikes.
They also showed that America’s spy services were eavesdropping on allies like Israel and South Korea, as well as the Ukrainian leadership, embarrassing revelations that could erode trust at a time when Washington was trying to present a unified front in the conflict with Moscow.
The police blocking Maple Street in North Dighton, Mass., near the home of Airman Teixeira, on Thursday.Credit...Alex Gagne for The New York Times
On Thursday, F.B.I. agents wearing helmets and flak jackets and carrying military-style assault rifles descended on the home where Airman Teixeira lived with his mother and took him into custody.
It all started innocuously, his online circle of friends said. As the pandemic closed schools and workplaces, plunging the world into isolation, the young men in Thug Shaker Central gravitated to one another online, finding solace in their shared interests, mostly video games like Project Zomboid, in which players try to survive in a post-apocalyptic Kentucky overrun by zombies.
They first met on a server called Oxide Hub, a large military-focused community on Discord, a social media platform popular among gamers — but abandoned it in favor of a closed, tighter-knit group.
They did not hide some of their extreme ideological views. On Steam, another popular gamer platform, members of the group traded racist and antisemitic epithets and appeared in other groups featuring Nazi iconography.
Vahki admitted to retweeting racist memes. “There’s no point hiding it,” Vahki said. “I’m not a good person.”
Airman Teixeira named the group Thug Shaker Central, which members acknowledged was an inside joke based on an internet meme. The investigative collective Bellingcat first reported that the group was the original source of the leaks. The Washington Post also reported details about the group.
Airman Teixeira, the friends said, was popular online and known as an active creator of memes. Online, he went by a number of different screen names, among them TheExcaliburEffect, jackdjdtex and TexKilledYou.
He grew up in North Dighton, Mass. Photographs from family members’ social media accounts show him curled up with his family’s two dogs, riding ATVs and wearing Boston Celtics gear. His mother posted pictures of his family members in the military every Veterans Day.
Following their footsteps, the young man joined the military after he graduated from Dighton-Rehoboth Regional High School in the summer of 2020, missing his graduation ceremony to attend his basic training obligations at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas. He finished his technical training the following year and officially entered active duty with the Massachusetts Air National Guard’s 102nd Intelligence Wing on Oct. 1, 2021.
Among the dozens of birthday wishes and baby pictures of Airman Teixeira on his sister’s social media feeds was a clue that he might be the leaker. One photograph captured a kitchen countertop that appeared identical to the surface on which the classified documents were photographed.
In addition to games, Airman Teixeira’s online group also shared an interest in guns. Vahki said he was a good marksman, and records unearthed by The Times show that he exchanged gun equipment with his fellow gamers.
“We’re gunners, we’re gear nerds,” Vahki said, adding that group members have spent hundreds of dollars on gear both in the virtual world and in real life.
But Airman Teixeira also began posting a different sort of content.
It started as long daily memos with complicated and, at times, confusing summaries of international events that members of the group found difficult to follow. Sometimes he would admonish his younger friends for not taking the information seriously, Vahki said.
Around October last year, his frustration led him to start posting original documents, including detailed battle maps from the war in Ukraine marked “TOP SECRET.” From October to March, Vahki said, the airman posted about 350 documents to the group.
The documents might have remained confined to Thug Shaker Central were it not for a member of the group named Lucca, a 17-year-old from California, who might not have fully grasped the gravity of the documents he had been given access to.
On March 2, Lucca was involved in a conversation about the Ukraine war in a public Discord group called #War-Posting when he published several dozen documents from the cache that had been uploaded to Thug Shaker Central.
For a month, the documents bounced around esoteric chat groups, including one popular with players of the online game Minecraft and another for fans of a moderately popular British YouTuber. They went seemingly unnoticed by anyone who understood their importance until early April, when some of the documents began appearing on the Telegram messaging app channels of supporters of Russia’s war against Ukraine.
As the news began to spread, Airman Teixeira started closing down his online accounts and bidding farewell to online friends.
“He was very freaked out,” Vahki said. “This isn’t something like an ‘oopsie-daisy — I’m going to be reprimanded.’ This is life-in-prison type stuff.”
The entrance to to the base where Airman Teixeira served in Pocasset, Mass.Credit...Cj Gunther/EPA, via Shutterstock
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Kitty Bennett and Sheelagh McNeill contributed research.
Christiaan Triebert is a journalist with the Visual Investigations team. He has shared two Pulitzer Prizes for investigations that revealed basic flaws in the U.S. military's dismissal of civilian casualty claims, and that exposed Russian bombing of hospitals in Syria. @trbrtc
Haley Willis is a journalist with the Visual Investigations team. She has shared in two Pulitzer Prizes for investigations into the U.S. military’s dismissal of civilian casualty claims and police killings during traffic stops. @heytherehaley
Malachy Browne is a senior story producer on the Visual Investigations team. His work has received four Emmys, and he shared in a Pulitzer Prize in 2020 for reporting that showed Russian culpability in bombing hospitals in Syria. @malachybrowne • Facebook
Michael Schwirtz is an investigative reporter with the International desk. With The Times since 2006, he previously covered the countries of the former Soviet Union from Moscow and was a lead reporter on a team that won the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for articles about Russian intelligence operations. @mschwirtz • Facebook
A version of this article appears in print on April 14, 2023, Section A, Page 1 of the New York edition with the headline: Love of Games and Guns in Forum. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe
Beats me, totaalisesti. Luojan kiitos tämä oli USA oma, täydellinen tyräys, eikä esimerkiksi Suomesta lähtöisin. Miettikää jos tämän vuodon takana olisi ollut joku maakuntakomppanian korpraali, voi sitä häpeän määrää...
Teixeira oli IT-ylläpitäjä. Ei niihin hommiin mitään taistelukokemusta omaavia 50+ vuotiaita laskuvarjojääkäreitä löydy. Kun ylläpidät järjestelmää, niin ylläpito-oikeuksilla päässee ainakin johonkin sisältöön. Taustat on varmasti tarkistettu ja tiedotkin varmasti oikein tallennettu. Tietoturva lähtee kuitenkin ihmisestä, ja tässä se petti.
Tuossa se homma vaatimuksineen mitä tämä kaveri teki: https://www.airforce.com/careers/intelligence/cyber-systems-operations
Lisäys:
Tiedustelulla ei välttämättä olekaan, mutta tiedustelujärjestelmien ylläpidolla mitä tämä kaveri teki on luonnollisesti ylläpito-oikeudet. Ei ne varmaan 17v IT-nörteistä tee suoraan majureitakaan, vaan hommat alkaa alemmista palkkaluokista ja vastuut osaamisen mukaan.
Viimeksi muokattu:
Antares
Respected Leader
Kertauksen vuoksi, T-54/T-55 panssarivaunujen junakyydistä uutisoitiin 22.3.2023. Niitä sanottiin otetun kahdesta varastotukikohdasta: 1295. ja 111. jotka molemmat sijaitsevat Venäjän idässä (epätäydellinen kartta, johon merkitty suurimpien varastotukikohtien sijainnit - tosin 111. varastotukikohta puuttuu):
Suurempien varastotukikohtien koordinaatit (ne joissa säilytetään panssarivaunuja, lihavoin 111. ja 1295. koordinaatit):
22nd = 58°27'56.11"N, 41°30'54.30"E
103/2456th = 54°46'14.79"N, 82°30'50.93"E
111th = 50°41'34.65"N, 136°52'17.05" E
227/769th = 51°53'21.43"N, 107°31'28.96"E
349/3764 = 52°48'50.92" N, 83° 8'23.30"E
1295th = 44°7'39.33″N, 133°16'55.61"E
1311th = 56°58'41.31"N, 60°36'28.88"E
2544th = 56°10'12.22"N, 91°27'4.46"E
111. varastotukikohdan koordinaatit kartalla:
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JOTEN jos uskotaan tänään nähty pimeässä otettu kuva T-54/T-55 vaunusta Ukrainassa, se tarkoittaisi että vaunujen siirron aikaväli olisi 22.3.2023 - 14.4.2023, eli 23 päivää eli hieman yli kolme viikkoa.
JOS vaunut junan kyydissä oli tuore tieto eikä vanha kuva, niin tuossa kolmen viikon ajassa näitä tuskin ehti käyttää missään "armored repair plant" pajassa peruskorjattavana. Joku de-konservointi on ehkä ehditty tekemään, tosin olisiko se tehty jo varastotukikohdassa ennen junan kyytiin lastaamista?
Tuore kuva on otettu pimeässä, joten vaunu näkyy huonosti mutta ainakaan rungon etuosassa ei ole nähtävissä Kontakt-1 elementtejä (joita ei nähty junan kyydissä olevissa vaunuissakaan). Oletan että vaunut edustavat parhaiten varastossa säilyneitä T-54/T-55 yksilöitä, jotka on kyetty aktivoimaan ilman suurempia remontteja. Toisaalta näitä ei ole modernisoitu millään tavoin.
Suurempien varastotukikohtien koordinaatit (ne joissa säilytetään panssarivaunuja, lihavoin 111. ja 1295. koordinaatit):
22nd = 58°27'56.11"N, 41°30'54.30"E
103/2456th = 54°46'14.79"N, 82°30'50.93"E
111th = 50°41'34.65"N, 136°52'17.05" E
227/769th = 51°53'21.43"N, 107°31'28.96"E
349/3764 = 52°48'50.92" N, 83° 8'23.30"E
1295th = 44°7'39.33″N, 133°16'55.61"E
1311th = 56°58'41.31"N, 60°36'28.88"E
2544th = 56°10'12.22"N, 91°27'4.46"E
111. varastotukikohdan koordinaatit kartalla:
-
JOTEN jos uskotaan tänään nähty pimeässä otettu kuva T-54/T-55 vaunusta Ukrainassa, se tarkoittaisi että vaunujen siirron aikaväli olisi 22.3.2023 - 14.4.2023, eli 23 päivää eli hieman yli kolme viikkoa.
JOS vaunut junan kyydissä oli tuore tieto eikä vanha kuva, niin tuossa kolmen viikon ajassa näitä tuskin ehti käyttää missään "armored repair plant" pajassa peruskorjattavana. Joku de-konservointi on ehkä ehditty tekemään, tosin olisiko se tehty jo varastotukikohdassa ennen junan kyytiin lastaamista?
Tuore kuva on otettu pimeässä, joten vaunu näkyy huonosti mutta ainakaan rungon etuosassa ei ole nähtävissä Kontakt-1 elementtejä (joita ei nähty junan kyydissä olevissa vaunuissakaan). Oletan että vaunut edustavat parhaiten varastossa säilyneitä T-54/T-55 yksilöitä, jotka on kyetty aktivoimaan ilman suurempia remontteja. Toisaalta näitä ei ole modernisoitu millään tavoin.
Siis salakuljetti paperit kotiinsa ja kuvasi ne keittiön pöydällä.
Amerikkalaiset joutuvat miettimään fyysisen turvallisuuden uusiksi. Läpivalaisulaitteen, joka näkee paperin, ei ole keksitty. Vartija ei jaksa taputella uskottavasti satoja työntekijöitä joka päivä piilotettujen paperien varalta.
Ehkä parempi kysymys on tarvitseeko kaikkea nykypäivänä tulostaa? Onko tulevaisuuden "top secret" paperien kanssa työskentelevän uniformu täysin taskuton?
Leaderwolf
Respected Leader
Ja persereikä liimataan umpeen työpäivän ajaksi
Lisäkysymyksiä voisi olla sekin, mistä ne tulosteet on hankittu? Ovatko olleet valmiita tulosteita mitä on lainattu jostain, jolloin tulee kysymys, miksi eivät ole lukittuna koska lähtökohtaisesti järjestelmäylläpitäjällä ei pitäisi olla mitään tarvetta päästä käsiksi sellaisiin papereihin. Vai onko tulostanut omatoimisesti järjestelmästä, jolloin tulee kysymys järjestelmien käyttöoikeushallinnasta ja arkaluontoisen materiaalin käsittelyn seurannasta ja mahdollisesti niihin liitetyistä triggereistä jos joku avaa järjestelmästä materiaalia epätavallisilla tunnuksilla. Joka tapauksessa tapaus on arkaluontoisen tiedon hallinnan kannalta nolo, siitä huolimatta että aukotonta systeemiä ei vielä ole keksittykään.
KymJP1/96
Kapteeni
Jos multa kysytään, niin Snowdenilla ja Manningilla oli sentään joku ymmärrettävä motiivi. Ehkä jopa jalo ja kunnioitettava. Kun taas tämä kaveri teki sen pelkästään rehvastelun takia. Joten tältä kannalta katsoen isompaa kakkua pitäisi saada.
Tosin voihan tuo olla edelleenkin vain joku jenkkien "maskirovka". Tai miksei tietovuoto olisi ollut jo tiedossa ja sinne aitojen dokumenttien sekaan on sitten syötetty myös puutaheinää ryssille.
Vempauttaja
Korpraali
Hesarissa erään wagneristin mietteitä. Tuumailua palkkauksesta, varusteista ym.
Kirjeitä Venäjältä | Kurkistin Wagner-sotilaan sielunmaisemaan
Ivan kohtaa taas sotamiehen ravintolavaunussa. Tällä kertaa matkaseuralainen on venäläinen palkkasotilas.www.hs.fi
Kuulostaa ihan järkevältä, jos näin voi sanoa. Älykkäältäkin, kun tajuaa että vaimoehdokas oli golddiggeri ja että perusmosurina menisi vielä reippaasti heikommin. En tiedä kirjoittajasta, ehkä hän vain kieltää että hänellä ja puhekumppanillaan voisi olla jotain yhteistä. Itse voisin jopa sanoa että tekstiin oli helppo samaistua. Kokee että ainut tapa pärjätä nykytilassa on edetä laskelmoiden hetkestä toiseen, ja koittaa pitää pakka kasassa. Tiedossaan ovat hyvin plussat ja miinukset, koittaa tehdä (koetun) etunsa puolesta sen minkä voi vallitsevan järjestelmän puitteissa tehdä. Venäjän kasvatti, siispä ei kapinoi kuin korkeintaan omaatuntoaan vastaan, ja koittaa senkin kapinan turruttaa parhaansa mukaan.
ddude
Majuri
Samaa mieltä mutta sen verran on pakko kommentoida että kyseinen aikaväli sisältää NL romahduksen vuonna 1991 jolloin valtio oli vararikossa.
Eli aikajakso on tavallaan pahin mahdollinen eikä anna ihan realistista kuvaa aikajanasta prototyypistä sarjatuotantoon.
Varhaiskaali - Satokausikalenteri
Varhaiskaali on kerä- eli valkokaalia (Brassica oleracea var. capitata), mutta varhaiskaaliksi viljelijät valitsevat aivan...
satokausi.fi