Gaming IndustryUS Air National Guardsman gets 15 years for leaking military secrets on a Minecraft Discord server: ‘The scope of his betrayal is breathtaking… the amount of damage immeasurable’When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
Gaming IndustryUS Air National Guardsman gets 15 years for leaking military secrets on a Minecraft Discord server: ‘The scope of his betrayal is breathtaking… the amount of damage immeasurable’When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
Teixeira’s first few years passed without notable incident before, in early 2022, he began to access top secret documents and photographs. Some of these he would later post on the private Discord server in February 2022, from where they found their way onto public social media channels.
The secret documents included details of America’s involvement in the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine, information about negotiations between South Korea and the USA over ammunition, and China’s development of a supersonic spy drone.
A US Air Force report made public last year concluded Teixeira was the only airman behind the leak, though determined that his chain of command bears some responsibility for letting the classified data dump happen on its watch. It said Teixeira “was observed viewing intelligence content on TS-SCI [Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information] websites” in August 2022, an incident that his supervisor did not document as they should have, and that shortly afterwards Teixeira was caught viewing secret documents while making notes on a Post-It.
Teixeira would later admit he had begun posting classified information as a way of boasting to his friends. He was a keen gamer and the Discord server concerned had around 25 members, all of whom seemed to share similar interests in cheery topics like assassination, conspiracy theories and mass murder, as well as poor old Minecraft. Teixeira would initially write down details from documents he was viewing at work, take the notes home, and transcribe them: Later, as he grew bolder, he began printing out secret files on a rarely used printer on the base.
Teixeira initially pleaded not guilty to six counts of willful retention and transmission of national defense information, before changing his plea in March this year to avoid additional charges under the Espionage Act (which could have risked the death penalty).
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Among the eyebrow-raising details are Teixeira clearly admitting on the server that he was aware of the illegality of his actions. In March 2022 one of the server members asked Teixeira to post information about military casualties in Ukraine: “If I want to go to jail for the rest of my life, yeah”, replied Teixeira. He also dismissed his military oath, calling it “not an oath, an NDA… The oath is just the defense of America against all threats and the following of orders.”
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