The leak that was waiting to happen

How did a low-level air guardsman apparently have access to such sensitive material? A post-9/11 switch from ‘need-to-know’ to ‘need-to-share’ might provide the answer

- Edward Helmore

Locals living close to the sprawling military base in Cape Cod where 21-year-old Jack Teixeira worked for a US air force intelligence unit have been asking the same questions as everyone else.

Was his alleged leak of national security documents some kind of principled stand or an immature attempt to impress two dozen members of a closed chat group called Thug Shaker Central on Discord, a video game chat platform, that he lost control of?

And why did the Massachusetts air national guardsman have such apparently wide access anyway, from details of Ukrainian military vulnerabilities to surveillance of US allies – something that President Biden has called for an investigation into.

At a veterans club in Falmouth, 1 5km from Otis, better known as the Cape Cod joint air base, where Teixeira worked, locals shared some of their opinions after his appearance in court last Friday charged with the unauthorised removal and retention of classified and national defence information.

“Should never have happened,” said retired service member Aaron Antone. He reasoned that it wasn’t surprising that Teixeira was so young – after all, the navy has equally young recruits working on nuclear submarines.

But the bartender, who said his name was Joe, said it had exposed the media: “They’re saying, ‘Ukraine’s winning, everything’s great,’ and the documents are saying Russia is winning. ” The US’s conflicts, he said, hadn’t been worthwhile since the second world war.