Some interesting tidbits from the warrant affidavit for accused leaker Teixeira:
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23777278-teixiera-affidavit (HT @kevincollier )
- He was arrested yesterday, but the warrant was issued this morning, which suggests he was arrested as an emergency measure. Things moved quickly in the last two days.
- At least one of the Discord users ("User 1") is cooperating. I wonder if it's the kid in the WaPo piece or someone else.
- Some "consciousness of guilt" in the access logs thrown in in ¶ 27.
Also, interestingly, the affidavit cites no evidence of contact with, or intent to leak to, foreign governments (or the media, etc). Which is not to say such evidence doesn't exist or won't be found in the future, but they'd likely have included (and added charges) it if they already had it.
So far, it looks like the motivation was simply to impress his Discord buddies.
If he really did only post the docs to his discord server for his friends, that suggests that others were involved in the larger leaks. So there may be charges against other people coming as the investigation progresses.
Anyone who was a user on that server who saw those docs should probably lawyer the hell up about now. And certainly come clean with their parents so they aren't surprised when the FBI knocks on the door.
@mattblaze would the users of the server be legally liable if they did repost those files? on what grounds?
@herid @mattblaze Yep, this. It’s not clear that there is any specific legal theory in which users who don’t hold security clearances and/or haven’t signed lifetime bars against info disclosure could be held responsible for holding or spreading this info. (And that makes sense — regular people aren’t trained in understanding how to even tell if a piece of info is classified!)
@delfuego @mattblaze thanks, that's what I always thought. Was therefore very surprised by Matt's post.
@delfuego @herid That very much depends on intent and specific conduct. Knowingly giving classified (or even non-classified) material to a foreign government is likely going to get you charged with espionage. (Ask the Rosenbergs, or, more recently, the (uncleared) spouse of that feckless navy engineer who tried to peddle nuclear submarine info to Brazil).
@mattblaze @delfuego thank you for the clarification. It does seem to me that espionage is unlikely to be in play here. But we'll see.
Spectrum runs from "You find a classified doc about US war plans while housesitting for your friend who works at the Pentagon, and you immediately head over to the Russian embassy to make a deal" (very likely to be prosecuted) to "Pulitzer-prize winning journalist writes a story about a classified report that reveals that the US military is illegally kidnapping orphans for medical experiments" (less likely)
@herid @mattblaze I mean — to be clear, federal LEOs can still make someone’s life an absolute living hell (see: Aaron Swartz). But what I hear from those who are in the know is that there is a general agreement on this one that it would be *exceedingly* difficult to go after anyone who didn’t hold a clearance for distributing this material.