Federal agents on Thursday arrested 21-year-old Jack Teixeira for allegedly distributing classified information that eventually made its way into the press. Unlike other leakers or whistleblowers, according to what we know so far, it doesn’t appear that Teixeira shared secrets about Ukraine’s military or America's spying on its allies to make any sort of political point, or even to make a few dollars on the side. He apparently did it to look cool for his internet friends, who were “united by their mutual love of guns, military gear and God,” as The Washington Post put it.
According to the criminal complaint against him, Teixeira had access to classified documents thanks to his role in the Air National Guard, which required him to obtain a "top secret" security clearance. That such a young person was granted access to classified networks has sparked a debate in Washington. The real issue, though, isn’t his youth — it’s that so many people are needed to sift through the mountain of information that the U.S. classifies every year.
According to the screenshot shared by the leaker, after reaching the limit, non-Twitter Blue users will receive a message titled "Get verified to send more messages".
"You've hit the maximum limit for Direct Messages in a single day. Sign up for Twitter Blue to continue messaging," the message reads.
Furthermore, the leaker said that currently the limit is 500 DMs per day, but "I bet this limit will be reduced when this will be rolled out".
Twitter-owner Elon Musk on Monday said that the platform will "hopefully" roll out a new update this week, which will limit the ability to send DMs to people who don't follow you to Blue users.
Last week, Musk had said that Twitter will soon start paying creators on the platform for the ads served in their replies. Greene spoke afterwards in grandiose terms about the supposed prominence of bribery and reasonableness of expecting records were kept… though there is no indication she actually saw any conclusive evidence implicating the Bidens.
“Hey @FBI, if this information was classified sounds to me like the Congresswoman is admitting to a crime,” attorney Mark Zaid said in response to comments from Greene about her taking notes after she viewed the document. “And if it was not, @SpeakerMcCarthy should remove her privileges for violating the trust she was afforded as a Member of Congress to review sensitive information.” Even Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), a leader of the GOP push around this doc, declined to discuss its actual substance when pressed. Greene, meanwhile, was clearly eager.
Some have called for a revocation of access privileges generally held by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) after she sought to distribute details from a document held with the FBI that she viewed this week as part of her role on the House Oversight Committee.
The document is a record of unconfirmed allegations of corruption involving Joe Biden from his time as vice president. The Oversight Committee subpoenaed the document, and some Republicans have been outraged at the agency declining to provide the panel with a copy of the document itself rather than just letting members view the materials in a secure setting. In short, the allegations supposedly allege a connection between the Bidens and bribery, rehashing the same essentially debunked idea that then-VP Biden clamoring against a top prosecutor in Ukraine was tied to corrupt ambitions involving large payments at least to his son, Hunter Biden.
Since it became known that Teixeira is a white, Christian male, we’ve seen the likes of Fox News host Tucker Carlson and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene to leap to his defense. The latter’s move prompted former Rep. Liz Cheney to call for Greene to be stripped of her own security clearance. Greene “cannot be trusted with America’s national security information,” Cheney declared. But while Cheney has a point, there are a lot of people in the government who need to lose their clearances — not because they’re untrustworthy but because it shouldn’t be necessary for them to have one.
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