Front Burner - War secrets, infighting and spies: inside the Discord leaks

Episode Date: April 14, 2023

Last week, classified U.S. military documents largely about the Ukraine war started circulating around the internet and making headlines. But the files appear to have started out on Discord, a platform mostly known for its popularity with gamers, where some were posted months ago. And by Thursday afternoon, the FBI had swooped into a North Dighton, Massachusetts home and arrested Jack Teixeira, a 21-year-old member of the intelligence wing of the Massachusetts Air National Guard. Today, Julian Borger, a Washington-based world affairs editor with the Guardian, takes us through how and why this leak may have come out, how it compares to past ones and the real world consequences of the breach. For transcripts of this series, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. Hi, I'm Jamie Poisson. So last week, classified U.S. military documents, largely about the Ukraine war, started percolating around the internet, where they've been making headlines ever since. It's being described as the most serious intelligence leak in years. Photographs of a trove of classified documents are reportedly circulating online.

The urgency at the White House, undeniable. The Pentagon is now in damage control. There is serious concern among U.S. officials about the U.S.'s relationship with allies that are mentioned in these documents. Interestingly, they look to have started out on Discord, a gamer platform, where some of them were posted months ago.

Just a bunch of mostly, you know, some teenagers and some other mostly young men who just like to play Call of Duty and Halo and stuff together. The documents that have surfaced are just the tip of the iceberg. There's a lot more that's out there. The files cover things like Ukraine's weapons stocks and tactics in its war with Russia, U.S. spying on allies like South Korea, Israel, and even Ukraine itself, as well as Russian

interceptions that show all sorts of infighting. Then over the last few days, the Washington Post and then the New York Times released reports that pointed to the identity of the leaker, the administrator of the Discord channel. The person who leaked U.S. classified documents prompting a national security investigation is a gun enthusiast in his 20s who works on a military base. And by the time I had wrapped up the conversation that you're about to hear, the FBI had swooped into a North Dighton, Massachusetts home and arrested a 21-year-old member of the intelligence wing of the Massachusetts Air National Guard.

The Justice Department arrested Jack Douglas DeShera in connection with an investigation into alleged unauthorized removal, retention, and transmission of classified national defense information. Today, Julian Borger is on the pod to talk about why this leak may have come out, how it compares to past ones, think Edward Snowden, and the real-world consequences it's having. Julian is a Washington-based world affairs editor with The Guardian, and he's been following this story really closely. consequences it's having. Julian is a Washington-based world affairs editor with The Guardian, and he's been following this story really closely. Julian, hi. Thanks so much for coming on to FrontBurner.

A pleasure. So I mentioned in the intro, these documents were first apparently posted on Discord, the chat platform that video gamers are really into. And walk me through what was initially happening on Discord with these documents. There was a server called Thug Shaker Central, which was set up by some fans of a youtuber called oxide who if you go on his site he puts up lots of videos of him testing out different guns the bison is another strange submachine gun among heaps of other russian sub gun weirdness that came out of the 90s and so a few people who followed him set up their own discord server called thug shakers um central although it did have other names one of them which was a involved a race uh racist slur giving some idea

of of you know the kind of mindset of these people but most often it was called thug shaker central and it passed from one administrator to another. And it came to an administrator who was generally known as OG, who started posting, first of all, descriptions of what he claimed to be secret documents, and then photographs of what he said were secret documents that he'd got from the military base that he worked on. And without getting into the details yet about what exactly these purported secret documents said, what kind of intelligence are we talking about? Like human intelligence, interceptions, summaries, wiretaps? A mix of things.

Some of it was signals intelligence. So very sensitive, either eavesdropping or hacking. And to make it more sensitive, it was signals intelligence gathered on allies, quite close allies in some cases. So it involved very sensitive material. And that a lot of it was just shared military intelligence about efforts to get arms and ammunition to the Ukrainians and the discussions with allies about doing that. So a lot of the material was about Ukraine. And this administrator, who at the time was called OG, set up a special channel he called Bear versus Pig, supposedly a reference to the war. And did he ever explain in this chat forum like why he was doing this? Yes, he presented himself as a sort of avuncular figure to the young teenagers and young other young males on the chat group trying to Educate them so that it would understand more about the world around them so it was kind of a sort of he took on a sort of patriarch figure and

Describe other group members as being you know, this sort of charismatic action man bad of mystery and so he kind of had them in his thrall. And the use of these documents only kind of strengthened that bond, enhanced his status. So, you know, in a word, it was showing off. Yeah. And the Washington Post, they have this really interesting piece that they published Wednesday night, and they sourced two people from that Discord chat group. I want to keep OG's identity secret because I still care for him like he's a family member. He did see himself as the leader of this group, and ultimately he was the leader of this group. And he wanted us all to be sort of super soldiers to some degree, informed,

fit, with God, well-armed, stuff like that. Like you just explained, they said that they really kind of revered him. They saw him as like a Jason Bourne sort of character. And then on Thursday, right before you and I got on to do, to record this podcast, the New York Times reported that the administrator of the group is a guy named Jack Teixeira, who is a 21-year-old member of the intelligence wing of the Massachusetts Air National Guard. And so given what you just said to me, like, are you surprised to see this reporting? Which I guess essentially debunks the idea that these leaks were some kind of state actor, right?

Yeah, I think that has been clear for the last few days that this would be, that this was the shape of it. That these were young men, one of them with some kind of clearance in the Defense Department, some kind of military figure, and that they were sharing this to show off, you know, young men showing off to each other. And so it was clear for several days that this was very unlikely to be some kind of state-sponsored dastardly plan to undermine the U.S. I don't think that there was a goal nor some sort of accomplishment that he was looking for in sharing these documents.

Of course, there's some anti-government sentiment, but that's not unlike most right-wingers in the modern day and age. Oji was not hostile to the U.S. government. However, he had disagreed with several occasions, such as Waco and Ruby Ridge, and thought that the government is overreaching in several aspects. There was no heavy Snowden-like conspiracy here, like some people may believe. How did these documents make their way from the Thug Shaker Central Discord server to the wider world? Well, they had a kind of convoluted path and they stayed on Thug Shaker for some months without anything really happening. really happening. And then at one point, late February, beginning of March, one of the younger members of that group uploaded a selection of those documents on another server group called

WowMao, which is devoted to fandom of a Filipino YouTuber who puts up a lot of content about Asian and European history. So all quite random, but it was a kind of intersection of this particular teenager's interests. And so he thought, oh, I'll put them up here. Although we've talked to one of the administrators of that group who advised him against doing it and thought it was the wrong thing to do, but he did it anyway. And so then they materialized on WowMao. And from there, they were also shared on another server used by people playing Minecraft.

This was all in March. And then it was another few weeks before it made its way to a right wing forum called 4chan, where two people are having an argument, disagreeing about Ukraine. And one of them said, well, look at this and produce some of these documents. it kind of made its way through the various ecosystems on the internet and these server groups of like-minded individuals. And it took a very long time before it drew attention that these very sensitive documents were circulating. And it was only in April that it began to be reported in the media that there was a problem. So interesting to hear the kind of convoluted, winding journey that these documents had. Is anyone questioning their veracity? Yes, some people are. The British officials have been playing a slightly crooked game in terms of briefing people,

saying, well, you know, some are wrong, some are being forged, or both. But in fact, as far as we know, we only know one document to have been forged for sure, and that was when it was reposted on Telegram, the Russian messaging app, where it's been manipulated to change casualty numbers but apart from that and that was a reposting of an original no u.s official has pointed to any of these documents and said they are false but while not officially confirming the validity have only really objected to one of them in terms of factual context or authentic content

in the dragon's den a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. Hi, it's Ramit Sethi here. You may have seen my money show on Netflix. I've been talking about money for 20 years. I've talked to millions of people and I have some startling numbers to share with you.

Did you know that of the people I speak to, 50% of them do not know their own household income? That's not a typo. 50%. That's because money is confusing. In my new book and podcast, Money for Couples, I help you and your partner create a financial vision together. To listen to this podcast, just search for Money for Couples. I help you and your partner create a financial vision together. To listen to this podcast, just search for Money for Couples. I want to talk with you a little bit later about how this leak fits into, you know, a larger

context of past leaks that we've seen. But first, maybe we can just talk a little bit more in detail about what these documents actually say. And perhaps we could start with what they say about Ukraine's preparations for a spring offensive. What have we learned? There are a lot of maps that show the deployment of Ukrainian forces. then a spreadsheet showing the efforts to build up these 12 new brigades that Ukraine would need to carry out an offensive, how far they progressed, how many were being kind of homegrown, which were three, and the other nine being built up by allies and partners. Kind of snapshot progress report in February showing how far those had

come along. And there were other documents that talked about what other countries were going to provide, which countries were reluctant to provide arms and ammunition, and so on. It really gave a portrait of the international effort to get Ukraine ready for a counteroffensive try and push the Russians back. What struck me reading about some of these documents is that the U.S. seems at times quite pessimistic about Ukraine's prospects here, right? Which is probably in contrast to how they talk publicly about the war. And would you agree with that?

Yes, absolutely. I mean, this was a snapshot back in February where they said that given the levels of manpower, the number of troops and the kind of equipment necessary, there was prospects for big territorial gains were not high. They were kind of downbeat on how much territory the Ukrainians could win back. You know, talking to some other European officials, they kind of dismissed that, saying the Americans have always been downbeat about Ukraine's potential, you know, from the very beginning of the war. But it is quite a sober assessment. The documents also show how the U.S. spies on its allies, which is not a new thing, obviously. But some of them, you know, contain purportedly private conversations between South Korean officials talking about supplying artillery shells to the U.S. And this has created quite a few headlines in recent days. Tell me a little

bit more about what they are saying and the problems that that's created for both the U.S. and South Korea. Yeah, it's a problem with South Korea, also Israel and Ukraine itself, because it is clear in these documents that signals intelligence has been used. So signals intelligence has been used against allies, very close allies, which means they're being bugged or they're being hacked. Now, this probably will not come as a surprise to any of them in that they know the game. game and in the intelligence world and in particular in the signals intelligence world the the only real immunity seems to be membership of five eyes which is the us canada uk australia new zealand sort of english-speaking anglo-saxon world which is a intelligence coalition but just being an ally even a really close ally like Israel,

like South Korea and Ukraine, does not, it seems, give you immunity to being spied on by the Americans. Tell me a little bit about what's in the documents when it comes to what the U.S. has been able to glean from South Korean officials, Israeli officials? What's the meat of the spying essentially here? In South Korea, it was about a debate within the National Security Office about whether South Korea could provide ammunition that could end up in Ukraine because that is banned by law in South Korea, providing armaments to a party to an active conflict. And so there was concern that if they gave these shells in particular 155 millimeter shells, which are badly needed to kind of keep the artillery barrage going and to support a counter offensive. If they gave those to the US, would they end up on the battlefield in Ukraine? Would there be a workaround by giving them to Poland, which next door to Ukraine? So this

debate was going on in South Korea because they were coming under pressure from the Americans to stop supplying ammunition, and it was causing tensions within the government in Seoul. When it comes to Israel, I mean, the most eyebrow-raising revelation was a reported encouragement from the leadership of the intelligence agency Mossad, encouraging officials in Mossad to go out and take part in the protests against government judicial reforms that are widely believed would limit the independence of the judiciary in Israel and be anti-democratic. And that's been denied by Mossad, but it hasn't been denied as authentic by the US. But it hasn't been denied as authentic by the U.S.

So maybe what they're denying is the accuracy of the reporting rather than the authenticity of the document. And you also mentioned the documentary evidence of the U.S. spying on Ukraine. What have we seen there? We have seen discussions between the president and top generals, for example, about using drones to attack behind the lines inside Russia and the kind of discussion they had that suggests that signals intelligence was used. But most disturbing, I think, for the Ukrainians is showing where they have, for example, air defenses and showing that they were running short on air defense missiles. Obviously, that's something that Russia can exploit. On the other side of this, the documents also reveal reportedly all kinds of infighting in Russia, right?

There was disagreement over death tools between the defense ministry and the head of the mercenary group, the Wagner group, over ammunition supplies. in the head of the mercenary group, the Wagner group over ammunition supplies. And what's your big takeaway from the level of intelligence the U.S. appears to have on Russian communications? It's clear that their penetration of the Russian military and intelligence is quite deep. And in a way, this is probably the most damaging aspect of this leak from the point of view of the US, that it shows the kind of collection capabilities the US has, what they are able to find out and what they're not able to find out, which could be equally valuable.

So they'll know in terms of their counterintelligence, what's working and what's not. And that will give them clues about how to change things to make what they're doing more opaque to U.S. intelligence. So if you were to take out one particular element that is the most damaging impact on this for U.S. national security, I would say it's that. They really, to some extent, show their hand to the Russians about what they know and what they don't know. Talking about the fallout here and the impact of all of this, I wonder if you could put this in kind of historical context for me. When we think about this leak in terms of scale and relevance,

how does it compare to what we saw with something like Edward Snowden, who released highly classified documents from the U.S. National Security Agency that revealed essentially a global spying program? Well, the Snowden revelations were far bigger in volume. I mean, there were tens of thousands of documents. And here we're talking maybe at most a few hundred. But here, a lot of the documents are about an active conflict. War is going on. And so if there is an impact, it could cost lives. It's got a very immediate impact. There was arguably a public interest in Snowden's revelations in that we found out that a form of mass surveillance was being carried out by Western governments,

particularly US, aided by the UK and other members of Five Eyes. The populations in those countries were unaware of and didn't, as it turned out, approve of. So that's another difference. So there was a strong public interest argument for those documents to be made available, whereas these have been released in time of war. They are legitimate military secrets and then becoming known is likely to help the Russians who are conducting a war of aggression inside Ukraine and carrying out mass killings. It will help them in the prosecution of that war and could very conceivably lead to the loss of lives. You know, this week, Joe Biden was asked about the leaks and he kind of downplayed it.

Are you concerned about the leak? Okay, guys, it's time to go. Let's go. We've got to move. I'm not concerned about the leakages. I'm concerned that it happened. But there's nothing contemporaneous that I'm aware of. But listening to you today, that does sound like something you and others would certainly push back on. There could be some very real-world effects here. Yeah, I would put that under the heading of he would say that, wouldn't he?

You know, he has to now play it. But, you know, it depends what you mean about contemporaneous. I mean, they're not today, but March is pretty recent. And the, you know, the issues that they address are issues that are at hand today, like the arming and readiness of Ukrainian forces. So there's no question that they're damaging. And they also show America's hand in terms of its capabilities. What we know about the alleged leaker, you know, as of Thursday mid-afternoon, when you and I are talking, you know, he's a young guy who is working, according to him, at a military base. What does that say to you about how many people

have access to classified information? You know, when we talk about top secret documents, what does that mean in this context? It means in the U.S. context, not very secret at all. According to the Office of Director of National Intelligence, 1.25 million people in the U.S. have access to that level of clearance, top secret. Wow. An insane amount of people. And it was the same issue over Snowden. Remember, Snowden was a contractor and one of many people seeing not just U.S. secrets,

but allied countries secrets as well. And here is a perfect example of what can go wrong. This guy was 21 years old. He's in a Air National Guard base in Massachusetts. And so he is able to see Ukraine's efforts and steps to get ready for a vital counteroffensive that he does not need to know. There's no reason a 21-year-old in Massachusetts in a National Guard base needs to know about what's going on between

U.S. and its allies and Ukrainian military preparations. And so clearly, the system is distorted and completely dysfunctional. It's very hard to get a national security clearance in terms of, you know, the vetting they go through, who you know, and do you know any jihadists, were you born in Russia, and so on, things like that. But once you've got it, it gives you access to an enormous amount of material. And they're not looking for things that would seem like red flags to us, political preferences, love of guns, a conspiratorial mindset that in terms of this vetting does not seem to be a red flag in the way that you know having a russian relative or coming from the middle east might do and so there's

clearly needed to be a complete review of how this is done and they're already talking about that in the pentagon that they're going to review this But then they said that after the Snowden revelations. And it's clear that not much in terms of the structure and how the U.S. does security clearance and then shares volumes of secrets across those levels of security clearance. It's clear that hasn't changed. Julian, thank you so much. This was so interesting. Thank you so much for coming by. A pleasure. All right. That is all for this week.

Front Burner was produced this week by Lauren Donnelly, Rafferty Baker, Matt Cameron, Matt Alma, Jodi Martinson, Matt Mews, and Imogen Burchard. Our sound design is by Sam McNulty and Matt Cameron. Our intern is Konstantina Varlikostas. Our music is by Joseph Shabisov. Our executive producer is Nick McCabe-Locos. And I'm Jamie Poisson. Thanks so much for listening, and we'll talk to you next week. and we'll talk to you next week.