What the Jack Teixeira intelligence leaks say about the state of American society

Photo by Philipp Katzenberger on Unsplash

It is probably a measure of how much American society has changed that one of its biggest leaks of classified secrets appears to have occurred because of pridefulness rather than principle.

This was no Daniel Ellsberg or Edward Snowden.

Reports by the investigative journalism organisation Bellingcat, The Washington Post and The New York Times started to indicate this, in most dismal fashion, within days of the leaks going from obscure meme groups to a major world news story. These publications quoted members of the Thug Shaker Central chat group on Discord, an instant messaging social platform, to say that one of their number didn’t mean any harm, he just wanted to impress them. Jack Teixeira, 21, the chat group said, was looking to shock and awe them all with his access to top secret information. He definitely didn’t want to achieve any particular foreign policy outcome, they assured everyone.

Basically that means the alleged leaker was not parti…