They were weaponizing this stuff."īrennan took screenshots of the hundreds of likes and comments that followed the link to the Google Drive, as well as of subsequent posts that encouraged others to add to the photo collection. "What made this different was the volume of photographs and the details. He said his accounts had been hacked, and declined to comment on other details of the incident.) (Reached by phone, the owner of Bundt's accounts denied that he had posted the photographs to the Google Drive or the link to Facebook. The photographs were indexed by name, which meant that the Google Drive was effectively a searchable image database.
When Brennan clicked the link, he saw that it led to a shared Google Drive folder containing thousands of images of naked women from every branch of the military. "Here you go, you thirsty fucks," the post said. On January 30 of this year, he was scrolling through his Facebook feed on his phone when he came across a link posted to Marines United by an account that belonged to Joseph Bundt, who identified himself as a former Marine. Brennan joined the group, he told me, to get the word out about stories he was writing for The War Horse, a military-news nonprofit that he'd recently founded. When Brennan first joined Marines United in early 2016, most of the postings were benign: active-duty Marines asking about life at one duty station or another, or veterans offering advice about transitioning to civilian life. "What made this different was the volume of photographs and the details: names, ranks, duty stations," he said. But the scale and sophistication of the Marines United collection were unlike anything he'd ever encountered. When we met at his house earlier this year, he told me that he had seen isolated images of naked female service members on military-oriented Facebook pages before. Here, however, they were being deployed to intimidate women in the Marine Corps.īrennan's story about Marines United, which he published in March, revealed one of the most significant scandals the Corps has faced in a decade.
Like the pictures at the heart of the celebrity-photo scandals on 4chan and Reddit, the images were being posted without their subjects' knowledge or consent. The pictures included selfies, creepshots, and intimate photos. In the course of his reporting, he discovered that members of the all-male group had crowdsourced thousands of images of hundreds of naked servicewomen. For weeks he had been tracking Marines United, watching as the group, which had been organized as a suicide-prevention and support network for veterans, was transformed into a forum for revenge porn. Thomas Brennan, a thirty-one-year-old investigative journalist and former Marine, was disgusted but not surprised. Still others expressed a muted dismay ("Some of you guys are creepy as fuck"). The topless photograph was greeted by some members of Marines United with applause ("Great job gents!"), while others seemed surprised ("Wow it actually worked . . . wtf"). But its appearance on Marines United represented an obvious breach of that trust. The picture had clearly been taken by a lover, someone she had trusted.
Only ninety minutes after his initial request, a photo showing Judy topless was posted to the Facebook thread. "Was on the range with her while back, pink ass jeep right." Her platoon sergeant-her direct supervisor-liked the thread.Īs they advanced through the line, McDonel continued to stalk Judy, shooting photos and posting them to Marines United. Video it though . . . for science." Another encouraged McDonel to "take her out back and pound her out." Several members of the Facebook group recognized Judy, and some said that she belonged to their unit. "Stalker game has just been elevated," one posted. Within minutes of that first post, dozens of members of Marines United chimed in. A screenshot from Marines United 4.0, one of the Facebook photo-sharing groups that sprung up after the original was taken down.