I began my career in a classified environment working on government satellite programs.
In my first week on the job, I was told, explicitly, that if I shared Classified or Controlled Unclassified information over unapproved channels, I would be reprimanded—likely fired, or less likely, prosecuted.
It was also made clear that safeguarding the nation's secrets from the carelessness of others was my responsibility, too.
It is mind-boggling that 18 people were on this thread, and none of them ever suggested that this discussion would be better served in a SCIF. To say nothing of SecDef starting the thread on Signal in the first place.
How many other such threads are active at the highest levels of government right now?
Does Chinese intelligence know?
I'm not suggesting punishment, or even prosecution, for the people involved. But the idea that this breach can occur with no accountability, consequences, or operational changes is unacceptable.
Why shouldn't punishment or prosecution be suggested. I've worked with classified information, and I would have been held accountable for my actions, why shouldn't they? I'm tired of this Too Important To Have Consequences business. It defeats the whole purpose of having qualifications, and security, and rules of any kind.
> I'm tired of this Too Important To Have Consequences business
Sure, but short of something similar to the UH CEO, do you think anything will actually happen to them?
If they’re doing this then the president presumably knows and does too. Even if they get prosecuted and convicted (after years of legal nonsense) they’d just get pardoned.
Well once you've stated that the president is immune and can pardon whoever for whatever, there's really not much to do. The US needs a new constitution to enforce this, otherwise the very concept of justice cannot exist.
Absolutely not going to happen with the opposition party existing simply to supply Israel with more weapons. Chuck Schumer, the highest ranking opposition leader, the other day openly stated "My job is to make sure the left supports Israel".
Why would that level of anti-democratic corruption have any interest in justice, when the very core of that party is based on maintaining racist injustice around the world?
The only thing we can hope for is that our system collapses and our economy weakens, while foreign economies grow.
In the US, you can fly multiple planes into skyscrapers, rape three whole kindergartens, and lynch an entire race to extermination. As long as you then win the next election before you get convicted, you're in the clear.
If there is anything to learn from the current situation IMHO, it's that 1) the US needs a stronger constitution to prevent a take over, and 2) it needs a new election system to avoid binary elections, which lead to extreme policy turnover and candidate fatigue.
There's nothing wrong with writing a new constitution. France is at its 5th iteration, and some candidates propose a 6th republic, nothing dictates that you're supposed to get it right on the first try.
The U.S. is the world's oldest democracy. It is functioning just fine.
France has been toppled by internal revolutions and external enemies multiple times in the time that the U.S. has existed. It's not an example to aspire to.
Honestly, I'm giving up hoping for even a fraction of deserved punishment too. It's hard to handle the emotional dissonance I feel repeatedly when I see injustice, so I've adjusted myself to expect minimal or no punishment and just hope things improve a little. I know this is exactly what those people who repeatedly do malicious things want to happen, and I'm not suggesting we give up seeking social justice. I just can't handle the rage I feel every time or I'll suffer from severe depression again. I need to save my willpower to still hope for a better world and to encourage or support people who are actually working to improve society.
I'm in the same boat. This whole thing is a War of Attrition, and my enemies are willing because I am getting too old and increasingly stressed out to keep up with and counter their irrationality. I honestly don't know where they get the energy to continuously be so stupid as to take classified information to a group chat, encrypted or not, like they're planning a night out.
These morons are going to get American citizens killed due to gross incompetence. I'm still trying to wrap my head around the fact that half my country said "yep, let's go with these guys" when they saw a bunch of bungling Nazis yelling at clouds like something out of Hogan's Heroes. I'd laugh at the absurdity of it all if I didn't think we were in genuine danger.
> I'm still trying to wrap my head around the fact that half my country said "yep, let's go with these guys" when they saw a bunch of bungling Nazis yelling at clouds like something out of Hogan's Heroes.
I'm still trying to square how 98% of American voters went for candidates promising to continue arming the world's most live-streamed genocide, even with all those protests; even with all the footage we've seen.
How it didn't end after the Al-Nasr babies story, or after Biden was caught laundering lies about beheaded babies, or the NYT laundering lies about mass rape, I just don't know. And still the Greens couldn't get 5%?
There's something deeply dark and disturbed across the entirety of American society, and it seems like most of us can't even see it... Well, the consequences will arrive regardless.
> I'm still trying to square how 98% of American voters went for candidates promising to continue arming the world's most live-streamed genocide, even with all those protests; even with all the footage we've seen
in case you’re not being flippant and genuinely believe what you’re saying, it’s because we had only two viable candidates, one of whom should never have been legitimized. the line of thinking you present throws the baby out with the bathwater and represents a false choice. it comes across as saying that you’d rather do nothing than do something to—if not move things in the right direction—at least make it easier to permit the right direction in the future. no, instead you or others like you choose to exercise your cynical blend of moral superiority, demonstrating that you care more about your own sense of self worth than actually, you know, holding your nose and doing something. holders of that philosophy can’t seem to stand the smell of ‘imperfect’, regardless of how much damage they’ll allow to happen in the name of some false standard.
That's a major part of the problem, and not one to be ignored or accepted.
> the line of thinking you present throws the baby out with the bathwater and represents a false choice.
Nope. It's simple facts. Both 'viable' candidates promised to continue arming a nation which is currently conducting genocide, as confirmed by basically every major human rights group and even some Israeli genocide scholars. That's thoroughly illegal by long-held, hard-won domestic and international law.
You can argue as to why that is, or accuse people who say so of "cycnicism" and "moral superiority", but it's a fact and needs to be said.
There is NO good reason for Harris to have ignored the wishes of the vast majority (77%) of her voter base in order to keep arming mass slaughter. Turning around on that one choice would have won her the election in a landslide, and anyone who looked at the polls knew it.
> you care more about your own sense of self worth
Again, it's simple facts. America is so thoroughly depraved that 98% of voters chose to go for someone arming an active genocide.
Not about me, not about my self worth (bro, I'm an anonymous account with basically no reputation to win or lose here). It's about America, and how a large part of it got conned into thinking that voting for a genocidaire was the right and practical thing to do somehow.
If genocide was properly considered as beyond the pale; far, far over any basic red line for human decency, then Americans would have gone for a third party candidate, or forced a change in nominations from the two 'viable' parties. It's up for debate why they didn't do that, but the simple fact is that 98% of US voters voted for continuing a live-streamed series of atrocities.
> holders of that philosophy can’t seem to stand the smell of ‘imperfect’,
The gulf between 'perfect' and 'complicit in genocide' is so, so vast. I refuse to believe that you can't understand that.
You're fighting a losing battle, I'm afraid. Instead of trying to justify your position, explain to me and my fellow voters what the alternative third option was when we were presented with Kamala or Trump?
We don't like this any more than you do, yet you point the finger and offer no solutions, plan, or course of action. Your obstinacy and that of people like you served only to hand the election to those you so vehemently stand against, but rather than admit your own part in this mess we are now in, you chose to attack the people who made a rational choice to vote for Kamala given the circumstance.
I'm sorry, but you're part of the problem, here. Accept that and heal.
Yes, if you want to call them candidates. That word seems to be doing a lot of heavy lifting, here.
Were they better options? Probably. I personally was a fan of Stein. Were they available to us on any realistic level in our broken "democratic" system? No. Had I voted for her, my vote would have counted for nothing.
They had zero backing when thrown up against the two candidates that the very real and present two-party system pushed in front of us, and that was that.
Every time someone wants to whine about Harris supporting genocide, I feel like I'm talking to a bunch of bots who have never seen a US ballot, have no idea how our party system works and are incapable of comprehending the vast network of chicanery that results in two major parties drowning every other option we might actually want to vote for.
The illusion of a choice is not actually a choice, is it? So, at the time, the best plan was "NOT TRUMP AGAIN" leaving Harris as our strongest option _even though most of us did not agree with 100% of her policies_. We had a knife to our throat, and a knife at our back. We tried to get everyone on board with the knife at our back since, sure it would hurt, but at least it wouldn't kill us and we could work to move closer to a better solution.
Instead, we're now getting slit ear-to-ear because of impetuous fools who can't see past their own blind outrage.
We really have to shatter the bind. Every time someone buys into the two party system and votes against rather than for, we all lose. I'm not criticizing you, I am lamenting how toxic and horrible first past the post voting makes our elections.
I agree with you. Been shaking my fist about it since I cast my first vote. But I genuinely feel like an ant attacking a lawnmower. The machine just keeps going and barely notices our efforts. I was a Bernie supporter, too. Same deal although at least he's got street cred the media meat-grinder can't spin into something else. Still, I cast my vote and it mattered as much as a fart in the wind.
When you feel like that for a couple decades and you start to look for the best possible outcomes that everyone will actually agree to, things start to look really, really bleak. Again, it's a War of Attrition and historically speaking, the people with the most resources win those.
Rally. Protest. Please. I have no idea what else to do. I'd lead the damned charge in the revolution if I thought anyone would follow, but my experience has been the opposite. The liberals of the world all seem to hate each other just as much as the conservatives do, so I'll be dipped if they ever really come together on anything, these days.
I don't like my conduct in the earlier comments, but after being that guy who tried to tell everyone the two-party system has no power without us for so damned long, I am not going to sit idly and listen to someone accuse me of supporting genocide when I made the most rational choice I could have with what was presented while they did nothing, as though Gaza's horrifying reality is the only thing the American people have to worry about right now. We live in a zero-sum game, and I hate it, but that's it.
Forced candidate: "I promise to keep arming this genocidal apartheid state."
Voter: I will vote for you, because the only alternative that our party have allowed [0] a chance to win is even worse somehow.
Other voter: Hey, you know that candidate promised to continue to arm genocide, right?
Voter: Supporting her was the most rational choice. You whine. It feels like you're a bot. You don't understand the complex zero-sum game we are in. You, who I know nothing about, did nothing; while I voted. Also you're cynical and think you're morally superior.
Other voter: O-kay.
Like I said: 98% of America voted for a candidate who promised to arm genocide. We should be sanctioned by the world, and the only reason we aren't is because we threaten to either fuck their economy, ie [1], or literally invade them [2].
Stein actually aligns far better with the real opinions of the majority of the American people; on affordable housing, on healthcare, on the military industrial complex, on the environment, on taxing the rich, on fracking, on education, and indeed on arming genocide.
However, the entire political and media class united to smear her as a "Russian stooge". Despite a complete lack of evidence, American voters ate that slop up and asked for seconds. It still disturbs me, how easy they made that look.
A Senate investigation ran from 2016 to 2019, investigating Stein. They found absolutely nothing, and completely cleared her in 2019... But try and find a corporate media article which acknowledges this. Many Americans still believe it; like WMDs in Iraq, or the Earth being 6,000 years old.
Try and find a Democrat who stood up for her this entire time. Nope - accusing Harvard-educated Jewish doctor ladies of being Russian assets without a shred of proof didn't seem to bother anyone.
Democrats went to extreme and even illegal lengths to take Greens off the ballot everywhere they could, and then accused the Greens of never winning elections (not true btw [0, 1]).
The media refused to cover any of those Green wins, then smeared the Greens as only appearing for Presidential elections as a "grift". A grift! In a race where that same media presented *Donald 'TrumpCoin' Trump as a serious candidate!
Let's see who was grifting:
Harris raised more than a billion dollars, and received 48.3% of the vote.
Stein raised $2.7m, 370 times less, and received 1% of the vote; in other words, her campaign dollars were more than 7 times more effective than Harris' despite rabid media bias.
But you can't explain any of this to a Harris voter. The real problem, I believe, is that once you've been conned into actively supporting genocide and ethnic cleansing, you can't really acknowledge that and still think of yourself as a good person. So people just lash out instead with personal attacks. The ones above are about the mildest I've seen, to be fair; usually bringing up Harris' complicity in genocide gets you called an asshole. Go figure.
> I'm still trying to square how 98% of American voters went for candidates promising to continue arming the world's most live-streamed genocide, even with all those protests; even with all the footage we've seen.
I assume you're referring to the livestreamed October 7th attacks?
Do you honestly think that (a) Trump's Justice Department would prosecute any of these offenses, and (b) even if so, that Trump wouldn't just pardon anyone involved?
Yeah, there's no way anything is going to happen to these guys. I'm saying that's a great suggestion, and one that everyone should be able to agree on.
But yeah, I agree with you. Nothing is going to happen. Just like no one at the top has been held to any kind of a standard at all since maybe Nixon. Who knows, if he had just stuck it out maybe he would have gotten off too.
"...Witkoff and his father, Trump’s special diplomatic envoy Steve Witkoff, helped launch World Liberty Financial with Trump and his sons last year. Under the terms outlined on the company’s website, a Trump-owned company has the “right to receive 75% of the net protocol revenues” from World Liberty Financial after expenses..."
We all know this is the likely outcome, but Congress should use its powers to force the Trump administration to be public in not prosecuting and in pardoning, for the purposes of upholding rule of law to the extent possible. And the forth estate needs to throw both in their face to ensure the public understands both how everything about both what they did, and how the Trump administration will respond, is both unlawful and harmful to our country.
Do you honestly believe this? The crime wasn't accidentally adding the wrong person to a group chat, it was discussing war plans in an unsecured channel, which anyone who has ever handled privileged government information knows is against the law.
As another commenter said, there is a thread over in r/army where soldiers are sharing stories of military careers that have ended for far less.
Or, if the chat participants really want to double down that no classified info was shared in the chat, then the Atlantic reporter should just release the full details of the chat, unredacted, and let the world make up their own mind in the info is or should have been classified.
Edit: Lol, I was too slow, looks like the Atlantic did exactly that. The CNN headline on their homepage is currently "Details Hegseth shared in Signal chat were classified, sources say. After intel officials and the White House said the group didn't disclose classified info, The Atlantic decided to release the texts." https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/trump-presidency-news...
All you are doing is showing that you aren't serious.
> What channel should they use?
Are you f'ing kidding me? You think the federal government doesn't have actual secure channels for discussing sensitive information besides Signal and email? Why don't you just read the f'ing texts, where Mike Waltz specifically references the proper secure channels to use.
> It's not against the law, actually. The President and his cabinet operate on their own rules per the Constitution
Ahh, yes, the new Republican defense of "the law is whatever the President says it is". Actually, no, the executive branch must still follow the law.
And, FWIW, Hegseth and Rubio certainly disagree with you. Just watch their tirades from a few years ago against a previous cabinet member for using unsecured communication channels.
The fact that you are doubling down on "gosh, how can US government security officials have classified conversations besides email or Signal" just shows your ridiculousness. At this point I'd rather have an argument with a dining room table.
Using Signal to coordinate foreign policy and military actions runs afoul of the Federal Records Act, a duly-enacted law passed by Congress and binding on the executive branch.
Where the director of the Intelligence Services, refused to say, if she was participating on the Signal thread with her government issued phone, or with her personal phone...
None of what they said was actually classified, and if the conversation included the president and vice president, then they inherently decide what is and is not classified. The power of the executive branch is vested in the president.
2. There was tons of classified material shared including specific flight times and weapons systems. Here's a helpful side-by-side on what operational details are by default classified as Secret: https://bsky.app/profile/secretsandlaws.bsky.social/post/3ll...
Doesn’t matter, they were conducting government business on a clandestine private system with the intent of evading public records laws. Literally the crime they endlessly accused Clinton of.
They have to archive the messages and they have staffers in those chats whose job is to do just that. The Biden administration used Signal as well. It's perfectly fine as long as it's archived.
Signal does not mandate that messages be disappeared, that's a customized setting. But there are multiple ways to archive including simple screenshots.
Here is CISA page updated last under Biden's admin:
> Former Biden officials, though, said that Signal was never permitted on their government phones.
> “We were not allowed to have any messaging apps on our work phones,” said one former top national security official on the condition of anonymity. “And under no circumstances were unclassified messaging apps allowed to be used for transmission of classified material. This is misdirection at its worst.”
The CISA advice wasn't telling public employees to use Signal for classified communications or communications subject to FOIA.
You're going to be completely unable to show me evidence that this was ever okay, because it wasn't.
"General Recommendations Apply these best practices to your devices and online accounts. 1. Use only end-to-end encrypted communications. Adopt a free messaging application for secure communications that guarantees end-to-end encryption, such as Signal or similar apps. CISA recommends an end-to-end encrypted messaging app that is compatible with both iPhone and Android operating systems, allowing for text message interoperability across platforms. Such apps may also offer clients for MacOS, Windows, and Linux, and sometimes the web. These apps typically support one-on-one text chats, group chats with up to 1,000 participants, and encrypted voice and video calls. Additionally, they may include features like disappearing messages and images, which can enhance privacy. When selecting an end-to-end"
Nothing in that chat was classified and to the extent that any of it would be, the President and his cabinet members ultimately have final say over what is and is not classified. They are the leadership.
The chat was a discussion mostly concerning opinions on the actions and high level logistics. Actual plans were distributed through CENTCOM.
It's completely ok because it's the President's cabinet. They run the government.
There is no authority higher than the president to determine the status of information.
Yes, you are showing nothing in that quote authorizes or recommends using Signal for official communications subject to sunshine laws. Certainly not authorizing it for classified data.
> Nothing in that chat was classified and to the extent that any of it would be, the President and his cabinet members ultimately have final say over what is and is not classified. They are the leadership.
Hand-waving is not evidence, so my assertion you'd be unable to provide evidence stands. People far above my pay grade say obviously this was classified and while the president can de-classify, and he can pardon them for mishandling classified information, what they did was illegal and there's no un-ringing that particular bell.
You left out the parts of that refute your position though, how come?
"Organizations may already have these best practices in place, such as secure communication platforms1 and multifactor authentication (MFA) policies. In cases where organizations do not, apply the following best practices to your mobile devices."
"Any reference to specific commercial entities, products, processes, or services by service mark, trademark, manufacturer, or otherwise, does not constitute or imply endorsement, recommendation, or favoring by CISA."
> There is no authority higher than the president to determine the status of information.
That they gave themselves the authority to endanger national security doesn't change the fact they endangered national security, and in fact makes what they did worse as it's intentional.
The information they discussed is almost always classified. If somebody were to declassify it so that these discussions could take place on insecure devices at insecure locations, then it's gross incompetence. There's a reason this kind of information is classified.
This is like ripping the warning sticker off an oxygen tank and pretending that makes it safe to use while smoking.
The problem is that most of those 18 people are just random folks picked on the premise of just one qualification: THey'd be Yes Man/Woman!! They aren't career professionals. I believe that explains the mess they've created and their incompetent approach to their duties.
It's still not too late to impeach that entire shack of clowns.
I can't take credit for it, I think it traces back to Lauren Tucker's substack, but someone certainly did before that. Then again, someone else popularized it given recent events.
He got the Supreme Court and the judiciary leaning his way in his first term. Congress is controlled by either his Republican primary candidates, or Republicans who are too afraid to cross him.
Now he’s purging from the federal branch anyone who is not completely ideologically loyal to him. That is the true purpose of Doge.
For years I've been taught that US political system is based on checks and balances. Now I see that just like in any other country it was based on morals of people: voters, elected, and appointed.
The power of controlling information marketplaces.
Also I suppose it’s crucial to point out that it’s not just controlling the marketplace for news, it also needed one party to be absolutely focused only on winning elections, and eschewing bipartisanship.
Yes and no: nowadays third-parties can steer the people demands themselves. It became much easier with internet and "web brigades" (recently started utilizing AI as well).
So on one side yes, people demanded it. But on the other side, they were manipulated to think one issue is more important than the other, to think that "the whole system is broken" etc.
Every political system is based on how much people believes on it. Laws are not magic incantations, and there is nothing forcing people to follow what they say.
Gun is a good thing, but way more important is organization. I mean organization like "when order came everyone stands up and fights no slackers".
Even 10 organized people with no weapons are _way_ more dangerous than one armed person. That's why all autocratic regimes firstly jail/kill organizers (right now it's Turkey). Just having eyes in 10 different places is more important.
As Jefferson really liked (proposed by Franklin): "Rebellion against tyrants is obedience to God."
I’m going to respectfully disagree with you there. Trump’s success as a politician is solely down to three factors.
Firstly, he has an insatiable desire for attention, admiration, and generally benefitting himself. That’s what causes his drive.
Secondly, he has no scruples or adheres to any morals or ethics whatsoever, he is completely ruthless. This allows him to do and say whatever serves him the most in any given situation.
Lastly, he has a specific type of charisma that has purchase with a certain segment of the people.
That’s is the full extent of it. He has no other skills or useful attributes. Anything else, especially if it’s at all technical or practical, comes from the people he’s surrounded himself with.
To interact with your point, he’s not even particularly adept at enlisting sycophants. Remember his first administration, when numerous aides and associates had both public and private disagreements with him (as one example out of many, I’ll refer to Rex Tillerson calling him a ”fucking moron”). The reason things are different this time is that another set of people are running the show, and they’ve realized that including old establishment Republicans, that have to at least pretend to be serious members of society, would have been a barrier to their agenda.
Turning the judiciary red across the country is especially not something you can attribute to Trump. It’s been a systematic effort by the Republicans (and adjacent organizations such as the Heritage Foundation) over the span of decades. He just happened to be in the position to make the appointments.
> Attention, lack of scruples and charisma, are prerequisites for ALL politicians.
Sure, to some extent. Trump is an extreme outlier though, at least on the first two. And my main point was mainly that he doesn’t have anything else.
> Obama, Reagan, Clinton were the same, no?
Again, to some degree. Obama and Clinton especially were also shrewd politicians and had skills and strengths in addition to the attributes mentioned above.
But what skills do any politicians have? Most are career politicians, without non-political experience. Reagan had his acting experience. As a property developer and TV personality, Trump does have real-life experience, in a way most politicos don't.
You need to meet more politicians, they come in all shapes and sizes just like the American people. Are there a lot of born-with-a-silver-spoon, never-worked-a-day-in-their-life types? Absolutely. But across this country at every level, even in Congress, there are people who overcame remarkable odds and chose to work in public service to make their communities, states, and country better. Look deeper than just the people who grab the headlines.
Now, an elected official friend who is a former teacher is fond of saying the following: when people get elected, they come with three tiers of knowledge. There's what they know personally - their career field, maybe their hobby, maybe they are ex-military, etc. Then there's secondary: something they observed in a parent or spouse. Finally, there's everything else. In any given session - legislative, congressional, etc, there are going to be thousands of complicated topics thrown at these people, where the issues are way outside their wheelhouse. The best politicians are the ones who not only are really good at synthesizing information, but they surround themselves with quality policy staff - that is, they build a good team to overcome their own lack of background.
Most politicians are sociopaths, whereas Trump is a narcissistic psychopath (aka malignant narcissist). You encounter sociopaths everyday, but a narcissistic psychopath is next level. Those are the Hitlers, Stalins, Saddam Husseins of the world. Or if you want to look outside of politics, the Charles Mansons and Jim Jones of the world.
What an absolutely unqualified statement. "Politicians" aren't just the attention seekers in Congress who make outrageous statements to keep their names in the headlines. There are quality people in Congress, in state legislatures, in government at all levels who are there because of a calling to public service. Not only that, but there are people around the world in every nation's governments with the same calling to not only make their countries better, but often too with an eye toward protecting all humanity and civilization.
I said most politicians are sociopaths, which as a matter of magnitude is hyperbole. But it's absolutely true that 1) sociopathic traits are useful in politics and therefore 2) sociopaths are overrepresented in politics. We can disagree on the magnitude to which they are.
But in saying what I did, in no way did I imply politicians are "attention seekers in Congress who make outrageous statements to keep their names in the headlines", because that's not a description of what a sociopath is, as sociopaths can be quiet, calculating people.
It's not necessarily bad to be a sociopath, we need them in politics to be sure.
“My fear with Trump was always that he didn't have great solutions.”
- J.D. Vance
“People listen to what their political leaders are telling them, and my view is both that Trump is tapping into some racially ugly attitudes, but also that he is leading people to racially ugly attitudes.”
- J.D. Vance
“I’m a Never Trump guy”
- J.D. Vance
“My god what an idiot”
- J.D. Vance (on Trump)
“Mr. Trump is unfit for our nation’s highest office.”
- J.D. Vance
“I can’t stomach Trump.”
- J.D. Vance
“I think there’s a chance, if I feel like Trump has a
really good chance of winning, that I might have to
hold my nose and vote for Hillary Clinton.”
- J.D. Vance
“Trump's biggest failure as a political leader is that he sees the worst in people, and he encourages the worst in people.”
Those aren't leaders, quite the opposite, nothing but typical Trump-like non-leaders disgracing leadership positions.
>those 18 people are just random folks
OTOH if you picked 18 random patriotic Americans, odds are none would be that far below average at defending what normal Americans have always held dear.
It's a pretty big false dichotomy to present "people directly opposed to their policy platforms" as the sole alternative to people "picked on the premise of just one qualification: they'd be Yes Man/Woman".
Yes, I was using a false dichotomy to highlight the absurdity of the statement.
Every President surrounds themselves with people who are aligned with their policy platforms. For some reason, Trump is the one President where suddenly it's an issue.
There’s a difference between (a) hiring smart people you respect and generally agree with to give you their own opinions and help shape your decisions and (b) hiring people who will go along with anything you say and holding their careers and families’ safety over the fire.
Are we really looking at the best group of people that the current president could find to do these roles that agree with his policy platform? There was no one else with relevant experience willing?
It's pretty easy to compare the backgrounds of every prior secretary of defense with Pete Hegseth. They're typically people with significant experience managing government agencies, retired 3 and 4 star generals, or senators/congressmen with serious foreign policy experience. The last person with as little defense policy experience as Hegseth was probably McNamara, and he was President of Ford, e.g. someone who knew how to manage a large organization.
most people generally agreed with them but they also tried to pick people of talent and courage who might disagree on a number of issues. Trump doesn't care about any of that
It's both. If you get past Trump derangement syndrome and realize he's rotten to the core and basically terrible in countless ways.
Take Former AG Jeff Sessions. He was a yes man but also when he did absolute bare minimum legally by recusing himself Trump fired him for insufficient loyalty
Heck, one of my co-workers at a FAANG freaked out when he realized that he had used his personal phone to take a picture of a meeting blackboard instead of his corp phone. He spent the afternoon trying to figure out how to scrub the photo.
How likely is it that all 18 of those people were accessing from mobile operating systems with no known working exploit chain? I would say pretty unlikely.
If they're "just" using Signal, they're likely "just" using stock Android if there isn't a policy requiring iPhones in lockdown mode. It's a very good question as to whether such a policy exists.
stock iPhones run 100% Apple software, afaik. from drivers to the shell it's one company. the hardware is one series of models by one company.
each Android vendor has a completely random fork of AOSP with who knows what kernel patches, out-of-tree drivers, unremovable apps and customizations. you're trusting an enchilada of your mobile carrier, Google, Samsung/OnePlus/whoever, plus all their vendors.
Android can be highly secure. the NSA's Fishbowl project used vanilla AOSP + SELinux + IPSec on closely scrutinized hardware to make a phone that can be used for Secret text messages. the cheap prepaid phone you buy at T-Mobile is not that.
> stock iPhones run 100% Apple software, afaik. from drivers to the shell it's one company. the hardware is one series of models by one company.
> each Android vendor has a completely random fork of AOSP with who knows what kernel patches, out-of-tree drivers, unremovable apps and customizations. you're trusting an enchilada of your mobile carrier, Google, Samsung/OnePlus/whoever, plus all their vendors.
That cuts both ways though. Any exploit for iPhone works on a lot of high value targets. An exploit for one android phone may well not apply to another. If we're talking about state actors, well, probably both are compromised, but the iPhone would be the priority IMO.
Some of us are viewing this through the lens of the actual risk this could have caused to real American servicemen and women, and not just scoring points on television.
Like what is wrong with you that this is your reaction to something so serious?
More seriously, having worked in an undisclosed defence company, we were told that we would be prosecuted if we did this. There were many many security controls in place that prevented this from happening on top of the threat.
Are you able to share any of those security controls? How do you stop presumably well-intended Signal app users from conferencing? Are you talking about cellular signal blocking, or are you talking about avoiding public networks entirely in favor of Sensitive Compartmented Information Facilities (SCIFs)?
Because I don't know whether either of those are appropriate.
There aren't many comparable breaches to this one. The closest in modern times may be Hillary Clinton's email server being used for government business. In that case, the FBI investigated and declined to bring charges, under the expectation that a jury would be unlikely to render a guilty verdict.
Okay, fine. But the FBI investigated and laid out the facts.
My fear is that the current administration sees this as a PR problem. No, this was an operational failure. We should feel lucky that merely an American journalist was added by mistake.
We should expect the FBI to investigate this, too. But I worry the facts are too inconvenient for even that level of accountability.
Why would we expect Patel and Bongino to investigate anything here? They were put there to investigate anyone else other than the current administration.
Why would any FBI agent take a risk on investigating anyone potentially in current or future administrations? They'll get fired later when the political winds change.
With the current administration I expect that fierce loyalty trumps both competence and accountability. Sadly, I expect to see many more such examples of amateur hour.
"Whoever, being entrusted with or having lawful possession or control of any document, writing ... through gross negligence permits the same to be removed from its proper place of custody or delivered to anyone in violation of his trust ... and fails to make prompt report of such loss, theft, abstraction, or destruction to his superior officer—
Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both."
We can only guess about the "prompt reporting of the issue", but from what I've seen and heard I'm willing to put money on the fact that, no, this was not reported.
If you talk to someone with a law degree (judge, lawyer, whatever), they will tell you that "gross negligence" is very high barrier to cross in US law. Most people misunderstand that. It is very unlikely that any of the people in that chat group would be found grossly negligent, especially for their first mistake. Please do not read that last sentence as an apology or excuse for their behaviour; they should be reprimanded for it.
"The person predicted the impact could extend beyond Congress: “If you’re Google or Meta or Apple – you’re thinking, ‘Do I really want to use these firms?’ That could make it harder to work with the White House...."
These are all smart people, so it boggles the mind to wonder how they can install a totalitarian regime without knowing the next two steps in the playbook.
Jefferson might have been called a totalitarian had the word existed when he signed the judiciary act of 1802, which removed judges added by federalists.
Well Jefferson certainly wasn't ever wrong about anything. He certainly wouldn't have held any beliefs contrary to 20th or 21st century values. /s
Obviously the dude had a lot of good ideas, but just grabbing anything he said and acting like it's gospel is flawed for dare I say a pretty glaring reason...
I'm not saying that Jefferson's words were elevated beyond his peers.
His flaws certainly belie such an assertion.
I'm saying that what Jefferson did was to remove problematic judges.
Congress had, has, and will have the power to reshape the federal judiciary as they choose. They can erase all courts below the supreme, and they can add or remove justices to the highest court as they choose (excepting present members, which are lifetime). Thus the saying "pack the court."
To challenge an executive that has friends in congress is a dangerous proposition for a federal judge.
> To challenge [the legality of an action by] an executive that has friends in congress is a dangerous proposition for a federal judge.
> It could end badly.
This implies that the courts cannot be an effective check and balance on the other branches. Aren't they meant to be?
It depends what you think is meant by the term "effective". Courts foremost serve a truth-finding function and buffer against arbitrary authority being applied to individual people.
It's always been controversial whether a court can disparage a law of broad application or impugn the president directly. The "effectiveness" of those functions was always a little speculative.
Lower courts typically deal with questions of fact and how they intersect with questions of law; higher courts (appeals courts and Supreme Court) typically deal with questions of law (ambiguity/interpretation) exclusively. Courts as an institution don't serve a "truth-finding function" so much as a "law-ambiguity removing function".
> disparage
> impugn
Everyone seems focused on whether a court has the right to, like, insult the president personally. But that's not really the important part of what they're doing. They _of course_ have the right to question whether the law allows what the president is doing -- and questioning this is not disparagement or impugning.
They are meant to be a check and balance on the legislative and executive branch, but those branches are also meant to be a check and balance against the judicial. It's not a one way street. This statement is not intended to address the root current event being discussed.
Yes, there is no difference beetween what republicans were doing back then and what democrats were wanting now /s
This is why bothsidism is ridiculous. Both sides are the same! Both are accusing the other one of something wrong! Oh, it does not matter than one is lying and other is saying the truth.
They are playing with semantics on minor technicalities that are irrelevant because federal code is expansive enough to make this breach a clear violation of the law on multiple counts. The Senators rightly grilled these incompetents on why couldn't they disclose the nature of the communications if they were unclassified and not sensitive.
The capable adults from the 45th administration are gone because they were too responsible. You can see what happens when you draw from a pool of nothing but drooling sub-80s.
> “1215et: F-18s LAUNCH (1st strike package),” Hegseth wrote in the chat. “1345: Trigger Based F-18 Strike Window Starts (Target Terrorist is @his Known Location so SHOULD BE ON TIME—also, Strike Drones Launch (MQ-9s).”
If I were a potential "target terrorist" and this chat had leaked before the strikes, I'd make damned sure I wasn't at my "known location" that day.
Traitors like her being in the highest offices of the land makes me sick. I will never forget images of her meeting Assad after that sob gazed children with chemical weapons, or her voting present to an impeachment. I wouldn't believe that traitor if she told me the Russians were at my doorstep. We have a circus filled with clowns unfortunately. The desk with Patel and her being interrogated is such a clown show.
She met a dictator (Assad) that used nerve-agents on children. She visited and stood with Russia after their invasion of Ukraine. Are you out of your mind? Keep watching Fox News. I always wondered who was uneducated enough to vote for her. Clearly didn't expect to find such people in this community.
Just to be clear: Putin and bio-"weapons" labs is different than Assad and sarin. I believe you are referring to the Russian spin that Ukraine was doing bioweapons research. (I also don't believe Tulsi espouses that slant, despite being initially concerned.)
> “Her response was, ‘How do you know it was Assad and Russia and not ISIS?’” Mustafa recalled of the exchange. “Ludicrous question: ISIS doesn’t have airplanes.” Henning, the spokeswoman for the Trump transition, denied the exchange occurred.
> Two years later, she echoed similar doubts about the Trump administration’s assessment that the Assad regime used sarin gas to attack civilians. A United Nations panel and numerous other foreign governments came to the same conclusion.
> “This war and suffering could have easily been avoided if Biden Admin/NATO had simply acknowledged Russia’s legitimate security concerns,” she posted on Twitter at the start of Russia’s invasion in 2022.
> Gabbard’s remarks about Russia haven’t gone unnoticed in Moscow, where state-run media have praised her and even jokingly referred to her as a Russian agent. An article published Friday in RIA Novosti, a major Russian state-controlled news agency, called Gabbard “superwoman” and noted her past appearances on Russian TV, claiming that Ukrainian intelligence views her as “probably an agent of the Russian special services.”
It sure is. Weakness is reminiscent of those leaders that met Hitler believing one can reason with monsters. Your ignorance is clearly a bliss though. I am reminded of those Ukrainian leaders that believed meeting Putin would prevent an invasion. These are not reasonable men, but absolute monsters. Meeting them makes Tulsi complicit. Maybe my morals just make me ill-suited to meet murderers (in a non-official capacity nonetheless). Giving legitimacy to these people is ridiculous. Good thing she will never come close to the presidency. Despite her treasons and her ignorance, she is also highly unlikeable and has the charm of a sponge. Only men lacking any morals or any critical reasoning could be mesmerized by a clown like Tulsi
What? That's simply not true even by a long shot. In no way shape or form is she condoning anything by being willing to engage with someone non-violently.
Go read my other response. I've quoted Tulsi talking about her trip to Syria. She's trying to find a way to end suffering. I'm not sure you really understand how much damage our own government has done to people and how we appear to others. Gabbard has more courage than you'll ever know.
> Maybe my morals just make me ill-suited to meet murderers (in a non-official capacity nonetheless).
So you're a pacifist. War is war. I'm not defending Assad I'm reminding you that people and countries do horrible things in war on both sides. The US, the atomic bomb, missiles from the sky in the middle east, collateral damage, killing families of terrorists. I think you'd have a hard time if you tried to apply your moral framework to "the good guys".
Painful as it may be, there are valid moral frameworks where ending suffering may be more important, immediate, and urgent than refusing to acknowledge another state's leader because they're horrible.
Of course your point about diplomacy to end suffering works in some instances. However, that was not her call to make, and she was NOT in a capacity to do so, for she was not the elected president nor was she sent on behalf of an elected administration. She legitimized dictators. Putin had agreed to never invade Ukraine for instance, and look at where we are now. Additionally, I agree wars do happen. But we must agree that some crimes are so heinous (nukes, chemical weapons etc), as to make the perpetrator shunned from society. We do it in prisons for heinous crimes. However, it seems a former KGB agent is "entitled" to more dignity from Tulsi than the victims of the war.
> “I think we should be ready to meet with anyone if there’s a chance it can help bring about an end to this war, which is causing the Syrian people so much suffering,” Gabbard said.
IDK... I don't have strong enough hatred in my soul to condemn someone for "meeting with a dictator" if they think there might be a path to end suffering. Honestly to me that sounds like someone with courage to do what's necessary to make a difference.
>
Gabbard said her trip included stops in Aleppo and Damascus, Syria’s capital. She also visited Beirut during the trip, which began in mid-January. Gabbard said she also met with refugees, Syrian opposition leaders, widows and family members of Syrians fighting alongside groups like al-Qaeda, and Syrians aligned with the Assad regime.
Gabbard said that the U.S. has “waged wars of regime change” in Iraq, Libya and Syria. Yet each has resulted “in unimaginable suffering, devastating loss of life, and the strengthening of groups like al-Qaeda” and the Islamic State group, she said.
“My visit to Syria has made it abundantly clear,” Gabbard said. “Our counterproductive regime change war does not serve America’s interest, and it certainly isn’t in the interest of the Syrian people.”
>
THIS IS LITERALLY WHAT THE LEFT HAS BEEN SAYING FOR DECADES. We need to get our hands our of other wars and stop causing suffering in peoples/cultures/nations we don't understand.
But oh no because she's willing to work with Trump and not against him she's a filthy fucking traitor. Your kind of rhetoric is what makes me sick.
I am not a leftist. I do not believe that constitutes a war. It is a dictator denying his people freedom and commiting heinous acts to hold onto power. A war implies an opposing army, not rebels. America's freedom was won by rebellion. Your argument is alien to the founding of this nation, and is almost treasonous. We clearly will not agree on this point. She is not reaching across the aisle. She's always been an infiltrator who loves attention more than morality. The guy backed by Iran and who has warplanes lost against people armed with leftover artillery. That is the power of the will of the people. The ending would have been way more poetic if justice was served in his country, instead of his cowardice flight to Russia. Though I bet Tulsi will follow suit after her next act of treason
There is no reason to believe we are lucky. Instead, this is more of a canary in the coal mine that the DOD OIG and Congress are less able to excuse for a long-running hazard.
How much of the administration, for how long, and for what, is using hackable systems and without mandated audit trails for protected communications? Whether external hackers are already successfully snooping, or internal cover-ups are happening of ongoing corruption, both are deeply problematic, and can be happening in parallel to stupid leaks like this. Likewise, we can't even investigate and cleanup properly because these people are illegally deleting the forensic data for their illegal and insecure actions.
It's not even a surprise. Ex: It's already pretty well documented to embarrassing extents like the president flushing official documents down toilets and clogging them. Ex: The admins use of signal was a thing in the first term as well. The only new thing afaict is the public and checks-and-balances people have the evidence in front of them of illegal use when accepting the lies and criminality.
> We should feel lucky that merely an American journalist was added by mistake.
This time. We also have no idea how many times this has happened without the unique circumstances where the person incorrectly included would draw attention to the leak as part of their job as a journalist.
Generally speaking, if something like this can happen once, it has probably happened more than once.
We probably are very lucky that the time it very publicly happened was fairly early on in the tenure of this dumpster fire of a Presidential cabinet.
Of course instead of them seeing it this way they are certain to keep going after the journalist in an attempt to make him the bad guy of the story to project blame away, because that is what incompetent people do.
Right, among the reasons not to use Signal for this sort of thing is that it is explicitly difficult to verify within Signal that a contact is who you think it is. It can be a secure channel if used correctly. This shows these people are not using it correctly.
That's backwards. Prosecutors don't give input, they decide whether to charge. The FBI investigates, but they aren’t the ones who are responsible for taking cases to court.
The FBI makes charging decisions all the time. The FBI has to be the one to investigate charges.
Now whether or not said charges are prosecutable is the job of the DoJ.
The demarcation line between the two is when the charges are filed in federal court.
Hillary Clinton was famously not charged by the FBI director Comey back in 2016. Not because she committed any crime, but because they wouldn't likely get a conviction at trial.
> The FBI has to be the one to investigate charges.
They investigate before there are charges.
> Now whether or not said charges are prosecutable is the job of the DoJ.
The FBI is part of the DoJ, but there aren't charges until a prosecutor—not an FBI agent—either gets a grand jury to return an indictment or files a criminal information (the latrer only an option for minor offenses or if the defendant waives indictment, usually as part of a plea bargain.) Prosecution isn't a separate thing from charges, it is what charges are.
> Hillary Clinton was famously not charged by the FBI director Comey back in 2016.
No, famously Comey announced that the FBI recommended that no charges be filed. Like I said, you have it backwards: FBI makes recommendations, federal prosecutors decide to charge, or not.
“FBI Director James B. Comey said today that the Bureau has recommended to the Department of Justice that no charges are appropriate following an extensive investigation of Hillary Clinton’s use of a personal e-mail system during her time as Secretary of State.”
Let's drop this. I do agree with you on Musk being a fascist -- or more specifically the average person might be correct in concluding the Musk is a fascist.
The FBI is part of the DoJ... they are in fact the investigative arm of the DoJ and both bring the US attourneys evidence of crimes so that the attourneys can do the court work and they go find evidence as requested by the attourneys for ongoing cases. The fact that you're treating them as such separate entitites is indicative that maybe you should learn a bit more about how these things work.
> There was no classified information on Clinton's server.
This is absolutely false, or as the kids call it, "misinformation".
A 3 second Google search confirms:
100 emails contained information that should have been deemed classified at the time they were sent, including 65 emails deemed "Secret" and 22 deemed "Top Secret". An additional 2,093 emails were retroactively designated confidential by the State Department.
The whole issue with her emails is she purposely never labeled anything so as to have plausible deniability.
Nah, the whole outrage with her emails was performative outrage and hypocrisy. And no, they were not nearly comparable to what happened here nor to what DOGE does. Nor to what Trump did in the past.
"But here emails" was just republicans doing what they always do and pretending to be angry over mild stuff while giving own people pass over big stuff.
Not claiming that it is comparable, nor am I upset by it, but, one oughtn’t claim that there was nothing confidential there if there was, in fact, confidential stuff in there. I don’t care if this makes it easier for other people to make a narrative. If someone makes a false claim in these kinds of discussions, the false claim should be corrected.
I suppose a different claim strikes me as false. "should have been deemed classified at the time they were sent" is one thing, "there was, in fact, confidential stuff in there" is a different thing.
I think a decent case can be made that one rounds up to the other, but I guess that case seems more like an argument to be made than a fact to be corrected.
Just because something isn't labeled classified doesn't make it not classified. If you work anywhere with classified information, you are expected to know certain information is classified, or may become classified later. You may not always know the latter, but you should know the former.
I'm not going to defend classifying embarrassing information because it's well -- embarrassing. But the established trend is to classify information "just to be safe" and let someone else make the declassifying decisions, particularly someone that's not you.
There was a weird issue with Wikileaks in that publicly released information was still considered classified, and any documents must be still treated as such.
Was that silly, yes. This led to a weird issue where journalists and members of the public had more access to certain classified documents than people holding clearances.
The factual claim made in the comment was "The whole issue with her emails is she purposely never labeled anything so as to have plausible deniability." This is not true. This is made up post rationalization and again. It even can not be proven or disproven by whether there was some possibly maybe secret information.
That thing where one side is given unbelievable benefit of the doubt that literally ignores what was happening or is happening is not healthy.
It looks like it was approved only for CIA use with permissible use. Even though it was installed, did not mean it was suitable for all communications.
Here's the important relevant quote:
"It is permissible to use to communicate and coordinate
for work purposes. Provided that any decisions that are
made are also recorded through formal channels. So
those were procedures that were implemented. My staff
implemented those processes," Ratcliffe said.
"My communications, to be clear, in a Signal message
group were entirely permissible and lawful and did not
include classified information," he added.
The classified community is one built on trust -- fundamentally that you won't leak information to others, perceived enemies or otherwise. This extends to elected or appointed officials and federal judges ruling on classified matters.
But honestly most of the people in the group will be loyal to the US regardless of leader's political affiliation.
But what they do ask is that classified information remain secret -- particularly if you're in harms way.
If you're in that intelligence community, you know exactly what is classified and what is not. I could imagine some information being so secretive it's not written down -- but instead passed verbally in person.
If a CIA agent has intelligence on an Israeli operation, it's classified, regardless of whether it was written down or not.
I think that there is a parallel story to this one that is equally as interesting. There is one group of consumers of this story who see the receipts provided by Jeffery Goldberg, along with confirmation of their authenticity from a spokesperson at the National Security Council, followed by admissions by cabinet member participants of the Signal chat in hearings before congress, and those consumers of all this news can only conclude that the evidence is about as conclusive as you can get that Jeffery Goldberg is telling the truth, that these people are sharing the names of active intelligence officers, and describing imminent plans of action of the US military.
Then there is another group of consumers of this story, with the same access to all of the same evidence, and all of the same first person confirmations, who confidently declare the argument that this might be illegal null and void because Joe Biden allowed the CIA to use signal, and are persuaded away from accepting all of that evidence by articles with that contain such gems as "what the media wont tell you about the Atlantic hit piece", "Democrats talking points on this story quickly unraveled", and "help us continue to expose the lefts desperate attempts to manufacture scandals".
How can propaganda be so effective that people lose the skill of object permanence?
Call me crazy, but they have lots to gain. They got to see whether a journalist would dare stand up against them knowing very well they risk being found with 50 terabytes of illegal porn on their computer then dying of a suicide with 2 shots in the back of the head. Turns out journalists aren't yet afraid of them.
They also got a loyalty test with their own people. Everyone is saying "not my problem" and accepting no responsibility. They've passed that test.
Then the final loyalty test is of their voters. When this first broke, the script was "Oof. This is bad. Heads will roll because of this." When it became apparent that, no, heads will not roll, the script amongst them changed. "This doesn't matter. Why would it matter? Everyone uses insecure things and makes mistakes. Why did the journalist embarrass our country?" It's very obvious that the breaking point with their base is very far away, assuming there is one.
And the final result is seeing whether there will be consequences. A small time guy can get pinched for this and the president and everyone else will remain completely void of responsibility no matter what. But it's pretty obvious that even a small time guy won't be facing consequences.
So they've gained something very valuable from this: the realization that there really are no consequences. They're going to keep pushing things like this and they'll get bigger and bigger each time. And each time it sets a new standard for a tolerable level of bad. And any time someone supportive of them starts to think "maybe this isn't good", they'll be quick to rush in and say "it's a nothingburger, just like the last thing they were whining about." And they'll fall back in line.
It's a nice theory, but the reason everyone in this administration is acting with such impunity is because they already believe there really are no consequences. They had that realization when they fomented an insurrection in 2021 and not only did nothing happen to them, they were voted back into office. What more confirmation would they need?
These people are just brutes lumbering through a government the fully control now, smashing and doing whatever they want. There's no 4D chess.
Well the FBI investigated it already -- even though the Hillary Clinton investigation took years -- and said there would not be charges brought.
It's a win on government efficiency I guess (no more year long investigations). But also, this is clearly not the first time they used Signal, and it won't be the last.
Just to clarify on what is moot, you are claiming that sharing classified, perhaps TS/SCI information, over signal, as well as deleting the messages, which are both illegal when isolated from any specific communication method, has all been blessed as above board and legal, simply because Joe Biden allowed Signal usage at the CIA?
Couldn't every whistleblower and double agent from now on just make sure to do their leaking over signal, and therefore receive the magical immunity your logic claims signal usage provides?
... but I think the argument goes "Signal can be used for unclassified communication, so we are OK"... great! .... but why were specific war plans and CIA officer names NOT classified? There are definite problems either way you slice it.
This exemplifies my point. I laid out how illogical it would be for your claim to be accurate that Biden approved otherwise illegal activity so long as it occured over signal.
And you've simply incorporated this as additional straw for your strawman.
Does this mornings additional confirmation in the form of messages including times, planes, and weapons further solidify your feelings that this is all Bidens fault?
There is also a large group who think it's a nothing burger and that Goldberg is simply lying or exaggerating about the nature and seriousness of the messages that were omitted from the reporting.
"Clinton has said that she never used her personal email to send information that was marked classified at the time, although some of her emails had been retroactively classified.
Comey says that's not true. Of 30,000 emails Clinton turned over to the State Department in 2014, FBI investigators found 110 emails containing information that was classified at the time the email was sent. Eight of those were top secret, the highest level of classification."
"Another 2,000 emails have been retroactively classified since they were sent, Comey said."
In reading deeper, many or most of these "classified" emails are comments on news stories that revealed information that another department would rather keep secret, such as news articles about CIA drone strikes, while the CIA at the time wouldn't acknowledge they had a a drone program.
Clinton argued at the time that such emails aren't and shouldn't be classified, since she didn't discuss any information sourced from the CIA, but only the publicly available news article. That seems to me to be at least a reasonable stance.
> Clinton argued at the time that such emails aren't and shouldn't be classified, since she didn't discuss any information sourced from the CIA, but only the publicly available news article. That seems to me to be at least a reasonable stance.
It's absolutely a reasonable stance. However, the rules aren't reasonable. For instance, as someone who held a clearance at the time, discussing/disseminating the Snowden leaks that were published in national news was considered a violation.
because hackernews is full of people who cultivate a specific naivety when it comes to power so they don't have to contemplate their responsibility or position therin. its endemic and I have a hobby pointing it out again, and again, and again.
Because he wants the behavior to change, as it is a risk to the country's security. Typically these types of things at this level rarely result in prosecution; the compromise typically is a change in behavior / promise to do better / etc.
A US public watchdog is now sueing for action to be taken.
The people in the chat group included Vice President JD Vance, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, various other Trump administration officials and aides and notably
Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
As American Oversight lawyers pointed out in their lawsuit Tuesday, Rubio is also the acting archivist of the United States and, as such, “is aware of the violations” that allegedly occurred.
The lawsuit, brought by the watchdog group American Oversight, requests that a federal judge formally declare that Hegseth and other officials on the chat violated their duty to uphold laws around the preservation of official communications.
Those laws are outlined in the Federal Records Act and, according to lawyers for American Oversight, if agency heads refuse to recover or protect their communications, the national archivist should ask the attorney general to step in.
Time will tell how this buttery Signals chat plays out .. it's certainly given other many other countries more fuel to ridicule the USofA, it's hard to believe these clowns are our partners in global "intelligence".
In normal times this might even be something Congress should be interested in. But instead I wouldn't be surprised if the journalist will get prosecuted on grounds that he didn't leave the group as soon as he noticed the mistake.
I have read that one of them (thanks to sibling commenter, yes, Witkoff) was traveling in Russia while on this group chat, and that the chat disclosed the identity of an intelligence officer.
When you get to a certain level, you believe the rules don't apply to you. There are many examples of this, but I won't list any for fear of promoting false equivalencies.
Use Signal, an encrypted platform from the CIA with a charismatic public persona: the horror! Use an unencrypted email server in a closet for years: that's nothing.
> But the idea that this breach can occur with no accountability, consequences, or operational changes is unacceptable.
There will be no accountability, consequences, or operational changes because the American people (a plurality of them anyway) voted for this. I like how people are even bothering to bring up the risk of prosecution, as if Trump wouldn't just pardon the people involved anyway.
Look, I am as disgusted as you are, but I continue to be impressed/disgusted by the neverending levels of shamelessness shown by Trump and his cronies:
1. Trump is now somehow blaming the reporter for this, calling him a "sleazebag".
2. Probably doesn't need repeating, but all the chants about "lock her up" against Hillary Clinton were due to her supposed mishandling of classified information. Yeah, waiting to hear all the outrage from the right over this 10x more egregious example.
3. I still continue to be awed by Hegseth railing against DEI because it's "anti-merit", as I can't think of an ass clown less qualified to be Sec of Defense.
Nothing will change unless the American people, at large, decide to punish those at the ballot box who exhibit these behaviors, and so far they have not been willing to do that.
I'm concerned that what brings change won't be a smarter electorate, but instead losing a war or having another civil war.
I'm somewhat politically conservative, and I still cannot make any sense of the plurality that voted Trump into office again. I really wonder if I'm in some kind of echo chamber that prevents me from understanding their perspective.
Their grievances begin with Reaganomics, then NAFTA, then the war in Afghanistan. All Republican projects. Now, instead of directing the blame where it belongs, they've adopted an even more 'enlightened' and destructive form of conservativism that abides corruption in broad daylight.
>>>In my first week on the job, I was told, explicitly, that if I shared Classified or Controlled Unclassified information over unapproved channels, I would be reprimanded—likely fired, or less likely, prosecuted.
Now, I’m not replying to you about the morality of what happened or to tell my opinion of what is right and what is wrong.
But do you honestly believe the president is held to the same standard as you?
First felon I know that has had no issues getting a job or getting a place to live. It's amazing how being a felon makes life so much more difficult for normies, yet actually improved his stature. It's embarrassing no matter which angle it is viewed.
Trump won't fire any of them, because nothing they've done displeases him, and displeasing Trump (rather than violating a law, for instance) is the only way to get fired by him.
At 11:44 a.m., the account labeled “Pete Hegseth” posted in Signal a “TEAM UPDATE.” I will not quote from this update, or from certain other subsequent texts. The information contained in them, if they had been read by an adversary of the United States, could conceivably have been used to harm American military and intelligence personnel, particularly in the broader Middle East, Central Command’s area of responsibility. What I will say, in order to illustrate the shocking recklessness of this Signal conversation, is that the Hegseth post contained operational details of forthcoming strikes on Yemen, including information about targets, weapons the U.S. would be deploying, and attack sequencing.
From TFA.
The discussion itself wasn't transacting classified documents as such. But as Goldberg makes clear, information of both general sensitivity and immediate tactical significance was disclosed.
It was confirmed (under oath) that there was no classified information shared, however, the contents of the messages could not be shared with the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence as it is classified information.
The EU knows exactly how the administration feels about them with regards to military support. The Signal thread makes all involved look extremely incompetent. I’m not seeing the advantage if this was planned.
I disagree. When you leak to the press, you often do it with a planted source who "leaks" to a journalist on condition of anonymity. Doing it with an "accidental" group chat add like this signals incompetence without any added value.
CISA explicitly promoted Signal for use by top level government officials. The fact that an outsider was invited to a conversation they didn't belong in is troubling, but basically nothing else about this seems to be outside of recommended policy.
The administration is also claiming that there was no confidential information in the conversation, which I think is certainly debatable, but the rest of the story seems overblown to me.
Organizations may already have these best practices in place, such as secure communication platforms1 and multifactor authentication (MFA) policies. In cases where organizations do not, apply the following best practices to your mobile devices.
And goes on to say:
Adopt a free messaging application for secure communications that guarantees end-to-end encryption, such as Signal or similar apps.
But concludes:
Any reference to specific commercial entities, products, processes, or services by service mark, trademark, manufacturer, or otherwise, does not constitute or imply endorsement, recommendation, or favoring by CISA.
So they mention signal as an example of an app that they are talking about, but they explicitly state that by mentioning it they are not implying to endorse or recommend or even favor it.
Moreover, the advice doesn't apply to organizations that have their own best practices in place, which the organizations in question certainly do. So the question isn't what CISA recommends it's what the CIA, DoD, Department of State, etc. recommend.
You should read the release that CISA put out [0]. The use of Signal for classified discussions is not a suggested use. True, it's not explicitly forbidden, but people entrusted with that access should know better.
Saying that CISA approved Signal (and, in right-wing sources, saying "Biden administration CISA") is an attempt to minimize and distract.
They shouldn't have been texting classified information. Full stop.
What classified info was in the chat? The only reference I saw to classified info was explicit references to getting out of that medium to discuss classified info
I have not verified this, but reporting suggests they had targeting data down to the names of individuals in Yemen, as well as flight times and originating sources for the airstrikes, which if leaked would be very valuable to whatever air defenses were in the country. It is not clear if intelligence sources were also potentially compromised.
In my first week on the job, I was told, explicitly, that if I shared Classified or Controlled Unclassified information over unapproved channels, I would be reprimanded—likely fired, or less likely, prosecuted.
It was also made clear that safeguarding the nation's secrets from the carelessness of others was my responsibility, too.
It is mind-boggling that 18 people were on this thread, and none of them ever suggested that this discussion would be better served in a SCIF. To say nothing of SecDef starting the thread on Signal in the first place.
How many other such threads are active at the highest levels of government right now?
Does Chinese intelligence know?
I'm not suggesting punishment, or even prosecution, for the people involved. But the idea that this breach can occur with no accountability, consequences, or operational changes is unacceptable.