[HN Gopher] How the Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg Got Added to the...
___________________________________________________________________
How the Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg Got Added to the White House
Signal Chat
Author : howard941
Score : 302 points
Date : 2025-04-06 13:12 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theguardian.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theguardian.com)
| bediger4000 wrote:
| "But Trump decided against firing him in large part because he
| did not want the Atlantic and the news media more broadly to have
| the satisfaction of forcing the ouster of a top cabinet official
| weeks into his second term."
|
| That's about Michael Waltz. The decision is based not on whether
| Waltz revealed classified info, but about appearances. Seems
| dangerous to make decisions this way.
| hybrid_study wrote:
| you think?
| jfengel wrote:
| I wonder what their source is for that.
|
| An alternative interpretation is simply "I don't care": So top
| secret info leaked; don't do it again. You're doin' a heck of a
| job.
|
| If it does happen again... honestly, would the rationale be
| different?
|
| Sure, they'd have a conniption if it had happened under Biden.
| But that would be purely about harassing Biden rather than a
| serious consideration of national security.
| bediger4000 wrote:
| The difference is that the media would pick up the conniption
| fit, and ask questions endlessly. Here, we see a shrug and a
| decision to not follow up. The acceptance of sorry opsec
| practices is baked into the coverage
| jfengel wrote:
| It's sometimes called "sanewashing". There has been so much
| overwhelming incompetence that it has become the dog-bites-
| man story. Even otherwise competent news media can't figure
| out how to say "this is just plain criminal".
| bediger4000 wrote:
| With all due respect, that's an aggressive assumption.
| "The media, after 4 years of Trump, can't figure out what
| to write", seems less likely than "media's editors and
| owners like Trump and want him to make sense and
| succeed".
| treetalker wrote:
| > Waltz also appears to have also engendered some sympathy from
| inside Trump's orbit over the group chat because the White House
| had authorized the use of Signal, largely because there is no
| alternative platform to text in real time across different
| agencies, two people familiar with the matter said.
|
| - No alternative platform: Presumably on purpose. If it were a
| good security practice to text this type of information in real
| time across existential-level national-security agencies by using
| multiple private vendors (e.g., Apple, Signal, AT&T, Verizon,
| ...), I'll go out on a limb to guess that the government would
| have implemented that idea before 2025.
| wombatpm wrote:
| No alternative that is not subject to FOIA requests. Signal
| deletes messages in violation of the Presidential Records Act.
| That is why it is chosen.
| stavros wrote:
| At least we know that Signal isn't backdoored, as far as the
| POTUS knows.
| OneDeuxTriSeiGo wrote:
| That's the fun part. They did. DISA and the NSA have had the
| DMCC-TS (and DMCC-S) phones available across basically every
| agency or department for years now. They come already
| provisioned with Cellcrypt for messaging and phone calls as
| well as email access.
|
| These are the standard communication device for senior members
| of the US government who are working regularly with classified
| information.
|
| https://www.disa.mil/-/media/Files/DISA/Fact-Sheets/DMCC-TS-...
|
| The issue with these devices is that the systems they use
| follow all recordkeeping laws and any communications are
| subject to FOIA.
| Jtsummers wrote:
| > No alternative platform: Presumably on purpose.
|
| It's not on purpose, it's a lack of IT coordination and has
| been a long-standing issue in the government. As an example,
| until about 2010-2012, nearly every US military base hosted its
| own email server and employees (military, civilian, contractor)
| received an email address like first.last@base.af.mil (replace
| af with another branch as appropriate). Now it'll be
| first.last@us.af.mil.
|
| They consolidated each branch's email and other comm systems
| over a number of years with good and bad results. Cross-branch
| communication could still be improved, but it's _much_ better
| than it used to be. Cross department and agency communication
| is still broken. And the only purpose is so they can retain
| control of their fiefdoms.
| apical_dendrite wrote:
| This is a great explanation for why they should be keeping these
| conversations on systems that are designed for handling
| classified information and have controls to prevent adding a
| random person to the conversation.
| bediger4000 wrote:
| The systems you describe exist. An interesting story would
| investigate why the systems weren't used in the Goldberg
| situation.
| 9283409232 wrote:
| I think the easy answer is that current systems are subject
| to FOIA and they are doing their best to avoid FOIA because
| whatever they are doing is very illegal.
| mcculley wrote:
| It would not have to be illegal, much less very illegal for
| them to want to keep their discussions away from public
| scrutiny. It is unacceptable even for mundane official
| discussions.
|
| I have often observed government officials carrying two
| phones and using both of them in the same meeting.
| 9283409232 wrote:
| > I have often observed government officials carrying two
| phones and using both of them in the same meeting.
|
| I have two phones. One for work and my personal phone.
| What's your point?
| mcculley wrote:
| When working, one should primarily be on only one of
| those devices. I have observed government officials using
| both concurrently to escape some conversations being
| subpoenaed.
| nsagent wrote:
| I'm completely unfamiliar with what systems exist, but here's
| what the article states:
|
| > the White House had authorized the use of Signal, largely
| because there is no alternative platform to text in real time
| across different agencies, two people familiar with the
| matter said.
|
| > Previous administrations, including the Biden White House,
| did not develop an alternative platform to Signal, one of the
| people said.
|
| Are you saying these sources are dissembling? Wouldn't
| surprise me at this point, but just making sure I understand
| what you're saying.
| the_snooze wrote:
| The systems exist are in the form of "you go into a secure
| room with specially-networked computers and do your
| sensitive comms there." These are secure not only because
| of the use of strong encryption (which Signal does) but
| also because of the restricted access (which Signal
| doesn't). You can't accidentally add a journalist on these
| secure systems for the simple reason that the US government
| doesn't give accounts or physical access to randos (which
| Signal effectively does).
| simplicio wrote:
| I mean, if the devices exist, I'm skeptical its that hard
| to just give them to whomever you want to use them and give
| them all DoD accounts or whatever. The people involved
| being in different agencies seems like a dodge.
| OneDeuxTriSeiGo wrote:
| Yes
|
| https://www.disa.mil/-/media/Files/DISA/Fact-Sheets/DMCC-
| TS-...
| edgineer wrote:
| This sell sheet describes a phone capable of and approved
| for TS voice calls and data hotspot, but does not
| advertise text messaging.
| OneDeuxTriSeiGo wrote:
| While the sheet doesn't mention it, the Cellcrypt app is
| a fully functioned encrypted text messaging app.
|
| https://www.cellcrypt.com/cellcrypt-federal
| lukan wrote:
| With post quantum protection. Amazing.
| nsagent wrote:
| Thanks for clarifying! Certainly seems like dissembling
| to me. Wish news organizations actually did the due
| diligence and reported these kinds of details.
| est wrote:
| As described near the end of the article
|
| > White House had authorized the use of Signal, largely
| because there is no alternative platform to text in real time
| across different agencies, two people familiar with the
| matter said.
| apical_dendrite wrote:
| All of these guys have SCIFs at their homes and offices,
| and if they're traveling they have access to a SCIF. They
| can absolutely get secure messages across agencies in real
| time - Waltz even says this in the group chat when he tells
| them to check their "high side inboxes". They just can't
| get them as texts to their personal phones - for very good
| reason. It's a more inconvenient system by design.
|
| What these guys are arguing is that there's a case for
| using Signal for something like what Waltz was initially
| doing - telling people to check a more secure system and
| asking them to name a point person. But of course the risk
| is that a) even that information is extremely useful to an
| adversary; b) once the more convenient system exists,
| you're relying on people to carefully adhere to the rules
| about what should go on it, and guys like Hegseth are
| morons who don't feel like they need to follow the rules.
| fortran77 wrote:
| They said Waltz had been "cleared of wrongdoing" and yet
|
| > Donald Trump's national security adviser Mike Waltz included a
| journalist in the Signal group chat about plans for US strikes in
| Yemen after he mistakenly saved his number months before under
| the contact of someone else he intended to add, according to
| three people briefed on the matter.
|
| That _clears_ him? That should implicate him!
| 9283409232 wrote:
| There is no accountability for this administration. It's funny
| watching all the anti-DEI folks talk about meritocracy because
| the only qualification you need to be in the Trump
| administration is undying loyalty. Ethics don't matter and
| neither does ability. Just be loyal.
| Eddy_Viscosity2 wrote:
| What about the 'wrongdoing' associated with using a messaging
| system that keeps no records. The president doesn't have the
| authority to over-ride this lawful requirement.
| nsagent wrote:
| > According to the White House, the number was erroneously saved
| during a "contact suggestion update" by Waltz's iPhone, which one
| person described as the function where an iPhone algorithm adds a
| previously unknown number to an existing contact that it detects
| may be related.
|
| It's interesting that this was the cause. I'm sure we all have
| our own stories of how UI/UX niggles (regardless of platform or
| app) have led to unintended behavior.
|
| While I understand automatic suggestions can be helpful at times,
| when the UX doesn't clearly identify the cues that lead to the
| suggestion, with a way for a human to confirm it, this type of
| error is a likely result.
| blitzar wrote:
| > iPhone algorithm adds a previously unknown number to an
| existing contact
|
| They must have different iPhones to me, because mine doesn't do
| that. If I were cynical I would say they made this up.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| Could be one of those newfangled "AI" features.
| elijaht wrote:
| It's not new, been seeing this for years
| cosmic_cheese wrote:
| It's a real feature in first party apps (messages, mail,
| etc), but it's not fully automatic. When it thinks that a
| number/address/etc is related to an existing contact, it'll
| prompt the user to confirm or deny, and upon confirmation the
| info is added. Ultimately it's up to the user.
| randallsquared wrote:
| I don't know when they added it to iOS, but my iPhone does
| this. I get a text from some new number and the message
| includes (e.g.) "Hey this is Tom." and a notice right in
| Messages says it "found" a contact that this may be and asks
| if I want to add the number to that contact. I could imagine
| having this happen correctly a few times in a row might make
| one trust that it knows what it's doing.
| tsimionescu wrote:
| Absolutely, and it's generally OK to trust it.
|
| I wouldn't trust it with my bank details though (i.e. while
| I might send bank details to my life partner, I definitely
| wouldn't send them to someone my iPhone _thinks_ might be
| my partner). And I DEFINITELY wouldn 't trust it with
| military operation details.
| more_corn wrote:
| Really? I think the text of the pop up is "new number found
| for CONTACT NAME. Add it to contact?"
| lukan wrote:
| But does it extract this information from a email where a
| different contact was included? That part sounds weird to
| me (but possible).
| sjy wrote:
| The article says an email including Goldberg's signature
| block was copied and pasted into a text message from
| Hughes.
| lukan wrote:
| I read that. But it would still be Goldbergs signature
| block. So is apple so "dumb" to just take this number and
| assume it belongs to the email adress contact? To be
| confirmed with a single touch?
|
| That would be weird to me.
| brookst wrote:
| It is for sure a terrible design for a top secret
| communications system.
|
| For a consumer platform, it makes some sense, and the
| prompt is supposed to be "hey you might want to do this",
| and the user can decide if it makes sense. I've used an
| iphone since they came out, have seen this prompt like
| twice, and got it right both times. But I'm not a
| national security advisor or anything so maybe it's more
| clear to me.
| refurb wrote:
| The iPhone contacts app is an absolute cluster of an app in
| terms of how it manages adding contacts (or allows other apps
| to add contacts).
|
| Years ago I had my nicely arranges contacts in place, then
| added Gmail and it upload contacts so now they were all
| duplicated. Then when I dug into it, I realize you have have
| folders of different contacts, but depending on the view they
| are shown as combined.
|
| Then add on top Gmail keeps asking me if I want to update
| someone's contacts from an email they sent me. I click yes,
| but it keeps coming up even though their contact info doesn't
| change (what?).
|
| Then if I try to copy a message from iMessage, it will
| randomly assume a number is someone's phone number and ask me
| if I want to create a new contact (what?). If my fingers were
| fatter it would be easier to click "yes" and end up with a
| non-phone number added to some person's contacts.
|
| I only trust the contacts that I add manually, everything
| else is suspect.
| xtiansimon wrote:
| > "...iPhone algorithm adds a previously unknown number..."
|
| What?
| chneu wrote:
| They're lying. This is up there with "I was hacked" when
| getting caught replying to porn accounts.
| xtiansimon wrote:
| Pants on fire just doesn't seem to cover it.
|
| It's just that Google Voice app on iPhone did something
| weird in a recent call. I hadn't been using it very much at
| all, and about a month ago I got a notice from Google
| saying, Use it or lose it. Ok. So I use it and the
| suggestion thing threw me for a loop.
|
| On my phone's 120 mm screen, if you switch to the keypad,
| but before you type a number, the top of the screen says
| "Suggestions". But I didn't see that. I'm looking back and
| forth between a phone number in an email signature and the
| on screen keypad. Once you start typing the number,
| "Suggestions" goes away. So I finish typing and look up to
| see the name of a personal contact (never called from
| Google Voice, btw). I had to type the number again I was so
| confused.
|
| I was thinking, that's what you get for free IP phone
| number and free app. Now I read the OP and think, now my
| iPhone is going to start acting like crap too?
|
| Funny to think it, but I wonder if these Gov peeps are
| using the free versions or if they pay for these services?
| 3eb7988a1663 wrote:
| I have not followed the case too closely, but it seems like the
| timeline was roughly:
|
| - deny anything wrong happened - Atlantic is a liar
|
| - the leak might have happened, but nothing secret was shared
|
| - ok fine, secret military information was shared
|
| - here is an analysis that says it was the phone at fault, not
| human error
|
| I have trouble believing anything except butt covering at play.
| When you are repeatedly caught lying, I do not immediately
| believe the latest story iteration, even if it is plausible.
| D-Coder wrote:
| DARVO: Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender.
| BLKNSLVR wrote:
| I think the most accurate thing Trump has said so far in 47th
| Presidency was "everything's computer" about the Tesla dash.
|
| Almost everything else out of his mouth, at least towards the
| media, has existed somewhere on the scale between 'large
| clump of BS wrapped around a tiny nugget of truth' and 'bald-
| faced lie'.
|
| And when fairly obvious lies are repeated, the rest of what
| is said by himself and the rest of his administration retains
| the stink of the same taint.
| fransje26 wrote:
| > here is an analysis that says it was the phone at fault,
| not human error
|
| > I have trouble believing anything except butt covering at
| play.
|
| No, I did not cheat. We just happened to be hanging around
| without undergarments, and, you know, we had been eating
| bananas, and somehow some banana peel fell on the floor, and
| then I slipped, and grabbed the first thing I could hold on
| to, and that's how we both accidentally fell on the couch,
| and then the dog got excited and jumped on us to play, and
| that's how I unvoluntarily got jump-humped into this
| unfortunate event..
| maest wrote:
| > According to the White House, the number was erroneously
| saved during a "contact suggestion update" by Waltz's iPhone,
| which one person described as the function where an iPhone
| algorithm adds a previously unknown number to an existing
| contact that it detects may be related.
|
| I'm sorry, how is that knowable? Is there a log of iPhone users
| interactions that shows this?
|
| Or is it the case that investigators pointed to the wrong
| number being saved in Waltz' phone and Waltz replied: "Oh, the
| only explanation is that I must have misclicked when my phone
| asked me to update my contacts."
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| Sure, but the use case of Signal isn't for secret
| communications, so the stakes of adding the wrong person should
| be a lot lower in normal use.
|
| If it was intended as a secure communications platform for
| government use, they wouldn't be using phone numbers and an
| address book that can have incorrect information.
|
| I did read Signal was being used in the military etc, but only
| as a notification system that they should check their actually
| secure communications thing.
| ttul wrote:
| "... after he mistakenly saved his number months before under the
| contact of someone else he intended to add."
|
| This is precisely why the government has its own very
| inconvenient devices and network, which cannot possibly fall
| victim to the same completely understandable human error. Had the
| team been using secure devices on the secure network, no
| journalist would ever have been accidentally added to the chat.
|
| That these people are in charge of national security is beyond
| ridiculous. It speaks volumes about the unprecedented political
| setup we find ourselves in that such frankly inexperienced and
| naive people are in charge after Senate confirmations that were
| intended to protect us all from such a mistake.
| bsimpson wrote:
| The article also says that they were using Signal as a standin
| because there's not yet a secure system that crosses agencies.
|
| It also tries to blame past administrations for this (which
| includes Trump last time).
| XorNot wrote:
| The US has been perfectly capable of executing complicated
| military operations for decades prior without needing to use
| Signal to coordinate messaging amongst heads of staff.
| fuzzfactor wrote:
| Actually more capable up until now, this is naturally an
| historic low, completely reflecting the integrity of the
| Commander-in-Chief, or lack thereof, by comparison.
| Henchman21 wrote:
| Ah but those are _trained military personnel_ , not
| _reality tv stars_ and _infotainment hosts_
| CapricornNoble wrote:
| These people *WERE* military personnel and there is no
| way they haven't been repeatedly exposed to proper
| procedures for information handling. They absolutely
| should know better and deserve to face consequences for
| this sort of incompetence.
|
| Mike Walz is a Special Forces officer and only retired as
| a Colonel from the National Guard to take his position as
| National Security Advisor.
|
| Tulsi Gabbard is still a Lieutenant Colonel in the
| National Guard.
|
| Pete Hegseth was a Major in the National Guard, ending
| his service in 2021.
|
| JD Vance is probably the most junior of the veterans,
| leaving the Marine Corps as a Corporal in 2007.
| Finnucane wrote:
| that's why in the past cabinet members have a personal SCIF
| at home.
| outer_web wrote:
| Work from _home_? My pearls!
| apical_dendrite wrote:
| There's absolutely a secure system that crosses agencies -
| they even refer to it in the Signal chat (see the comment
| about sending details to your "high side inboxes"). But you
| can't use that system on your personal phone, and it doesn't
| let you avoid record-keeping requirements by setting messages
| to auto-delete.
| OneDeuxTriSeiGo wrote:
| This is blatantly incorrect though. The NSA actually set up
| the DMCC phone system specifically for this purpose. They are
| phones with 100% of the infrastructure already set up for
| communicating classified or sensitive information even while
| abroad and they are hardened enough that they are generally
| considered unclassified when powered down. They come in a
| DMCC-S (secret) and DMCC-TS (top secret) flavor. Any somewhat
| senior member at any agency or department that regularly
| interacts with classified information could request one of
| these devices. They provide cross agency encrypted call,
| text, and other capabilities at all security levels.
|
| https://www.disa.mil/-/media/Files/DISA/Fact-Sheets/DMCC-
| TS-...
| mint2 wrote:
| So why are we Taking claims and justifications from this
| admin at face value? Fool me once, shame on you, fool me
| twice shame on me"
| selfhoster wrote:
| "These people"
|
| Indeed, like this:
|
| https://www.fbi.gov/news/press-releases/statement-by-fbi-dir...
|
| "From the group of 30,000 e-mails returned to the State
| Department, 110 e-mails in 52 e-mail chains have been
| determined by the owning agency to contain classified
| information at the time they were sent or received."
| ttul wrote:
| Nothing in my comment implies that what Clinton did was any
| more lawful. But since you raised the point, I'll just note
| that it is quite interesting that Clinton's circumstance was
| thoroughly investigated by the FBI, whereas in the Signal
| debacle, it seems Trump's administration is going to let it
| go.
|
| Why the double standard?
| jliptzin wrote:
| Why would Trump fire anyone? Voters have signaled that they
| no longer care how classified information is handled. Maybe
| they no longer know why classified information should be
| carefully guarded, or it's just not a priority anymore. We
| all remember the FBI's photos of top secret documents being
| stashed in the Mar a Lago bathroom and ballroom. Not only
| did Trump not face any consequences for that whatsoever, he
| actually _gained_ votes compared to the last time he ran.
| Trump is behaving completely rationally here. He 's not
| going to lose even 1% of his support base over this, so why
| would he take any action? It's pretty interesting that for
| all the decades of skepticism and distrust of the
| government I've heard coming from conservatives (2A to
| guard against tyranny, "government _is_ the problem ",
| etc), they're putting an awful lot of blind trust in this
| particular administration.
| ttul wrote:
| I think the setup is different than what could be
| explained by assuming "blind trust" is being placed in
| the Trump administration. Individual Republican lawmakers
| in Congress who might otherwise try to stop Trump by
| proposing legislation or objecting to his Senate
| candidates face the prospect of a well-financed primary
| challenge the next time they are up for election. Unless
| and until Republican lawmakers find a way to get together
| to oppose the administration in large numbers, most
| lawmakers will avoid doing so for fear of being
| "primaried." Those who are indeed bold enough to act on
| their own are pushed out by the asymmetric opponent.
|
| And for the individual lawmaker who tries to work with
| their colleagues to mount a primary-proof challenge to
| the administration, there is always the risk of being
| outed at any point in the process of organizing. Once
| outed, the more powerful adversary picks off the
| opponents one by one, with the others retreating back
| into darkness to avoid the same fate.
| ttyprintk wrote:
| When not being a Florida politician, Mike Waltz has had this
| role since the early 2000s (for Cheney) and believes contact
| fields "get sucked" through invisible series of tubes. He's
| never seen a Senate confirmation and I bet never will.
| dralley wrote:
| The information that Hegseth shared shouldn't have been shared
| regardless of whether the app was secure, and regardless of
| whether Jeff was there. Nobody in that chat needed to know those
| details, he was just showing off like the insecure dilletante he
| is.
| hello_moto wrote:
| Like an eager intern showing off their capabilities in front of
| the Engineering Leads.
|
| A news reporter turned SecDef will make one be like that...
| eager
| fuzzfactor wrote:
| If you're the new Secretary of Defense and you've never held
| a rank anywhere near a military General, you need to spend
| about 12 hours a day 7 days a week, with real active Generals
| for a lot longer than this before making any bold moves.
|
| Anything less is certainly dereliction of duty.
| leereeves wrote:
| This thread is misunderstanding the job of Secretary of
| Defense. They aren't interns learning from the generals how
| to lead an army or plan logistics. They're project managers
| who ensure the generals are aligned with the President's
| goals.
| ttyprintk wrote:
| I would say that they oversee the Pentagon and ensure
| that the military stays in civilian control. In the past,
| theories from war games percolate through the Joint
| Chiefs, who meet with SECDEF before presenting options to
| the President.
|
| I was surprised Hegseth even desired a side channel that
| had the potential downside that he could accidentally
| text the coordinates of a carrier. Stuff like that gets
| Generals relieved immediately.
| infecto wrote:
| Equally bewildered as there is no real upside to this and
| the other folks on the line dont have any purpose of
| knowing prestrike information.
|
| I am not as educated in these manners but this type of
| information seems to be of the type you don't text on
| commercial applications and would be on a need to know
| basis. Maybe you can communicate the idea that something
| is planned to happen but not timelines of the specific
| assets.
| isubkhankulov wrote:
| The Secretary of Defense is a civilian position intended to
| be independent of the active-duty leadership so as to
| prevent coups. In practice, many prior SecDef's had to get
| waivers to serve.
| fuzzfactor wrote:
| Ok, that's what I always must have thought there was no
| match for.
|
| I've been more wrong before . . .
| pfannkuchen wrote:
| How does that prevent coups? Like the reason a military
| coup works is because the military has a shitload of
| weapons. How does having the secretary of defense not
| able to be in on a military coup prevent a military coup?
|
| At that point they're bringing an org chart to a gun
| fight.
| meigwilym wrote:
| Probably to stop the personality. Coups are often driven
| by "soldiers loyal to...". Having a civilian in the role
| would pre-empt that.
|
| OTOH a waiver undoes all of that. It shows how much of
| democracy depends on people following conventions and
| traditions.
| WillPostForFood wrote:
| The National Security Advisor and Vice President shouldn't know
| when and how an attack is happening? That's ridiculous. They
| were literally debatng whether to do it, of course they need to
| know. Beyond that, the people in the White House need to
| prepare messaging, position the president.
| hcknwscommenter wrote:
| Sub headline in the link says investigation "cleared" Waltz. When
| of course, what actually happened is that the investigation
| showed how extremely reckless negligent and careless Waltz was. I
| wish the guardian was more explicit about how nonsense this
| government propaganda is about this incident.
| toast0 wrote:
| How about that nobody else questioned who the new guy was?
| outer_web wrote:
| He was one of many initials present at the beginning of the
| chat, no?
| s3p wrote:
| No. To the others he would have appeared as a random
| number.
| plorg wrote:
| He would appear as whatever he set his profile name to.
| outer_web wrote:
| He actual specifically says this in his article.
| mannykannot wrote:
| You don't keep your job under this administration by sticking
| your head out.
| lokar wrote:
| He was "cleared" of what mattered to Trump, being disloyal.
| NoTeslaThrow wrote:
| > the investigation showed how extremely reckless negligent and
| careless Waltz was
|
| This is just a case where there's an individual to blame. We're
| looking back at at least eighty years of negligence and
| recklessness. Basically every conflict we've been in indicates
| clearly we don't have the competence nor the honesty that a
| reasonable human would find sufficient to manage such a
| destructive entity.
| graemep wrote:
| > Sub headline in the link says investigation "cleared" Waltz.
| When of course, what actually happened is that the
| investigation showed how extremely reckless negligent and
| careless Waltz was.
|
| That sounds like cleared to the standards expected of
| politicians.
| foldr wrote:
| No, this is not the standard expected of politicians. This is
| an unusual -- probably even unprecedented -- level of
| recklessness and carelessness for a National Security
| Advisor. We _can_ expect the person advising the President on
| national security not to accidentally leak classified
| information to a journalist via an unsecured communication
| channel. That expectation is routinely complied with.
| mannykannot wrote:
| While I thoroughly dislike self-serving bullshit, this is at
| least about as blatant a case of self-serving bullshit as it
| gets.
| DisjointedHunt wrote:
| How does the Guardian have such intimate details of a forensic
| investigation at the White House level and in the same breath
| claim that unauthorized access to non public information is a
| threat to national security ?
|
| It makes no sense for the media on one side of the political
| spectrum to claim the right to unfettered access to secrets.
| MattGaiser wrote:
| Because it's not "non-public" information but classified
| information that's the problem.
|
| Why would this investigation be classified?
|
| If you read the original piece in the Atlantic, Goldberg didn't
| publish much of the information initially thinking it would be
| irresponsible to do so.
| DisjointedHunt wrote:
| So the Guardian getting access to internal White House
| deliberations and a FORENSIC INVESTIGATION, is not cause for
| concern but everything that people you don't like , is,
| apparently.
|
| This is precisely why the political divide is impossible to
| bridge. Everything I said indicates seriousness about
| classified information or even simply unauthorized access to
| information in such a cavalier manner that it's published in
| the Guardian. Somehow, calling it out is more problematic
| than achieving a political end.
| MattGaiser wrote:
| No, you are not differentiating between information that is
| classified and information that is merely non-public.
|
| This is a difference in law, there is a difference in duty
| of care (although even then, the Trump administration is
| responsible in both cases), and an enormous in impact
| (mission failure vs Trump embarrassment).
| DisjointedHunt wrote:
| The DNI has officially declared that no classified
| information was in the signal thread. The whole thread is
| public now.
|
| The information about a sensitive investigation, clearly
| not meant for anyone outside the White House seems to be
| available freely to the Guardian. How come? Where is the
| line if any?
| MrMcCall wrote:
| "Look, forget the myths the media's created about the White House
| --the truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got
| out of hand." --from All the President's Men
|
| That was over 50 years ago, and now no one over a 90 IQ thinks
| these guys are bright.
| Agraillo wrote:
| Good point. On the Daily podcast (NYT) Goldberg was asked what
| was in the chat after the strikes. He said a plenty of
| different emojis. Goldberg's reaction was also interesting, he
| thought at the moment that every workplace is the same.
| Personally I'd expect some serious mood and attitude when there
| are so much at stake including people lives, but humans are
| humans
| rayiner wrote:
| > According to the White House, the number was erroneously saved
| during a "contact suggestion update" by Waltz's iPhone, which one
| person described as the function where an iPhone algorithm adds a
| previously unknown number to an existing contact that it detects
| may be related.
|
| Politics aside, these auto-suggestions are a landmine in business
| contexts and should be disabled by IT where possible. Sometimes
| I'll be sending emails including both my client and internal team
| and the lawyers for the other side. The phone will decade that
| these email addresses are related in some way. So next time I
| want to send an internal strategy email to my client and the
| team, the app will helpfully suggest copying opposing counsel.
| Not great.
| doright wrote:
| I wonder if this will be high level enough an incident to make
| companies end those opt-out contact autosuggestions in
| messenger apps for good.
|
| Then again if they had been ended by now, we might never have
| heard of this SNAFU.
| joenot443 wrote:
| I think in the very best case we _might_ see Apple/G adding
| an option into the OS to disable contact autosuggestion, but
| I wouldn't hold my breath.
|
| When a feature is mildly useful 95% of the time and an
| awkward footgun 5%, I think it still remains a good addition,
| but one that can be turned off if necessary.
|
| Double checking the recipients in a chat discussing national
| security is a super low bar and the parties involved are
| rightfully embarrassed by this one. I'm not letting them
| blame it on the product managers
| jmull wrote:
| I don't see how this "clears" Waltz.
|
| For one thing, as far as I know, the iphone doesn't attach phone
| numbers to contacts automatically, it just asks. The article
| claims the iphone did it, but I think Waltz must have.
|
| Also, this why you don't use a random group chat app for national
| security conversations. Your general app is designed for
| engagement which includes building out the social network. Of
| course it's going to err on the side of inclusion, when here you
| want to err on the side of exclusion.
|
| For national security, contact info would be vetted, verified,
| and strictly up-to-date. There would be multiple guards that
| would prevent a thoughtless tap months earlier from leading to
| the wrong person being given national security information.
|
| It sure is frightening that these bozos are in charge of things
| that have high stakes.
| sparky_z wrote:
| It was Hegseth, not Waltz, that suddenly started dropping
| classified operations details (without promoting) into a group
| chat that was just set up for the purpose of planning for a
| future meeting. He's the one who really fucked up here.
| infecto wrote:
| I don't like Waltz but I think this is the better take that
| has no really taken hold well in the media. Why was Hegseth
| posting information that should be in a need to know basis
| and to folks that have no benefit know before hand. This is
| the primary issue and I believe a disqualification for being
| SECDEF. Others would get immediately fired and a healthy
| chance of being prosecuted.
|
| The other issue is having this chat outside of formal means.
| I am not as well educated but having civilians that serve at
| the pleasure of the president I would assume must follow some
| rules around formal and recorded communications.
| ethbr1 wrote:
| Hegseth's primary qualification for being the Secretary of
| Defense is being a yes-man who owes the administration for
| his job.
|
| It's not surprising that given a choice between {serving
| the needs of the military} and {serving the needs of the
| administration}, he defaulted to the latter.
| hnaccount_rng wrote:
| I agree with Hegseth not being qualified and everything,
| so +1 for the snark, but.. how was this "serving the
| needs of the administration"?
| HenryBemis wrote:
| (I assume/will try to interpret as...) Meaning that the
| role has some rules (written and unwritten). I can gossip
| about what went wrong at work today when out drinking
| with friends without breaking any laws/contracts, or I
| can just shut up and not gossip/brag that "today we
| killed 100 people", especially when celebrating the death
| of people.
| ethbr1 wrote:
| In this particular situation, Hegseth had two choices.
|
| 1. Limit what was shared in the Signal group to non-
| operational details and refer all involved to their
| secured systems.
|
| 2. Make it easier for everyone else and just post the
| details directly in the chat.
|
| He chose the one that he thought would curry favor with
| other members of the administration.
| nailer wrote:
| I thought his primary qualification for being the
| secretary of defence was:
|
| ----
|
| Being a Major in the Minnesota Army National Guard.
|
| And the following Overseas deployments:
|
| - Guantanamo Bay (2004-2005): He served as a second
| lieutenant with a security platoon, guarding detainees.
|
| - Iraq (2005-2006): He deployed with the 3rd Brigade of
| the 101st Airborne Division, serving as an infantry
| platoon leader in Baghdad and later as a civil-military
| operations officer in Samarra.
|
| - Afghanistan (2011-2012): He served as a captain and
| senior counterinsurgency instructor at the
| Counterinsurgency Training Center in Kabul.
|
| Awards
|
| Hegseth earned two Bronze Star Medals for his service in
| Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as a Combat Infantryman
| Badge, which recognizes soldiers who have directly
| engaged in ground combat. He also received two Army
| Commendation Medals and the National Defense Service
| Medal with Bronze Service Star, along with Expert
| Infantryman and Combat Infantryman badges.
|
| His military career spanned from 2002 to 2021, including
| active duty and time in the Individual Ready Reserve.
|
| In addition to his military service, Hegseth holds a
| Bachelor of Arts in Politics from Princeton University
| and a Master of Public Policy from Harvard University's
| John F. Kennedy School of Government, which complement
| his practical experience with academic credentials
| relevant to leadership and policy.
|
| -------
|
| You can argue he's good at the job or bad at the job.
|
| I would have no issue if you said he was completely
| incompetent.
|
| But saying that hs a 'primary qualification is being a
| yes man' is a ridiculous laughable argument.
| dagw wrote:
| You do not seriously believe that he got hired based
| solely or even primarily on that, let's face it, quite
| mediocre military service resume.
| ethbr1 wrote:
| I realize much has been made of his military service.
|
| If he was the only reserve O-4 with combat experience we
| could find to serve as Secretary of Defense, then yes,
| that would be a primary qualification.
|
| Given the rank, that's ridiculous. Ergo his primary
| qualification is something else.
| nailer wrote:
| A decent military record is table stakes, if he did not
| have a reasonable military record at all he would not
| have the position - so that's his primary qualification.
| People that were close to the administration that didn't
| have a military record would not have been eligible for
| the job.
|
| Not you, but many others were arguing at the time that
| his primary qualification was 'being a Fox News anchor',
| which is infuriating. It's not - it's his military
| service. There are many people that are Fox News anchors,
| none of them were eligible for the job because they do
| not have a military record.
|
| I have no argument with claiming he won the job because
| of his connections.
| sorcerer-mar wrote:
| It's actually not table stakes nor a matter of
| eligibility. We've had several SecDefs, all dramatically
| more competent than Hegseth, who did not have any
| military experience.
| ethbr1 wrote:
| Recently, from review: William J. Perry
| (94-97, 2+5yr Army) William Cohen (97-01)
| Robert Gates (06-11, 2yr AF) Leon Panetta (11-13,
| 2yr Army) Chuck Hagel (13-15, 1yr Army)*
| Ash Carter (15-17)
|
| * To be fair, Hagel's year was volunteering to be drafted
| and sent to Vietnam as an infantry squad leader
| vitus wrote:
| > We've had several SecDefs, all dramatically more
| competent than Hegseth, who did not have any military
| experience.
|
| Who do you have in mind? Carter, Cohen, and Cheney were
| the only confirmed secretaries from the past 40 years who
| fit "no military experience".
|
| There are a handful of recent secretaries with < 5 years
| of military experience who did not even reach the rank of
| Captain (e.g. Rumsfeld, Robert Gates, Panetta, Perry).
|
| To be clear: I agree with you that military experience is
| not really a qualification for the job, unless the
| individual has achieved high enough rank (i.e. General)
| to be involved in strategic planning. And certainly most
| secretaries of defense don't have that (Austin and Mattis
| are quite rare on that front, doubly so because they
| needed congressional waivers to serve in the position
| while still being active-duty military).
| sorcerer-mar wrote:
| He was on Fox being a yes man with some military
| experience
|
| Trump saw him and liked him on TV
|
| Trump made him SecDef
| nailer wrote:
| The comment you were replying to already addressed this
| point.
| sorcerer-mar wrote:
| A reasonable definition of "primary qualification" is
| that feature which most significantly narrows the set of
| candidates under consideration.
|
| There are hundreds of thousands (millions?) of people
| with a similar or greater military record.
|
| There are probably less than a dozen who have a clearer
| record of being a yes-man (by virtue of very few people
| being on TV to begin with, and even fewer willing to
| rhetorically fellate POTUS unconditionally)
|
| You intersect the two and you get Hegseth, but the
| criterion that did the heavy lifting is absolutely the
| yes-man one.
| nailer wrote:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| jmull wrote:
| You're saying that pretty much any career officer is
| qualified to be secretary of defense? Even "completely
| incompetent" ones (your words)?
|
| "...a ridiculous laughable argument"
|
| Right back at you.
| nailer wrote:
| No. I'm stating that 'being a yes man' is not this man's
| primary qualification. The comment you are relying to
| mentions this.
| jasonm23 wrote:
| > better take that has no really taken hold well in the
| media.
|
| The media ... not covering a story accurately, or with
| integrity?!
|
| Say it isn't so!
| adgjlsfhk1 wrote:
| everyone else in the chat is responsible for not shutting
| it down
| steve_adams_86 wrote:
| Yeah, ultimately they are all morons.
|
| If I was on Slack at work and someone tried sharing
| secrets I would immediately say hey, we have protocols
| for this. Now we have to rotate keys. Please follow the
| protocols. Let's walk you through it if you don't
| remember. Etc.
|
| And those are just API keys or similar data. We take it
| seriously because 1. It actually matters and 2. The habit
| will save your ass when it counts. Make it a habit
|
| These guys have not made security a habit. It doesn't
| actually matter to these guys. That's scary. This is so
| much more than access to my org's AWS services.
| immibis wrote:
| If you worked for the Trump administration, you would
| then be fired for getting in the way of what he wants.
| infecto wrote:
| Sure they are all morons and culpable but still the
| largest failure is the person who leaked details.
| goku12 wrote:
| There is something bigger at play when so many people
| make mistakes all at once. Considering the seriousness of
| the topic, wasn't there any sort of protocol or
| monitoring system that would alert them that the
| information is too privileged for that medium? I have
| seen ordinary institutions behave more sensibly. I don't
| have any experience in national security matters. But
| even as a tech professional, I would expect at least one
| dedicated official to be watching the channel for
| compliance. How does such an experienced institution make
| such fundamental mistakes?
| defrost wrote:
| > But even as a tech professional, I would expect at
| least one dedicated official to be watching the channel
| for compliance.
|
| The group already had the supposed who's who of dedicated
| security professionals .. as appointed by Trump admin, of
| course.
|
| Vice President JD Vance, senior White House staff, three
| Cabinet secretaries, and the directors of two
| Intelligence Community agencies.
|
| Oh, and Marco Rubio .. the _actual_ "acting archivist of
| the United States" responsible for ensuring that such
| conversation chains are preserved for posterity and not
| auto discarded on Signal.
|
| ~ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_government_
| group...
|
| Speaking from an allied five eyes perspective .. it was
| an amateur hour clown show of epic proportions.
|
| Followed up by Trump trashing America's intelligence
| capability on the say so of a far-right conspiracy
| theorist and 9/11 truther.
| rsfern wrote:
| I don't disagree, but I think GP means someone who is not
| a political appointee, like the non-partisan national
| security officers whose role is basically exactly what GP
| discussed. I don't know if it's usual for NSC officers to
| be included in these kinds of chats that are ostensibly
| just for coordinating secure meetings between principals
| though - maybe it should be
| defrost wrote:
| Sure, the equivilant of a professional court reporter
| with a standards enforcing role ... but that was never
| ever going to be a thing on a non SCIF casual signal
| group setup to gossip and swap fire emoji's outside of
| the official chain of defence command ...
| dionian wrote:
| Humor me here, but i thought using e2e encryption was
| less bad than other forms of communication
| trhway wrote:
| >Why was Hegseth posting information that should be in a
| need to know basis
|
| He was tripping on power (reminds any other washed out
| alcoholic talking). It was a collective orgasm in that
| chat.
| remus wrote:
| It seems reasonably likely they were using signal to avoid
| records keeping requirements and public scrutiny. If you
| found a group of employees using signal with disappearing
| messages to talk about work outside of your normal work chat
| (slack etc.) you'd be pretty suspicious, let alone if they
| were working in public office!
| ljf wrote:
| Also if you then saw colleagues discussing company secrets
| or legally privileged information on a group chat, the onus
| is on everyone in the chat to call that out as wrong.
| trhway wrote:
| >the onus is on everyone in the chat to call that out as
| wrong
|
| that would be in a group of even minimally qualified
| professionals, not the clowns who got their jobs on a
| whim of the bigger clown. You know the monkey with a
| nuclear bomb. I hope we wouldn't see how they handle the
| real bomb, and for now just the tariffs have like an
| extremely large nuke just wiped $10T+, and it isn't "just
| stock market", it is large complicated efficient
| logistics chains and trade relations that were built over
| years and were powering this civilization. To compare,
| the damage from the Ukraine war - you'd need several tens
| of nukes to produce such damage - is just around a
| "meager" $1T.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| Should be, but the US is run by cults of personality
| where they defer to people they see as their superiors -
| that is, "if Hegseth does it, it's ok, right?"
| DebtDeflation wrote:
| Most large companies monitor devices. You start GMailing
| source code to yourself, you get fired.
| HenryBemis wrote:
| A very friend of mine was going through a nasty divorce.
| Although we weren't talking about the divorce/case he set
| our messages on auto-delete. Apparently his (now, ex-wife)
| had SMS and WhatsApp messages in court to be used for her
| cased.
|
| Any 'loving message' to her from the early days ("you are
| so perfect") and any 'nasty message' to others ("oh that
| bitch!!") sent to anyone was presented in court. So for
| caution he auto-deleted even the messages that were
| innocuous, just in case it could be used against him "oh he
| wanted to spend money for a new phone/laptop, thus he has
| money, thus I will take it"
| Terr_ wrote:
| Oh, absolutely, I try to remind people that even starting
| this group chat was criminal, because it's an attempt to
| break public records laws.
| _heimdall wrote:
| 100%, we have public records requirements for a reason
| and that needs to be followed. I assume you take the same
| issue with private email servers.
| wongarsu wrote:
| Yes. This is as bad or worse than Clinton's email
| servers. It deserves to be talked about at least as long
| and investigated at least as thoroughly. Which in the
| case of Clinton involved bringing it up for nearly a
| decade, an FBI investigation, an Inspector General's
| report on the FBI's and DOJ's handling of the case and a
| three year State Department investigation. It's only fair
| to apply the same standard here
| Terr_ wrote:
| To offer a concrete example, their choice to delete
| everything after 7 days is an unambiguously worse aspect.
| Premeditated spoliation of evidence.
| brookst wrote:
| Absolutely. And it's astounding that Waltz _also_ uses
| private email for official business[1]
|
| This is a problem and it needs to be stopped.
|
| 1. https://americanoversight.org/investigation/the-trump-
| admini...
| baggachipz wrote:
| By all means, bring up something vaguely similar from ten
| years ago to somehow justify the idiotic and criminal
| actions of the current batch of clowns. Why can't people
| just say "this is bad and they deserve to be punished"?
| _heimdall wrote:
| How did I justify their actions today? I specifically
| agreed that its a problem and referenced a very public
| case where something similar happened 9 years ago and we
| _still_ haven 't done anything about it.
| baggachipz wrote:
| There was literally no point in referencing it. It's
| classic "whataboutism" and it adds nothing to the
| conversation.
| arbitrary_name wrote:
| The other commenter covered this:
|
| "in the case of Clinton involved bringing it up for
| nearly a decade, an FBI investigation, an Inspector
| General's report on the FBI's and DOJ's handling of the
| case and a three year State Department investigation.
| It's only fair to apply the same standard here"
|
| Does that clear it up for you? Do you still need
| justification to treat this seriously? Or are you a
| person unwilling to try and address poor leadership
| because of the (R) after their names?
| refurb wrote:
| From what I've gathered, Signal use was _prolific_ among
| people in this administration and the past one.
|
| I'm not surprised. My own company sends out several emails
| that Whatsapp can't be used as it's not secure, yet I get
| Whatsapp messages from leadership I work with _constantly_.
|
| People ignore directives all the time. Usually out of
| convenience.
|
| People have even called it out in a Whatsapp chat "hey
| guys, we're not supposed to use Whatsapp" and people
| usually ignore it.
| xorcist wrote:
| That's not at all what's it's like to work with
| classified data, even deep down the subcontractor chain.
| They constantly drill into you to respect data
| classification and the consequences of ignoring these
| rules. Nobody ever does what you describe.
| nailer wrote:
| The parent poster is right though, signal is permitted and
| encouraged for any discussion that would've happened over
| SMS, the issues are somebody dropping details into a
| channel meant for planning a meeting, as well as somebody
| accidentally adding somebody that should not have been
| there.
| nailer wrote:
| HN has recently adopted a habit of downmodding
| inconvenient facts to oblivion but you can easily confirm
| Signal is approved for this use yourself.
| xorcist wrote:
| We do not know for sure but this would be very unlikely.
| Several of the participants does not need to know this
| information and it should be compartmentalized.
|
| Information concerning capability or location should not
| come near unclassified networks or civilian phones.
| Somebody could drop or steal that phone or glance over a
| shoulder which could necessitate cancelling the operation
| or much worse.
| codedokode wrote:
| Nothing good comes out of keeping records so it is natural
| that people do not want to keep them.
| brookst wrote:
| Wait, what? Sarcasm or implicit "if you're a criminal"?
|
| For most people and companies record keeping is important
| and valuable.
| ralfd wrote:
| It is sometimes legally mandatory, but in what context
| does a company ever look again at old slack chats or work
| sms?
| mcintyre1994 wrote:
| None of them seemed at all surprised though, and a bunch of
| them responded positively. The group didn't act like the chat
| was just for setting up a meeting.
| wolfi1 wrote:
| Hegseth, the DUI hire?
| jmull wrote:
| Hegseth's messages were the worst but not the only ones.
| E.g., Waltz goes on to share details of targets hit.
|
| And no one ever says, "Don't share operational details in
| this chat," either before Hegseth's details message _or
| after_. It 's perfectly clear that was normal and expected.
|
| The chat starts with pulling together the group, continues
| with high-level agreement to proceed, then the details start
| dropping... You know... exactly the way work-related chats
| go. I've had innumerable work chats like this.
|
| Hegseth's own severe incompetence doesn't somehow absolve
| Waltz of his. I used "bozo" in the plural for a reason.
|
| You don't have to carry water for these idiots. They may
| nominally be on your "side", but they aren't holding up their
| end of it. They are making huge mistakes which have real
| consequences for us all. Time to start calling them out on
| it, not trying to defend them with technicalities, false
| dichotomies, and misdirection.
| crawsome wrote:
| Among all the promoted opinions that are trying to muddy
| the waters on the subject to make them seem innocent, there
| shines a beam of truth:
|
| >It's perfectly clear that was normal and expected.
|
| Their lack of protocol, lack of humility, and just lying
| about everything shows how unfit they are for leadership.
| sixothree wrote:
| > And no one ever says, "Don't share operational details in
| this chat,"
|
| The work I do isn't 1/10th as sensitive as this but we have
| this branch in our threads all the time. I can't imagine
| the carelessness required for this to happen this way.
| verelo wrote:
| It's an interesting point, but are they even allowed to
| communicate on these devices with this app? I feel that has
| to be a question with an answer and i would assume it's no?
| sorcerer-mar wrote:
| Yes they are, but explicitly _not_ for non-public DoD
| information. It 's for stuff like "hey get to a SCIF so we
| can talk" and otherwise replacing what you'd normally use
| SMS for.
| saghm wrote:
| I don't think we need to go out of our way to exonerate any
| of them. "Really fucking up" isn't something exclusive.
| elihu wrote:
| Hegseth's posts were the most egregious, but there was a lot
| of sensitive information that could have been inferred from
| the rest of it -- basically that the U.S. was planning some
| sort of attack against the Houthis, they debated whether to
| do it or not and chose to go ahead, and the approximate
| timing of the attack is implied by the timing of meetings and
| decision windows.
|
| https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2025/03/politics/yemen-
| war-p...
| ncr100 wrote:
| They were all still breaking Presidential Records Act. They
| knew it.
|
| Including Waltz.
|
| They deserve punishment at the Executive level.
|
| I want a President who follows laws.
| miroljub wrote:
| Are you sure it war not intentional?
|
| They wanted to send a message to the recipients without going
| through an official channels. What is a better way than adding
| a journalist to the "secret" group to "leak" it?
| more_corn wrote:
| I'm no apologist, but it sounds like he used an approved tool and
| made a human error. The key thing is that the tool is approved.
| maest wrote:
| What is an apologist but someone who provides excuses and
| justifications for someone's behaviour?
| outer_web wrote:
| ... for this purpose?
| const_cast wrote:
| Yes, and if you make a "human error" that is really, really bad
| then you should be fired.
|
| I mean, Jesus Christ when I was 16 and working at a Dairy Queen
| I saw people get fired for their drawer coming up a dollar
| short. Why are we holding fast food cashiers to a higher
| standard than our top government officials? Does that
| legitimately sound okay to anyone?
| aigen000 wrote:
| Signal is an approved tool, and was downloaded on his govt
| device.
|
| Discussing classified information using Signal is not approved.
| I'm no lawyer but it probably violates the Federal Records act,
| as messages were set to expire on a 30 day schedule.
| simonbarker87 wrote:
| Is this comparable to Hilary Clinton's email issue out of
| interest? (not American so only have a passing familiarity with
| much of this)
| outer_web wrote:
| It is comparable but not similar. Clinton had a private server
| for handling diplomatic emails. The vast majority of traffic
| was unclassified, the classified material was later deemed to
| be improperly marked (except three documents iirc).
|
| This case is a single incident (that we are aware of) where a
| clearance holder manually bypassed security and tracking by
| transcribing attack plans to a commercial chat platform.
| autoexec wrote:
| Hillary also had her phones destroyed (by hammer) so that
| those messages couldn't be saved for the record, much like
| Signal was set to destroy messages so they couldn't be saved.
| outer_web wrote:
| Wouldn't they be on the server?
| autoexec wrote:
| The server had POP3 support and one of the email accounts
| being used had been set to delete messages after 60 days.
| In the investigation FBI director James Comey said there
| was "no doubt that the work-related emails were removed
| electronically from the email system". There were more
| than a dozen cell phones and several ipads that were used
| to check the email accounts but most of them couldn't be
| obtained to check for downloaded email or forensic
| evidence of classified email, because hammers were used
| to destroy the evidence.
| outer_web wrote:
| Definitely seems like an electronic records issue if they
| weren't being archived. I'm wary of half-truths like "the
| email was destroyed" without mention of the other places
| the email might exist.
|
| Didn't Comey say Clinton wasn't found to have obstructed
| justice?
| autoexec wrote:
| That's true, they didn't have enough evidence to prove
| intent. Although having a low level staffer who had no
| business providing government IT services destroy the
| phones was unheard of, violated the law on how government
| records should have been handled, and highly suspicious
| there are also possible "valid" reasons for it, like
| protecting the information in those devices from being
| able to be recovered by anyone who dug the devices out of
| the trash, and the destruction of emails after 60 days
| could have just been to save space rather than
| specifically to hide evidence.
|
| They also decided not to go after charges for the nobody
| staffer who did the deed, and controversially Hillary
| didn't face any consequences with the FBI saying: "To be
| clear, this is not to suggest that in similar
| circumstances, a person who engaged in this activity
| would face no consequences. To the contrary, those
| individuals are often subject to security or
| administrative sanctions. But that is not what we are
| deciding now."
| outer_web wrote:
| If only there were information systems that supported the
| discussion of classified information without the risk of
| including a random contact.
| 4d4m wrote:
| Anyone remember being told Signal was an unsecured app and not to
| use it?
|
| Rules for thee but not for me. Pepperidge farm remembers.
| eightman wrote:
| Or Waltz has been leaking to Goldberg and every other journalist
| in his contacts and did it by accident.
| thinkingemote wrote:
| I have been reading spy thrillers recently and my pet toy
| theory was that this was an attempt to unmask a mole. Leak
| information and see who publishes it.
|
| Politicians regularly intentionally leak information they want
| leaked, and politicians also encounter leaks that they don't
| want leaked. Perhaps Goldberg did the only thing he could - he
| identified the trap.
| amai wrote:
| "because the White House had authorized the use of Signal,
| largely because there is no alternative platform to text in real
| time across different agencies, two people familiar with the
| matter said.
|
| Previous administrations, including the Biden White House, did
| not develop an alternative platform to Signal, one of the people
| said."
|
| Is that true? There is no alternative platform to text in real
| time across different agencies? And nobody had a problem with
| that?
| CapricornNoble wrote:
| Most of the Generals and Colonels I've worked with use
| government-issued smartphones with access to their government
| Outlook account, and send encrypted group emails back and forth
| that way.
| hermitcrab wrote:
| Surely the real question is why they were using Signal, rather
| than a secure government network?
| HenryBemis wrote:
| Because now _this_ party is in power and controls the systems
| and information, but in 4/8/12 years _that_ party will be in
| power and a good-willing-mistake-making-bureaucrat may leak
| these 'by accident/mistake/etc' if they are properly recorded
| on a gov-controlled system.
|
| But the auto-delete-after-1-week messages from Signal would
| never be recovered (unless someone is logging all that data and
| in the future will be able to crack it).
| fragmede wrote:
| There is No Such Agency doing that, and definitely not in
| Utah
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utah_Data_Center
| nightfly wrote:
| Can't follow FOIA requests if there is no record of the
| conversation existing
| hypeatei wrote:
| I doubt FOIA is even a concern considering this is classified
| information. I think they're more worried about
| investigations by a future DOJ or by a future Congress since
| they can look at this information (if it's not deleted, that
| is)
| mpalmer wrote:
| FOIA requests can be made against formerly-classified
| information. But it's beside the point; any(?) non-
| classified information/communiques in government are
| subject to FOIA. Plenty of non-classified info in that chat
| and the ones we still aren't privy to.
| zzrrt wrote:
| I think the idea is they would configure Signal to delete
| messages after a few weeks, which bypasses FOIA because
| the records may not exist by the time someone requests
| them.
| iAMkenough wrote:
| Doesn't "bypass" FOIA, it violates it. Even if the app is
| configured to do it for them automatically, they're
| actively deleting public records and violating the law by
| doing so.
| nkozyra wrote:
| > I doubt FOIA is even a concern considering this is
| classified information
|
| A bit of a conundrum then since multiple folks in the admin
| said it wasn't classified.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| Lack of oversight, too much power, failing checks and balances.
|
| It's not unique either; the former prime minister of the
| Netherlands, Rutte, insists on using a Nokia phone and plain
| text messages, refusing to divulge what is in those messages
| and deleting them as there's limited space, thus not adhering
| to any archival requirements.
| nindalf wrote:
| Plaintext SMS in the year of our lord 2025. People will do
| literally anything other than following the fucking law and
| recording their correspondence.
| ungreased0675 wrote:
| Because a secure government messaging platform doesn't exist.
| The DoD is horrible at buying modern software.
|
| Still not an excuse, because the people with the power to fix
| it are using Signal instead.
| spacebanana7 wrote:
| Reminds me of how the British government runs on WhatsApp.
| khafra wrote:
| You can joke about Microsoft Teams not being a real messaging
| platform, but running it on a network that's physically
| separated from the Internet is quite effective at keeping
| random journalists out of your chat groups.
| codedokode wrote:
| But how do you connect to this network from a mobile phone,
| for example, when playing golf?
| sterlind wrote:
| install teams on your phone? you'll need to cave a bit
| and allow VPN access from the phone to the Teams server,
| though.
| NetRunnerSu wrote:
| German government seems to be trying the Matrix network.
| Hamuko wrote:
| My guess that the actual secure government messaging services
| are a pain to use vs. Signal that's on your phone in your
| pocket, and these people don't really value security over their
| own convenience. They did share some of the details over actual
| secure systems ("you should have a statement of conclusions
| with taskings per the Presidents guidance this morning in your
| high side inboxes"), but I guess when the attacks were
| starting, it was easier to just blast them on Signal.
| philk10 wrote:
| One of the guidelines from Project 2025 was to do this
| tjarrett wrote:
| Are you sure? I was shocked by this comment and Googled it...
|
| https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/signal-project-2025/
| billfor wrote:
| Because CISA recommended it and it's preinstalled on some
| government phones.
|
| https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/cisa-urges-sw...
| Raudius wrote:
| That only explains that Signal was considered safe and
| allowed on their phones not that it was an authorized medium
| for sharing confidential information.
| mft_ wrote:
| Genuine question: I get that there's usually an
| expected/different process, and (obvs) the ability to add the
| wrong person is a problem (!) but is there a fundamental
| practical reason that their using Signal is/was a problem?
| saulpw wrote:
| The reason that there's an "expected" process is because the
| people who were hired to think deeply about security got
| together and, for a bunch of reasons including "(obvs) the
| ability to add the wrong person is a problem", decided that
| the process should be something other than Signal. I'm not
| sure if we know all of the reasons they made that decision,
| but I think we can infer a few:
|
| - all communication must be stored for legal purposes
|
| - all communication must be on secure government hardware
|
| - the entire security infrastructure must be operated by the
| government
|
| Which of these aren't fundamental and practical?
| AndrewKemendo wrote:
| Former Intelligence officer here.
|
| Cause SIPR, JWICS, GIANT etc... are nearly impossible to access
| - to the extent where for SCI info (which is arguably the level
| of data they were passing) they constrain you to having to
| communicate in a certified SCIF
|
| The SecDef has a bunch of SCIFs but even NSC staff don't to the
| same degree.
|
| People pass TS/SCI data outside of the system regularly -
| congress is notorious for this and I have personally had multi
| year operations shut down because a congressman talked about it
| at a hearing.
|
| I know of plenty of parking lot "SCIF" and sneakernet SCI
| conversations because time was an issue
|
| The reality is this admin doesn't care about the structures
| that the national security community is statuatorily mandated
| to use, but there's nobody that is going to do anything to them
| about deviating.
|
| Classified networks suck to use, anyone who can get around it
| does. The fact that its the secdef and nsc and they got busted
| just demonstrates that they view their behavior as more
| important than the system.
|
| Left to the viewer to determine if thats a good tradoff
| zamadatix wrote:
| SCIF (Wikipedia): A sensitive compartmented information
| facility (SCIF /skIf/), in United States military, national
| security/national defense and intelligence parlance, is an
| enclosed area within a building that is used to process
| sensitive compartmented information (SCI) types of classified
| information.
| RichardCA wrote:
| The recent PBS Frontline on the Jack Teixeira / Discord
| leaks provides an excellent primer on how classified
| systems work these days.
|
| https://youtu.be/AkgkBEuEHwU
| oyashirochama wrote:
| The thing is, it's up to the official classification officer
| to decide on how far is too far for classification down and
| this administration loves to short man everything so likely
| they decided it wasn't an issue, but it is, and someone
| should be blamed in my opinion since that is that official's
| job.
|
| You can go around legally too just ask what is and isn't
| considered classified by derivative.
| foundart wrote:
| According to the article: " the White House had authorized the
| use of Signal, largely because there is no alternative platform
| to text in real time across different agencies, two people
| familiar with the matter said."
| qq66 wrote:
| The higher level story here is that the US government is simply
| unable to build software. You'll notice that over the last 10
| years there have been classified records scandals from
| politicians of both parties: it's because the US government
| doesn't have any communications tools even 1% as usable as
| anything from the iOS App Store.
| croes wrote:
| They have such software, but you can't simply delete messages
| lazide wrote:
| The entire concept of using a mobile device to deal with state
| secrets is insane.
| cheschire wrote:
| "Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether they could,
| they didn't stop to think if they should." - Dr. Ian Malcolm,
| Jurassic Park
| jimmydoe wrote:
| Usability is overrated, or human are spoiled.
|
| End of day, you just need to communicate, most software, how
| ever outdated, should be sufficient.
|
| It's a user problem, blaming software is a distraction.
| bearjaws wrote:
| I describe this as the "The TikTok Paradox"
|
| When you design a feature for a business app, it has to be
| immculate, brain dead easy to use, and be explained 9 times
| in 3 different training seminars before anyone will figure it
| out.
|
| Meanwhile, if the new hit filter on TikTok was buried under a
| hidden search, with a feature toggle, consent form and
| rotating secret password, end users would figure it out in 5
| minutes.
|
| As you say, people are spoiled.
| jgilias wrote:
| No, that's not the higher level story here. The higher level
| story is that the US is currently led by irresponsible
| imbeciles.
| getlawgdon wrote:
| Not merely imbeciles but imbeciles enacting a plan to own
| power and obliterate everything except for elite right wing
| extremists. This includes obliterating the non-white Trumper
| imbeciles and lower socioeconomic imbecile Trunpers who have
| not even the slightest clue that they're just servile tools.
| qq66 wrote:
| That's the object level story that is obvious. The declining
| capabilities of the US government are not as obvious
| _heimdall wrote:
| The problem isn't in making "bad" software. The government has
| very specific requirements for communication related to
| security and preservation/documentation. They need
| communication tools that run off the public internet and
| maintain a detailed record of every message sent.
|
| The problem today is that some (many?) politicians either don't
| understand or agree with those goals and pick more convenient
| tools that they may have been used to as a civilian.
| bluedino wrote:
| It's really no different than your company CEO storing
| confidential documents on their personal DropBox. It was the
| easiest place for them to put it.
| namdnay wrote:
| why would this be the higher level story? The US government
| doesn't build guns either, but they're capable of buying the
| appropriate one from the market.
|
| There are more than enough enterprise chats out there with
| security levels ranging from "good enough if you trust a major
| US corp" (Teams DoD) to "complete paranoia" (finance
| communication apps with on-premise encryption/decryption
| modules plugged into your HSM)
| zip1234 wrote:
| The higher level story is that the administration deliberately
| used an app that circumvents records laws, lied about it under
| oath, and then did not take any accountability whatsoever for
| their actions. "Carelessness is contagious"
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| That's a sorry excuse, one of these guys was part of this
| Signal chat on their mobile device _while in Russia_... an
| absolutely foolish move regardless of UX.
|
| There was nothing necessary about the conversation that
| couldn't wait for a secure location. The government will go as
| far to set up a secure comms room in employees homes if needed,
| it's not like they don't know how to secure communication.
|
| A lot of us have had to work within specific constraints for
| data security, I've had to make hour long trips because I
| forgot a secure laptop in my office. No one would have died if
| I did some work on my personal device, but I still went out of
| my way to follow procedure.
|
| These people have the self control of toddlers.
| neuroelectron wrote:
| This is part of the reason I don't keep contacts on my iPhone
| anymore.
| whoisthemachine wrote:
| It's interesting and funny from a tech perspective that auto-
| suggestions on iPhone got him.
|
| It's also proof that 1) security processes are important for a
| reason and 2) don't discuss information you don't want getting
| out on a consumer device (or really on any internet connected
| device) and 3) these guys' plan of using signal to avoid record
| keeping was foolish and stupid, more than just because of their
| silly fear that Democrats would release their records (that would
| require Democrats growing a spine).
| troyvit wrote:
| > these guys' plan of using signal to avoid record keeping was
| foolish and stupid, more than just because of their silly fear
| that Democrats would release their records (that would require
| Democrats growing a spine).
|
| s/was/is. As in -- they're going to keep using Signal.
|
| And yeah it is all for naught because as you say, there is no
| sign the dems as a group will grow a spine.
| kjellsbells wrote:
| Even if the democrats received a sudden vertebrae infusion,
| they hold no levers of power. One might ask where the spines
| are of the Republicans who are in a position to apply
| pressure from the inside. Trumpism may die due to pressure
| from the outside, but it seems far more likely that it will
| be taken down from the inside, eg internecine billionaire
| arguments, or a congressional palace coup.
| troyvit wrote:
| > One might ask where the spines are of the Republicans who
| are in a position to apply pressure from the inside.
|
| Oooh I actually think that's the question that history will
| ask. We've seen groups choose party over country before,
| but I can't think of a time in my life where it was to this
| extent.
| whoisthemachine wrote:
| > s/was/is. As in -- they're going to keep using Signal.
|
| If that does turn out to be the case then I am certain this
| won't be the last time they inadvertently share information.
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