Top Trump officials text secret Yemen airstrike plans to journo in Signal SNAFU Senior Trump administration officials used the messaging app Signal to discuss detailed plans to attack Houthi rebels in Yemen – and accidentally added a journalist to the group in which they chatted. That scribe was Jeffrey Goldberg, editor in chief at The Atlantic, who on March 11 was invited by US National Security Advisor …
But the Pumpkin Hitler and Muscolini weren't involved so "the party is golden". They'll blame it all on a scapegoat rather than dealing with the fact that the whole lot of them act like children when it comes to using technology, choosing to spread screaming tantrums and rants instead of any kind of plans and protocols for how they intend the government to function with all these cuts. If all the departments of government are to be disbanded, what, pray tell, are the Congressmen and Senators in the US managing and doing to deserve an office in government?
Let's see your bullet point lists with explanations by morning, people - minimum 5 maximum 7 points per list, or you're fired.
Good point - has Musk sent them an email too? Strikes me as very much needed, and throwing them on the street would (a) save a massive amount of money and (b) make no discernible difference to the actual functioning of the department (well, OK, it would most likely improve it).
It seems that Mike Waltz has admitted that he did invite the journalist himself.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/25/mike-waltz-yemen-plans-breach-signal-group
"Donald Trump’s national security adviser, Michael Waltz, said on Tuesday he takes “full responsibility” for the group chat of senior administration officials that inadvertently included a journalist and leaked highly sensitive information about planned airstrikes in Yemen."
But what gets me about this, is that there have been loads of statements that no classified information was shared on the group chat. So, let me get this straight, the USA's Vice President, Secretary of State, Director of the CIA, National Security Advisor, and Head of National Intelligence got together to discuss bombing a foreign country and did not post anything classified on it? Seriously, what were they doing? Where did they discuss the classified parts?
And frankly, I would be interested to see the invitation, were the attendees warned not to discuss classified information? did it state that the group chat was for unclassified comments only?
@Eclectic Man
"But what gets me about this, is that there have been loads of statements that no classified information was shared on the group chat. So, let me get this straight, the USA's Vice President, Secretary of State, Director of the CIA, National Security Advisor, and Head of National Intelligence got together to discuss bombing a foreign country and did not post anything classified on it? Seriously, what were they doing? Where did they discuss the classified parts?"
Parts of what was said concerned their opinions of Europe freeloading off them but the US being the only one really capable of dealing with the issue. Comments over if it is worth doing it now or trying to sort out the public image of the problem before doing it. Apparently it was mentioned that classified information will be sent to them through secure channels (not signal) but we dont know if actual highly classified information was sent over signal (journalist claims yes, gov claims no. Not a surprise there).
Also try and refrain from excusing and gaslighting. There's a good chap.
@AC
"Read it, and weep."
Why weep? That was an awesome read and I bet a fair few americans will be proud of such a good move. Europe hopefully recognising the positive of hitting those terrorists. Assuming that is the whole chat log it seems to be a damp squib and just very embarrassing a journalist got invited.
However that isnt my call obviously as to if any of this is supposed to be some sort of national security top secret information or not.
"refrain from excusing and gaslighting"
Reading that whole exchange I do not see any need for anyone to excuse what was said, only that it looks really bad (and is stupid) to have added a journalist. I did like the emojis from Waltz after the confirmed strike.
@ChodeMonkey
"This was an Operational Security disaster. Brave men were put at risk and could have died. Extremely damaging behaviour by the officials involved."
Eh? It is an embarrassment that a journalist was invited to the chat and shouldnt have happened. But this information is so top secret and confidential the Atlantic posted it? Instead of agents turning up at the journalists office, confiscating his computers/devices and probably taking him as well shouting national security at anyone who asks.
What brave men were put at risk? Seriously? From what the Atlantic posted as the chat logs? By posting it I get the feeling the Atlantic has just destroyed the idea that highly secret information was shared. Unless there is more to it or somehow the US gov has deemed something within the conversation some sort of highly classified information I think this might have torpedoed the claims.
Hell I would be up for more of these exchanges being released, it was a good read and enthusiastic about doing the job.
“But this information is so top secret and confidential the Atlantic posted it? Instead of agents turning up at the journalists office, confiscating his computers/devices and probably taking him as well shouting national security at anyone who asks.”
Because the Atlantic checked with the US gov whether it was classified or not and they stuck with the line that it wasn’t. If they said it was then various senior cabinet officials would also have to face charges for the security breach as well as for perjury in light of what they said under oath.
“What brave men were put at risk?”
Umm, the aircrew that flew the bombing missions, for example. Say the information that the US was en route to bomb the Houthis had been leaked to Russia or Iran before the mission had been completed. If they chose to act on it, they could combine it with their own intelligence, identify where the strike would be and warn the Houthis, which would make it easier for them to target and bring down the US aircraft. That would be a nice feather in the cap for Iran and the Houthis.
This will also have a serious impact on intelligence sharing between various nations, if the US can’t be trusted to keep classified data secure. This in turn will have a detrimental effect on identifying upcoming terrorist attacks. So putting everyone at additional risk.
Just one thing I’m wondering though. If the information that was leaked in the Signal chats wasn’t classified then why has information about two past flights of Venezuelan migrants been classified? They weren’t on any active bombing mission. Surely they should have either both been classified or not.
@AC
"Because the Atlantic checked with the US gov whether it was classified or not and they stuck with the line that it wasn’t. If they said it was then various senior cabinet officials would also have to face charges for the security breach as well as for perjury in light of what they said under oath."
Yes. And in posting it people can read the messages and see that it really isnt as exciting as some people made out and didnt contain the detail claimed by Goldberg. What was a great story to embarrass Trumps administration for accidentally adding the journalist has devolved into anti-Trumpers trying to big up the messages and pro-Trumpers seemingly more impressed with their leaderships attitudes.
Unless there is something more the only real complaint (which is very valid and should be the thing focused on) is this journalist was added to the chat. This is an actual and real thing that didnt need fabricating for people to complain about members of the Trump government.
Unfortunately by over egging it this is at risk of turning into another 'get Trump' stupidity people will brush off. This perception will not be helped with the randomly assigned judge being Boasberg who is already in a jurisdiction fight with the executive. Nor the questioning by Colorado Senator Mike Bennet going off at the CIA director but arguing against a straw man that the director had to keep correcting.
You've skipped over the point about the Russians or Iranians getting hold of the chat data, I see.
What if one of their personal phones that they were using for this chat was infected with malware? Especially considering one of the participants was in Russia at the time of the conversation on a diplomatic visit.
US state department and security officials routinely require that any phone turned on by a journalist in hostile nations is then not used for the remainder of a trip aboard US government aircraft (Source: a BBC journalist who has been on such flights numerous times) because it's widely assumed that if you're in a hostile nation with a phone they will be able to break into it so you should assume it's compromised.
Also whilst Signal brings a level of security to a conversation (not enough but some) it doesn't protect the handset the data is being processed on once it arrives.
All this means that it would be trivial for a hostile foreign actor to get the data off the phones, and pass it on to the Houthis, who have the ability to start downing planes left, right, and centre, and perhaps even launch a missile or two at the carrier fleet if they are given sufficient notice about where and when the attacks would happen.
At the very least the fact that the conversation included a statement that one of the targeted terrorists was at his usual hiding spot and they would therefore hit him would have been sufficient for him to get the hell out of there before he was targeted, AND it tells the Houthis that they have a source sufficiently close to their leadership passing intelligence to be able to know where senior figures would be at certain times.
You have to take a larger view of these kinds of conversations, intelligence gathering for any force (police, military, investigatory etc) is all about snippets of information that you build up into a wider picture by joining it all together. There's plenty of valuable information in this conversation for anyone to add to their intelligence picture which may assist them in the future and the US Administration was stupid to insist that it wasn't important or classified.
You've skipped over the point about the Russians or Iranians getting hold of the chat data, I see.
No, I don't think you do. What do you think they might have learned from the Atlantic''s leak that they didn't know already?
All this means that it would be trivial for a hostile foreign actor to get the data off the phones, and pass it on to the Houthis, who have the ability to start downing planes left, right, and centre, and perhaps even launch a missile or two at the carrier fleet if they are given sufficient notice about where and when the attacks would happen.
And.. did they? But the Houthis have been yeeting missiles & drones at US warships for months now, and the only carrier based aircraft to have been shot down so far was an F-18.. by the USS Gettysburg. And then when the USS Truman show was heading home, it rammed a merchent ship outside Port Said. And I hope the US isn't going to try to bill Europe for that embarrasment.
But the chat didn't go into any details, but did mention F-16s, which aren't carrier aircraft. It didn't mention where the aircraft & drones would be taking off from either, although the Houthis could probably work that out based on observing previous air, drone and missile strikes. It was hardly a war plan. It also might indicate carriers are going the way of the battleship. Once upon a time, a CBG offshore acted as a deterent. Now, groups like the Houthis seem to see it as an opportunity for a spot of target practice. They're just not taking the threat, the might, the majesty of the US Navy very seriously.. But that isn't suprising when groups like the Houthis or their Sunni brothers are basically a suicidal death cult. Plus they'll probably get a big earthly reward from their sponsors, should they manage to sink or disable a carrier.
At the very least the fact that the conversation included a statement that one of the targeted terrorists was at his usual hiding spot and they would therefore hit him would have been sufficient for him to get the hell out of there before he was targeted, AND it tells the Houthis that they have a source sufficiently close to their leadership passing intelligence to be able to know where senior figures would be at certain times.
Again, and? The claim was actually the Houthi's top missile man was visting his girlfriend. It didn't name the target, and given we've been putting warheads on foreheads for months, the Houthi's leadership should have been well aware they were targets. AND given previous assassinations, would have known their movements were being observed.
Why weep?
Well, the cavalier way decisions to kill people are taken. 'Positive ID of their missile guy walking into his girlfriends apartment. The building is now collapsed.' (How many other, innocent, people were killed in that one building?) The statements of when aircraft and drones will be taking off and how long before they reach their targets would certainly have been of interest to the Houthis. Had it been available to them, then their air defences would have been ready and the human targets would have at least tried to move to safety, making the action more difficult and perilous. And nothing at all about minimising civilian deaths and injuries, no concern for innocent people living there at all.
POTUS claims he wants peace, but he seems to restrict this to Ukraine (by as far as I can make out, forcing capitulation to Putin) and Gaza (again by forcing capitulation this time to Netanyahu). Their efforts to create peace in Yemen, Sudan or elsewhere seem to be either non-existent or just not reported. It may be that he is only interested in peace where he can make money out of it, which IMHO is not the moral high ground. Please let me know if there are major peace negotiations led by the USA going on to resolve conflicts where the USA does not see a major national 'business opportunity'.
@Eclectic Man
"Well, the cavalier way decisions to kill people are taken."
As in trying to sink ships as these terrorists try to do? Should the chat include the ID of the guy? Maybe the gfs name? Maybe classified intel on the apartment building? This was a chat channel so why would they be filling in details for outsiders?
"would certainly have been of interest to the Houthis"
And that would have been a huge screwup which isnt close to what happened.
"And nothing at all about minimising civilian deaths and injuries, no concern for innocent people living there at all."
How do you know? Would that be under classified intel?
"POTUS claims he wants peace, but he seems to restrict this to Ukraine"..."Their efforts to create peace in Yemen, Sudan or elsewhere seem to be either non-existent or just not reported."
And yet after being the President for a short time he is already striking at these terrorists. Are you now expecting him to bring world peace? And in 3 months? You must have a really high opinion of Trumps abilities to sort out his predecessors messes and all that.
@codejunky:
Me: "And nothing at all about minimising civilian deaths and injuries, no concern for innocent people living there at all."
You: How do you know? Would that be under classified intel?
I was referring to the chat group messages, and I know because I read the full article on the link which contains the whole transcript of the chat and there was nothing about minimising, or even acknowledging the possibility of civilian deaths. If asked, I am sure the US leaders would claim to be 'the good guys' and the Houthis, 'the bad guys'. My belief is that 'the good guys' should seek to minimise death and destruction, particularly of innocent civilians.
I am not expecting Trump to bring peace to anyone, frankly. He may impose capitulation to Russia on Ukraine, and some sort of 'ethnic cleansing' or mass deportation from Gaza on the Palestinians but I seriously doubt that will bring peace in the medium or long term to either of those locations. Any ceasefires he does negotiate or achieve in his current term are very likely to fail completely once he leaves the White House. I really hope he proves me completely wrong, but I fear that the closest he will get is to make a desert and call it peace.
Well, the cavalier way decisions to kill people are taken. 'Positive ID of their missile guy walking into his girlfriends apartment. The building is now collapsed.' (How many other, innocent, people were killed in that one building?)
Possibly 52 given the Houthis reported 53 dead from the strike. But it's kind of admitting a war crime given the strike was on an apartment building and the girlfriend might have been a civilian, or the rest of the building occupied by civilians. The optics are a bit bad given Russia's also attacked buildings housing combatants, and we've been complaining about that. But if they had 'positive ID', it also raises the question of why they didn't do a more 'surgical' strike using an AGM-114R-9X ginsu missile. That was developed to minimise the risk of collateral damage and has been used to assassinate other US targets.
Had it been available to them, then their air defences would have been ready and the human targets would have at least tried to move to safety, making the action more difficult and perilous.
There isn't much evidence that the Houthis have GBAD, other than a possible shoot-down of a Reaper drone last year. Pre-strike though, the messages didn't identify the target and I'm not clear about the timeline, ie if the Atlantic broke the story before, or after the attack.
POTUS claims he wants peace, but he seems to restrict this to Ukraine (by as far as I can make out, forcing capitulation to Putin) and Gaza (again by forcing capitulation this time to Netanyahu). Their efforts to create peace in Yemen, Sudan or elsewhere seem to be either non-existent or just not reported.
I think he probably does want peace, but has not much of an idea (or chance) to enforce it. The Yemen sh*tshow is a drect consequence of Israels actions in Gaza and Lebanon, and Trump seems fine with the idea of the IDF doing site clearence ahead of property development. Much like with Ukraine, the US could use their levers to stop the IDF bombing Gazans by, well, stopping supply of bombs. But that's a very messy situation, ie Netanyahu's trial was about to re-start, so he started mowing the lawn again and his trial is now postponed.
I don't think there was much OPSEC damage in the leak, but it should have been classified given it gave a peak behind the curtain into the US leadership's thinking. So again the most significant part was the US leadership's attitude to Europe. It made the claim that Europe lacks capability, yet this-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Aspides
has been run by the EU since February last year, and has shot down Houthi drones and missiles. The UK has also contributed ships and aircraft to defending shipping, Israel, and strikes on Houthi targets. So Europe hasn't exactly been freeloading, and perhaps should think about billing the US for those operations, if this is the attitude of the US leadership. Freedom of navigation and protecting European shipping is one thing, defending the US puppet is another. But then with that politics, it's never entirely clear who's puppeting who.
The Atlantic broke the story 2 weeks after the attacks IIRC, mainly because the journalist involved was responsible and tried to get a) clarification that this was a real group chat and 2) the classification of the data within it so he knew how much of it he could responsibly talk about without endangering US national security. They only published after the government authenticated the chat and started saying that it wasn't classified or restricted, although the tail end of that part of the conversation happened after the story broke but before the Atlantic released the whole unredacted conversation a day or two ago.
Not normal times indeed. I would not be surprised if the only blame gets directed at the journalist. Bad political leaders (and business people) rely almost exclusively on blame for continued survival in the face of constant screw ups and the current crop of "Leaders" is extremely talented at avoiding blame when it's deserved and grabbing credit regardless of whether it isn't. Genius level in fact. Unfortunately for the rest of us...
Not so! Everything is fine. Hey, the Biden administration used Signal, so it must be ok (or at least Democrats cannot object). And absolutely nothing classified was on the group chat, nothing at all.
Well, according to the current Director of the CIA:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cg70xgxl3vmt
CIA director John Ratcliffe is up now. His confirms was a member of the Signal group chat, which he is insisting was a "permissible work use".
"That is a practice that preceded the current administration to the Biden administration," he tells Democratic Senator Mark Warner.
Reading from papers in front of him, he lays out his view in full: "It is permissible to use to communicate and coordinate for work purposes," he says, speaking over Warner's interjections, "provided, Senator, that any decisions that are made are also recorded through formal channels."
He reiterates that his messages in the chat did not include classified information, to which Warner fires back: "If it's not classified, share the texts with the committee!"
(Is it just me, or does John Ratcliffe bear a resemblance to the actor, John Hamm? Nice to know there's someone talented around to play him in the movie / TV series later.)
and:
No classified material was shared in chat group, Gabbard says
published at 15:05
15:05
Warner asks Gabbard if she ever thought the military planning should have been done in a Sensitive compartmented information facility - also known as a SCIF.
"'There was no classified material shared in that Signal chat,' she replies.
If that's the case, share it with the committee, Warner urges.
"You can't have it both ways," he adds.
Warner pushes Gabbard again, and she reiterates that there was no classified material shared in the Signal group chat.
So I am guessing that The Atlantic can publish the full unreacted text of the group. chat without repercussions in their next issue?
For some reason the "D'Oh" icon seems applicable.
My late father liked cryptic crossword puzzles, and I would attempt them sometimes. One clue was very involved about bulls, a king and other stuff I did not understand, answer was two words, 13 letters and 3 letters. AFAIK "Tyrannosaurus Rex" is the only possible answer for two words of those lengths. So, if you come across a crossword clue where the answer is 13 letters then 3 letters, you might like to see if T Rex is the answer before trying to decipher the thing (it took me hours, but boy! was I pleased).
'Smug git' icon - 'coz I still feel happy about working that one out when my father could not.
I am struggling here to understand the level of sheer somethingness.
von Clausewitz divided soldiers into four categories:
1 Intelligent and Lazy - These people are to be in the high command, planners, strategists. Despite being lazy they will work surprisingly hard to make sure they do not have to get out of their nice warm comfy bed at 02:30 to deal with unexpected events.
2 Intelligent and industrious - These people are field commanders, they deal well with and react appropriately to unexpected events, they can 'think on their feet'.
3 Stupid and lazy - These are your basic 'private' soldiers, grunts, G.I.'s or, in the UK 'poor bloody infantry'. They will sit where they are told to, without moving much, and do not get themselves into trouble.
4 Stupid and industrious - These people are dangerous. They don't do as they are told, they do not sit quietly, they get themselves and their colleagues into trouble. And if they cannot find trouble, they will make it for themselves or others. They are a waste and should be got rid of as soon as possible ('administrative discharge' was probably invented for people like this).
Whoever set up the invitation to the editor of 'The Atlantic' to a highly sensitive (AFAIK some of the chat would actually be genuinely TOP SECRET) texting group on a commercial application with geographically dispersed participants seems to be both intelligent and stupid, ignorant and, oh I don't know.
Basically WTF IS GOING ON??
It is a shame Norman Dixon is dead, his book 'On the psychology of military incompetence' could do with a sequel, just put "political" instead of "military" (ISBN 978-0-712-65889-0)
>My assumption is that an intern was tasked with setting up a secret group chat between very important people and thought it would be funny to add a journalist
Very unlikely. A more likely scenario is that the name "Jeffrey Goldberg" isn't uncommon and so the person setting up the chat inadvertently selected the wrong one. (Knowing the way our Administration works I wouldn't rule out this being someone in another country's government but we'll have to leave it to the journalists to figure that one out.)
What's really dynamite is the idea that policies worked out well in advance require 'selling' to the public, stuff like that. To borrow from an old UK election slogan "We've Never Been Had So Good". Because this isn't a one off, its what we call in the US "SOP" --- Standard Operating Procedures.
Yeah, Hanlon's razor might apply here.
I'm not sure it's dynamite that policies require selling to the public? I thought that's half the work of politicians. I don't even find it controversial TBH. When politicians decide to raise the age of retirement because there are more and more old people and not enough young people to pay for their pension, I imagine doing the simple math is much easier than convincing the public that this is necessary.
"Very unlikely. A more likely scenario is that the name "Jeffrey Goldberg" isn't uncommon"
Is there someone in the US government with a name similar to Jeff Goldberg who might have been the intended member of the group? I get this were I work, where I often get included on emails etc. clearly meant for someone else with a similar surname and identical first name.
it has been noticed by many that the latest round of excuses and "deflection" are direct insults aimed at the reporter and the publication which imply he "got in there" by some foul means. But I can't believe that a foreign power arranged it or that the reporter managed it on his own. If they had, it would not have been a US journalist they got in there and and would not have made it public that anyone had got in there. And anyway, apps like Signal are targets of high level state "hackers" so if anyone has compromised it they'd be keeping that under wraps so they can keep using the hack or compromise for as long as possible.
"Very unlikely. A more likely scenario is that the name "Jeffrey Goldberg" isn't uncommon and so the person setting up the chat inadvertently selected the wrong one."
Using a public chat service makes that sort of error more likely since if it were a secure government chat application, it would be unusual to have a journalist in somebodies contact list. For a chat with a journalist, the government app would not be used.
These sorts of conversations are also supposed to be preserved and done so in a particular way that a public app may not have in place. This was the big issue with Hillary's private mail server since those communications were not be captured and archived as required by law. That it was also likely compromised was a huge issue as well.
Clinton punctuated her reaction on the X platform with an eyes emoji and a link to an Atlantic article...
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/25/hillary-clinton-white-house-military-plans-leak
Why use Signal? To avoid the proper recording of the discussions and to hide them from any formal auditing and review later.
I mean, whatever they used to chant regarding Hillary Clinton using a private email server, there were no actual sanctions aside from the political grand standing. I am not sure the Democrat critics really have much of a leg to stand on, the hypocrisy is rank on both sides here.
This dwarfs anything that Hillary did. There was clearly very sensitive information being discussed using insecure means and it got leaked through carelessness and or ineptitude. Moreover, the 2016 election was close enough that Republican grandstanding on this issue probably succeeded in swinging the election outcome.
The channel was perfectly secure. The recipients at the end-points were erroneously selected. Theoretically, if the part of Signal had been played by some surely-over-priced, over-budget and long-delayed government, designed-by-committee, end-to-end chat software, there would be nothing preventing the accidental addition of a journalist as a recipient of the chat except the fact that journalists typically aren't added to such systems at all.
We need to be very, very clear about what happened and overly pedantic, here. I'm just waiting for the first numpty to start spouting that, look, Signal isn't all that "secure" because it just got "hacked" or man-in-the-middled or something and government secrets got "stolen", then twist that argument into one in favour of legislation enforcing backdoors in end-to-end encrypted messaging platforms like Signal, compromising the academic argument that true end-to-end encryption cannot be secure if it has any backdoor at all.
If those sound like dumb arguments, that's because they are dumb arguments. But they'll likely suffice and any hints that Signal is somehow insecure will only make that likelihood greater.
The thing is, it doesn't matter whether the "channel" was secure. Every channel has at least two ends, and in this case multiple, and they were all on devices which had not been secured for classified communications. (Signal would't be allowed on such devices.) So we have no way of knowing whether any of these devices were or are compromised. And if they are, the chat contents are compromised, too.
I'm pretty sure that there are already bounties being offered for hacking Goldberg's devices, though I'm also sure that he is taking precautions. But he's now a high-value target, and from what I've heard, some of the information in that chat would still be useful to adversaries after the actual mission is over.
Sure, the tool (I mean Signal, not Waltz) was secure. And of course some idiots will claim otherwise (just waiting for the US govt themselves to blame the whole affair on Signal.) But focussing on that takes the focus away from the criminal negligence, incompetence and disrespect for law and rules of that whole government.
Trump will claim fake news.
Democrats will do nothing
"Judge" will find them guilty
Whitehouse will call for judge to be impeached
Sentence will be given
Persons will be pardoned.
Corruption continues as normal.
The press and politicians will blame immigrants/ the poor / the sick for their problems caused by the above.
People will believe what they are told, by whichever version of the truth they want to hear.
"Judge" will find them guilty
What makes you think this will even get to anyone being arrested let alone trial?
Trump has insisted that the Justice Department should follow his direction, and he's unlikely to charge whoever is responsible for these failures (1 using a commercial app, 2 inviting an uncleared individual to participate, and 3 using a self deleting messaging service that evades US law on government records). Trump has already denied any knowledge, and shown he can weather worse political storms. Remember the Iran - Contras' scandal? Neither Reagan nor George H W Bush accepted any liability, both claimed they 'did not recall' anything to do with it and only Col Oliver North was punished.
"What makes you think this will even get to anyone being arrested let alone trial?"
Didn't the new Trump appointed head of National Security just recently post that using insecure channels should be responded to with jail time for the offender? Oh wait, she was on the chat too. What a conundrum she must be having this morning.
Either:
1) they're not just dumb, they're brain-dead, or
2) someone thought this would be a funny way to troll Europe and Egypt.
Satire is dead. Reality is more absurd than any conceivable fiction. I'm very interested in finding out.
(Seriously, how the frick do you *accidentally* add someone to a Signal chat!?)
According to Tom Lehrer, satire died a while ago:
https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/1973/kissinger/speedread/#:~:text=Henry%20Kissinger%20was%20awarded%20the,from%20the%20Nobel%20Foundation%20archive.
https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2000/jul/31/artsfeatures1
"Political satire became obsolete when Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel peace prize."
"Seriously, how the frick do you *accidentally* add someone to a Signal chat!?"
Quite easily, given that the journalist already had a security clearance and had been present on at least one occasion for classified briefings at the White House in the past. It's not unreasonable to think that his details would already be on some White House contact list alongside other government employees or contractors. I can imagine a chief of staff or intern being given a scribbled list of names with the instruction to do it quickly as the boss wants it now. Them not bothering to double check names perhaps because they're junior and assuming (justifiably) that because it's only signal it wouldn't be used for anything sensitive and then it's happened.
As always, you can have all the organisational and technical security measures you like but humans are the weak link.
Good promotion? Not really.
It isn't any proof that Signal is resistant to snooping by foreign governments. Trump's buffoons are using it to dodge records laws so that nothing they do is logged enabling them to dodge any responsibility if something goes wrong and avoid prosecution if they do anything illegal.
I've said a number of times that the reason politicians don't see problems with backdoored communications is that they don't believe security is possible. They don't believe it because given a technically secure channel for a group of them to use one of them will leak the contents anyway. QED.
'"I don't know anything about it," said the commander in chief. "I'm not a big fan of The Atlantic. To me it's a magazine that's going out of business. But I know nothing about it." '
He is a member of the famous 19th century Know Nothing' party.
And he wants to shut down newspapers that might inform him about his ignorance.
This is a common strategy of the extreme right: professing willful ignorance to avoid having to take responsibility.
But when you look away from crimes, you too are guilty.
"And the half of the population of the US that bothers to vote would vote for him again if he were allowed to stand."
Reminds me of Lemmings.
Live Free or Give Up seems to be the new motto of not only New Hampshire, but all of the USA.
At least the Turkish people put up a fight for their freedom.
"By the next election he'll probably have lost more supporters to starvation, plague, unlucky deportation,"
He plans to compensate that by stripping enough non-supporters of their voting rights.
Current plans include to revoke voting from married women, birth right citizens, and naturalized citizens.
If you think you can justify this breach, or if you think you can conflate it with the Clinton email balloon, then you need to give your head a wobble. You may not like to hear this, but this alone is sufficient evidence to doubt the competence of the Trump administration and the modern Republican Party. And the Republican Party will not find its way back to something approaching sanity unless its supporters recognise that there’s a problem and demand a fix.
Breaking news:
The International Bureau of Weights and Measures has today introduced a new SI unit, the Hegseth, to describe levels of security cockups.
Normally security breaches will be evaluated in milliHegseths with 1 Hegseth being reserved for monumental security fuck ups.
... and personal hygiene could be measured in inverse Hegseths ... say Htesgehs. That dude is a gift to modern metrology!
“Why aren’t they using more secure communications that are assured by the NSA or another government communications agency?”
To avoid the 'secure' communications of the state agencies was probably the point considering the state has been used as a weapon against Trump and those working with him. But this does sound like a real bad screw up to add a journalist.
The state has never been used as a weapon against Trump, that is just the whiny baby victim talk that the far right constantly utilise to show how they are cruelly abused underdogs who never did anything wrong, while also asserting that they are superior to everybody else and very strong and tough. They see no contradiction in this.
The state didn't even prosecute Trump for crimes he committed in plain sight whilst shouting "Look at me I'm committing crimes! The biggest crimes! Nobody commits more or bigger crimes than me!"
The state has always supported him, and it continues to do so now. As soon as he can get rid of those extreme leftist federalist-society-supported judges who still believe the rule of law matters more than the absolute power of the king he will have unified state power with his will entirely and the American constitution will be a purely historical document. And still, he will find reasons to be a tiny whiny baby even as he has his opponents disappeared and tells the world how strong he is.
US independence was dressed up as a revolt against monarchy, but it was actually to safeguard slavery which was becoming deeply unpopular and even outlawed in Europe at the time. You have to remember that the US was founded by a bunch of religious bigots, and that still runs deep in US society.
Slavery was deeply unpopular in Europe? England, France, the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, all had large colonies dependent on slave labor.
The northern states either had abolished slavery (if original colonies) or were founded without slavery before emancipation in the British West Indies. Don't believe everything you read in the 1619 project.
As for religious bigots, one ordinarily thinks of the Puritans in that context, but Massachusetts was the first of the states to abolish slavery.
The US isn't even in the top ten when it comes to when major nation states banned slavery. Whenever some yank prattles on about the saintly founding fathers, bear in mind that more than half of them were slave owners - even the one who proclaimed "give me liberty or give me death".
The US should not claim any credit about ending slavery, as they allowed it to continue for a very long time. This, however, was the opposite, someone trying to claim credit for Europe ending slavery when it really didn't. All the powerful European countries had slavery at the time, it took decades after US independence for them to abolish it on paper, it took a few more for them to stop trading people with countries that hadn't, and in most cases, it took until the 1900s to end the "it's not slavery, honest, we just make them work and don't pay them and it's only in the colonies" approach, not that the US can claim they avoided that either but the quantity was less because they didn't have as many colonies. If a US person claims they were the vanguard of ending slavery, they are making an incorrect and offensive statement. So is someone saying the same thing about the UK.
> As for religious bigots, one ordinarily thinks of the Puritans in that context, but Massachusetts was the first of the states to abolish slavery.
Mixing two things together there?
Ok, plenty of (self-described) christians are religious bigots and still support slavery (find a kjv only protestant, ask what they think of roman catholics and other sects, let alone other religions; then read what their "the only true version, every word is sacred and must be adhered to", says in support of slavery).
But for others it isn't 1:1 and not always both ways.
@abend0c4
"The kind of thing that the secure communications of the state agencies are specifically designed to avoid."
Agreed. Although with the leaks that come from these agencies is probably why they didnt use agency comms. Not justifying what happened but acknowledging the severe misbehaviour of the US security services in relation to Trump and people working with him
@codejunky would you support full, open thorough investigations of Clinton, Pelosi, Schumer, Trump, Biden and others who have or currently run so much of our policies? Whoops I shouldn't have included trump on that list because now your head is spinning. Seriously, why can't you see the convoluted reasoning chains you come up with? Or just swap a name in there when checking your thinking, it would be odd to suggest "well Hillary was perfectly justified in running a private email server probably because of leaks that come from certain agencies". You're probably already thinking "oh no, that's totally different because Trump was persecuted, therefore anything he or people associated with him do is still okay by me". He is at least as bad a criminal as the others so why the hell do you give him miles and miles of rope to string us up with?
@AC
"@codejunky would you support full, open thorough investigations of Clinton, Pelosi, Schumer, Trump, Biden and others who have or currently run so much of our policies?"
If you havnt noticed I think they should all be investigated the same. Where each have done something that deserves investigation then they should be investigated and have an even hand of prosecution for any wrongdoing.
"Or just swap a name in there when checking your thinking, it would be odd to suggest "well Hillary was perfectly justified in running a private email server probably because of leaks that come from certain agencies""
I could do that without issue. In fact Bidens lot were communicating through signal so we can name swap and YOU shouldnt be outraged. Can you?
"He is at least as bad a criminal as the others so why the hell do you give him miles and miles of rope to string us up with?"
Is he? Why? This is the problem, you tell me he is bad and I should take your word for it. You tell me he is criminal and we all saw the joke of a felony for a misdemeanor without any punishment. You are even going at Trump and it isnt even claimed he was on this group was he?
Take your comment of an even hand and apply it to your thoughts. Instead of assuming I am treating Trump differently take a look at what you are arguing and ask if you are the one treating this differently. I have said this is a screw up and yet you seem to miss that.
You seem to think I am not sufficiently anti-Trump that I must be biased. If I was so inclined to bias the security services should be covering this up and the media singing angel praises to the chosen one like they did with Biden. They should be shadow banning and labelling this journalists output as misinformation for daring to speak out against the leader, just like they did for Biden.
This needs to be investigated, and not like some jumped up stupid show like the J6 committee or the lawfare insanities but to actually investigate and be honest. At the minimum this is a huge embarrassment for adding the journalist. It becomes more serious if actual secrets were shared on the platform. If the investigators can keep themselves in check, not leak every opportunity, show they are not doing some stupid 'get him' effort as before and people will start to regain trust in the investigators and believe the result.
The Democrats bent over backwards to be non-partisan over prosecuting the Orange turd. There are so many things that need to be done to rebalance US Politics. Balancing the Supreme Court for a start. Ensuring representation is proportionate. Frankly, he should have been barred for fomenting a coup. They did none of these things. And the result is that one of the world’s most prolific criminals is president of the United States.
But you claim the state was weaponised against him? What whiny little snowflakes you Maga lot are. You know that when the boot is on the other foot the state is weaponised against Trumps detractors, as we’re seeing now with registered Democrat employees being removed even from posts where politic persuasion should have no bearing.
Jog on. We’re not all as gullible and disingenuous as you are.
@45RPM
"The Democrats bent over backwards to be non-partisan over prosecuting the Orange turd"
Note I didnt say Democrats but security services. Security services which protected Biden and weaponised against Trump. This happened very publicly so hard to rationally deny.
"Frankly, he should have been barred for fomenting a coup"
What coup? I ask because I dont know if you mean the 'insurrection' without insurrectionists and Trump didnt do anything wrong or something else?
"And the result is that one of the world’s most prolific criminals is president of the United States."
How is he criminal? Do you mean the felony for a misdemeanour prosecuted outside the statute of limitations, which came with no punishment?
"But you claim the state was weaponised against him?"
Steele dossier, FBI opened the investigation against procedure, FBI lawyer lied to get warrants and that is only when it started.
"The Democrats bent over backwards to be non-partisan over prosecuting the Orange turd"
Bahahahahahahahahaha!!! Oh wait, you're serious?
Tish James was interviewed on TV and asked 'will you get Trump for us?'. She actively campaigned saying she is going to 'get Trump'.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1yj0NKSsuU
Heck, she called him illegitimate! She is an election denier!
It is very reassuring, in these difficult global times, that one can rely on the biggest members of the commentariat to post wise, well-informed and unbiased emissions to excuse and dismiss monumental opsec tomfoolery. With just a few keystrokes. Many thanks to Mme codejunky for providing this service. (Or are you drunk?)
@ChodeMonkey
"It is very reassuring, in these difficult global times, that one can rely on the biggest members of the commentariat to post wise, well-informed and unbiased emissions to excuse and dismiss monumental opsec tomfoolery."
Trust you to write bollocks that is the opposite of what I wrote. At what point did I excuse or dismiss what happened?
"At what point did I excuse or dismiss what happened?"
At the point you excused their use on non-approved channels to discuss things, the excuse being you implication that the state run secure channels were not secure with your "scare quotes". These people ARE The State now and the two people most responsible for making The State secure were in on this chat, despite one of them posting just days ago that people not using proper channels should be jailed.
@John Brown (no body)
"At the point you excused their use on non-approved channels to discuss things, the excuse being you implication that the state run secure channels were not secure"
Are they secure? The FBI leaking ICE raids. The security services leak like a sieve. I dont excuse inviting a journalist to the group, that is a screw up. If they passed highly sensitive details I dont consider that a good thing either. But I aint stupid enough to lie that the security agencies are secure for Trump and his associates.
"These people ARE The State now"
Nope. You are aware of the investigations to find and remove the trouble makers in the agencies? The pre-emptive pardons to save people from investigation of their bad actions? I do not justify what happened but I can understand not trusting the 'secure' communications of the agencies.
"despite one of them posting just days ago that people not using proper channels should be jailed."
And this incident should be investigated. And as its Trumps government I expect it will be well investigated with a factual output and an anti-Trump one. Even if the factual one is damning it will never be bad enough for the anti-Trumpers and TDS sufferers.
Hell I cant even post a comment against what happened without fools claiming I am excusing or dismissing what happened.
> A man who is one step sideways and down the command chain from the literal, actual, formal Commander in Chief of the US military... is not part of "The State".
He isn't part of the Deep State, though; he is part of the Floating On The Top State. If it helps you to remember this, think pond scum.
By "The State", with caps, he means "deep state", but codejunky doesn't want to use that phrase today, in case we mistake him for some kind of conspiracy nut.
@AC
"By "The State", with caps, he means "deep state", but codejunky doesn't want to use that phrase today, in case we mistake him for some kind of conspiracy nut."
I dont tend to use the words deep state. But if you actually read the thread it was John Brown (no body) who started with The State (in caps) to which I responded clearly- "Nope. You are aware of the investigations to find and remove the trouble makers in the agencies? The pre-emptive pardons to save people from investigation of their bad actions? I do not justify what happened but I can understand not trusting the 'secure' communications of the agencies."
So if you want to call John a conspiracy nut go for it. If you want to deny the agencies leak I will happily laugh at you. Or you can try reading the comments.
"Are they secure?"
No idea. But people who know and care about this stuff have spent $billions on making a secure network, so it very probably is. People, on the other hand, can be less secure. But using a secure room and a secure network with proper checks and balances is always going to be more secure than a commercial chat app that is extremely likely to be major target of state employed hackers, including the US gov. Do you know if this Signal chat was being used via "hardened" government issued phones or were some/all of the participants using their own personal or party supplied phones? I would assume a government issued phone would be in a certain number range or have a special area code (I could be wrong here!) this making the reports phone# stand out like the big red flag it ought to have been. But it's ok as the group creator told everyone in the group that "We are currently clean on OPSEC — that is, operational security."
I love that he tried to be clever and use military short-hand, OPSEC and then went on to show how much cleverer than the others he was by mansplaining what OPSEC means :-)
"It was installed by the CIA and set up by the CIA for the people using it."
Is that a real fact, or an "alternative" fact?
What does your clearly deep understanding and knowledge of SigInt & OpSec say about this, Madam?
"In the military, sending classified data over insecure channels is called "spillage"; it can be a career ender for a military officer."
>"To avoid the 'secure' communications of the state agencies was probably the point considering the state has been used as a weapon..."
(Okay kids, let's drop the politics for just a moment)
That leads to an interesting possibility. We all know the government keeps pushing for backdoors in to encrypted communication channels. And we all know that it is not possible to have true security when a backdoor exists.
What if... The administration has been briefed that the secure state agency communications contain a backdoor? The government keeps pushing for backdoors in the private sector, could it be because they already have them (and are using them) in the government sector? Therefore, it would then be reasonable for the administration to conclude that using Signal would be MORE secure than state agency communications.
I know, it is a bit on the tinfoil hat side of things, see icon. But it is not that far-fetched either.
@Marty McFly
"I know, it is a bit on the tinfoil hat side of things, see icon. But it is not that far-fetched either."
I am not sure it is tinfoil anymore, that would be almost a certainty. One of the complaints in the article is about auto delete so 'they' cant keep a record. Under normal conditions I can see that being valid but considering the leaking from agencies these 'secure channels' should have doubt.
That's more than just a bit in the tinfoil hat territory, that's full-fledged MAGA-cult whackjob territory.
IF there were such a briefing at breakfast this morning, those channels would be tossed and new ones created before lunch. It wouldn't take a veteran programmer four hours to build a secure chat app using well known algorithms. Call it another day or two for it to be usable by the current idiots in charge without hurting themselves, including making it pointy-clicky.
I wonder how long it would take to propagate the lie that Al Gore invented the algorithm, and so each one has a democrat controlled back door in it ... BAN ALL ALGORITHMS NOW!
Algorithms - sounds kinda Ay-rabby to me. Comes ta think it, so does Al Gore. Consarned furriners and mew-slims done git inna all are stuff now. Gotta ship dem al-gee-rithims back across the border. Maw, get me rifle, we gots ta string us up some corm-pee-yuters, like wut those rev-ee-nooers use.
@Someone Else
"No, dumbass. It's because the Orange-utan wants to privatize secure communications. This was a trial."
Not sure I believe that considering the push everywhere to backdoor private conversation. And it seemed ok to use for the previous administration to communicate with each other so should be ok for this government too.
The two real concerns is how a reporter was invited and if anything actually secret was passed through the app.
"if anything actually secret was passed through the app."
Like
Over the next few days, the top officials shared highly classified information about planned attacks on Houthi terrorists, including details of an attack scheduled for March 15 and the types of weapons that would be used.
That what you mean?
@AC
"Like
Over the next few days, the top officials shared highly classified information about planned attacks on Houthi terrorists, including details of an attack scheduled for March 15 and the types of weapons that would be used.
That what you mean?"
Actually yes! 100% exactly what I mean. If top officials actually did share highly classified information that would be an actual problem. We know the journalist claims highly classified information was shared but was it? That is what we need to know. If they didnt it is still embarrassing so anti-Trumpers will still have something to crow about but what is actually important is if actual secret information was shared or not.
Not privatize, but avoid federally mandated retention policies. He got burned by recordings of earlier calls that resulted in impeachments and trials so he's going off to a platform that deletes conversations after a week. This is more governing as an autocrat and avoiding responsibility and accountability that democratically elected administrations have always had to face.
The US launched a military operation. Bombs were dropped, it's likely people died. But, nobody outside Yemen noticed that because the security cock-up stole all the headlines.
I think the interesting part of this fiasco were these comments-
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cr52yrgq48no
Arguments over why the US could - and should - carry out the military strike against the Houthis did not sway Vance.
He said to the defence secretary, "If you think we should do it let's go. I just hate bailing Europe out again."
Hegseth reciprocated:
"I fully share your loathing of European free-loading. It's PATHETIC."
Given it's the US habit of bombing and generally interfering with other countries that is precisely what has lead to general insecurity and higher costs for Europe. Trying to deal with all the messes created by US foreign policy isn't free-loading. Some day, our colonial cousins might realise that diplomacy > bombing and creating more enemies.
Some day, our colonial cousins might realise that...
https://www.spiked-online.com/2021/09/09/how-9-11-exposed-the-depths-of-western-self-loathing/
Yup, good article. Vance seemed a bit more cautious, but the idea that the US would try to find a way to charge the EU for the US attacks on Yemen were pretty shameful. The Houthis started their attacks on shipping following Israel's attacks on Gaza and Lebanon. Primary stated targets are US, UK and Israeli shipping, plus missile & drone attacks into Israel. Then further back, the way the US and Saudis supported Saleh, which lead to the civil war in Yemen.
""I'm not a big fan of The Atlantic"
As if that mattered a foetid dingo's goolies. Orangeman's habitual arbitrary deflection of all criticism with random non sequiturs is his great weakness. He may win the exchange, but not the argument (in the logical sense of the word) and maybe folks are beginning to catch on to that.
Trump, told NBC News in a phone call that it was “the only glitch in two months, and it turned out not to be a serious one”, adding his national security advisor Michael Waltz had “learned a lesson”.
Accidentally deleting photographs of the Enola Gay because they got mistaken for positive DEI messages might be considered a 'glitch'.
Accidentally firing critical staff and then having to rehire them might be considered a 'glitch'.
Accidentally CCing a newspaper editor into your top secret war planning discussions is a monumental fuck-up.
Stagg> What's the latest on the weather?
MetOffice> The weather looks good for June 6.
Stagg> Ok, mark that as D-Day for Operation Overlord, got that everyone?
Montgomery> Confirmed for the British.
Tedder> Confirmed for the air.
Leigh-Mallory> Same.
Ramsey> Confirmed for Neptune.
Unknown> I am a reporter for Völkischer Beobachter, should I be on this?
Did someone say the words Atlantic AND bankruptcy?
How about Atlantic City AND Trump AND Casinos AND Bankruptcies?
"The House Doesn’t Always Win – Trump’s Failed Casino Projects"
An old US navy friend said if he'd done as this group of idiots (what is the term for group of idiots btw?) has done, he'd have been marched off his boat, court martialed, followed by 6 months in Leavensworth and a dishonorable discharge.
If I did it in government service, I'd get fired and get a 2 year vacation, full bed and board provided, in one of his majesties hotels for the naughty.
And now various trumptyists are saying "well it wasn't actually classified info" well apart from being war plans oh and slagging off our allies again.
But I'd listen to people from trumpty's first term who all say that he's a complete asshole who should never have been allowed to stand again
Still coming soon Nuclear bingo...... where trumpty posts random numbers on 'truth' social and the first one to get a full card launches america's nuclear arsenal.
Jeffrey Goldberg was probably the safest journalist to be included. He is a nasty ex prison guard who is a rabid neo-con, who want war with Iran.
Mr Hegseth is right, Goldberg is not a real journalist, a real journalist would not have outed themselves and would have gather much more information and blown the whistle on what a bunch of incompetent people Mr Trump has surrounded himself with.
Suppose any of the participants in the Signal communication were ALSO compromised with NSO/Pegasus malware.
The DECRYPTED Signal messages would be available to whoever dropped Pegasus on the end point.
And of course we have seen often in the past that friends often snoop on friends (see Stalin, North Korea, Senator McCarthy......)...............
..........so both friends and enemies might just be reading everything from inside the Pentagon.
No.....I'm really NOT PARANOID ENOUGH..........
For more details: https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/security/signal-app-used-hegseth-can-leave-door-open-hackers-rcna197956
Starting with "Porksword Pete" of course.
John Bolton said the level of classification is "How much damage would that information cause to the US if leaked to a hostile country or group."
My guess is, given that it was before and during the actual attacks would be "Quite a bit."
So yes, quite classified.
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