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U.S. national-security leaders included me in a group chat

theatlantic.com

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Re: U.S. national-security leaders included me in a group chat

#321

Post by danesparza »

tptacek wrote: post #99
Balgair wrote: post #77

If anything, I'm a bit surprised that Jeff Goldberg burned this source. If anything, I'd suspect that he'd keep the channel open as long as he could. Or, he's got other channels that work better. All the same, I mean, wow. These guys are just morons here, there's really no other way around it. I'm trying to think of a charitable way to spin this and I've got nothing. Like, very clearly, these people are going to get…

As soon as he realizes (or a reasonable person would realize) that the group chat is not a hoax, and that he is getting confidential military information over that channel, his continued membership in the channel demonstrates intent to receive the information, which makes anything he writes about it in the future legally problematic. It's complicated and it's not like just receiving classified information from a sour…

"his continued membership in the channel demonstrates intent to receive the information"

Nope. His authority as a journalist prevails. He published the article -- so his intent was to do his job as a journalist, and the public has a right to know.

National security or institutional trust was not damaged by the journalist -- only by the ignorance of the politicians now running our military.

The information was newsworthy and in the public interest.

Publication did not cause harm (and you might argue that dropping actual bombs caused much more harm).

The information was obtained legally and without foresight.

The journalist has an obligation to report the information if it serves the public interest, especially if it reveals systemic failures, endangers democracy, or impacts public policy.

Re: U.S. national-security leaders included me in a group chat

#322

Post by jedberg »

swiftymon wrote: post #313
frenchman_in_ny wrote: post #296

In the banking world, employees have been fined significant sums, or even forced from their jobs [0], for unauthorized use of messaging platforms. And here, it's barely a shrug. Unbelievable. [0] https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/morgan-stanley-hit-...

it's not unauthorized use of signal; "Government officials have used Signal for organizational correspondence, such as scheduling sensitive meetings, but in the Biden administration, people who had permission to download it on their White House-issued phones were instructed to use the app sparingly, according to a former national security official who served in the administration." https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation…

It absolutely is an unauthorized use. Authorize use is "let's go to lunch". This was "let's bomb these people at this time".

Big difference.

Re: U.S. national-security leaders included me in a group chat

#324

Post by ocdtrekkie »

roughly wrote: post #204
atonse wrote: post #141

Setting aside the obvious shock of the actual subject, I'm going to try the herculean task of bringing this back to being a HN-related topic... My guess is that there is someone named Jeffrey Goldberg in the NatSec team (or high up, it seems like a common combination of first and last name at least), and likely that they meant to add him, rather than the EDITOR IN CHIEF of the Atlantic of all people. Could this be a…

I mean, I expect the actual approved governmental secure messaging apps would make it much harder to accidentally add a journalist to the thread, so I don’t know if this is a Signal problem per se.

This also highlights why the conversation being held on Signal is so bad. Imagine if "J G" expressed concerns about going forward with the attack. Making actual decisionmaking on go or no go over a non-classified system is insanely stupid.

Re: U.S. national-security leaders included me in a group chat

#325

Post by outer_web »

neverokay wrote: post #57
danso wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the story: I have never seen a breach quite like this. It is not uncommon for national-security officials to communicate on Signal. But the app is used primarily for meeting planning and other logistical matters—not for detailed and highly confidential discussions of a pending military action. And, of course, I’ve never heard of an instance in which a journalist has been invited to such a discussion. Conceivably…

If you want to put a tinfoil hat on, one could argue external state actors could have convinced the Trump admin their provided forms of communication are tapped, so they should consider alternatives. Such a state actor would know the alternatives are compromised well in advance by them.

"Your comms are tapped by records laws."

"Good enough for me!"

Re: U.S. national-security leaders included me in a group chat

#326

Post by psunavy03 »

anigbrowl wrote: post #98
hypeatei wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can already guess what consequences they're going to face: none.

Nevertheless, the Democrats should move to impeach. The fact that they probably won't be able to get a vote taken (never mind win one) is beside the point.

At this point, it's blatantly obvious that no one should ever file articles of impeachment without a reasonable certainty that the votes to convict exist in the Senate.

Otherwise, it's just political theater that's going to further discredit the idea of impeachment and give Trump and future Presidents more confidence that they can do anything they want and never be held to account.

Re: U.S. national-security leaders included me in a group chat

#327

Post by PokestarFan »

frenchman_in_ny wrote: post #296

In the banking world, employees have been fined significant sums, or even forced from their jobs [0], for unauthorized use of messaging platforms. And here, it's barely a shrug. Unbelievable. [0] https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/morgan-stanley-hit-...

Who's going to arrest them?

Re: U.S. national-security leaders included me in a group chat

#328

Post by jajko »

atonse wrote: post #141

Setting aside the obvious shock of the actual subject, I'm going to try the herculean task of bringing this back to being a HN-related topic... My guess is that there is someone named Jeffrey Goldberg in the NatSec team (or high up, it seems like a common combination of first and last name at least), and likely that they meant to add him, rather than the EDITOR IN CHIEF of the Atlantic of all people. Could this be a…

> Setting aside the obvious shock of the actual subject, I'm going to try the herculean task of bringing this back to being a HN-related topic...

Is that so shocking? I watch often some forums on reddit related to combat footage, not frequently but enough to see various patterns. Before houthis started attacking shipping lanes, there were tons of videos of them kicking ass of Saudi military but way more often some subsaharan African mercenaries in their uniforms. Like, really badly kicking ass, smart ambushes, devastating results even on heavy machinery. The opposite side had almost nothing.

Then with change of this, the tone and content turned 180 degrees. Almost always absolutely precise laser guided bomb strikes even if for 1-2 guys seemingly in the middle of nowhere, and a lot of them popping up all the time (to the tune of few every single day). Always titled cca 'Saudi air force doing XYZ'. Like sure, if you are clueless and don't know state of their army, their discipline, level of training and so on you can believe that.

I didn't believe this since the switch was sharp, US is simply flying there for quite some time, together with Saudi air force. TBH I don't care, just sharing observations. No way we can know hard facts obviously, but its easy to connect those very few dots. A bit of failure from opsec point of view - if you do this stuff, at least keep it secret and not broadcasting to whole world so politicians can keep big smiles and grand statements, at least for clueless civilians who barely know where Yemen lies on the map.

What others write it matches my observation - “Houthi PC small group”, seemingly short term group about specific attack. US attacks themselves are already happening for a year and something.

Re: U.S. national-security leaders included me in a group chat

#329

Post by codethief »

danesparza wrote: post #321
tptacek wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As soon as he realizes (or a reasonable person would realize) that the group chat is not a hoax, and that he is getting confidential military information over that channel, his continued membership in the channel demonstrates intent to receive the information, which makes anything he writes about it in the future legally problematic. It's complicated and it's not like just receiving classified information from a sour…

"his continued membership in the channel demonstrates intent to receive the information" Nope. His authority as a journalist prevails. He published the article -- so his intent was to do his job as a journalist, and the public has a right to know. National security or institutional trust was not damaged by the journalist -- only by the ignorance of the politicians now running our military. The information was newswor…

I think you are talking past each other. OP's point was about future publications (possibly including confidential information only shared through that Signal group).

Re: U.S. national-security leaders included me in a group chat

#330

Post by freejazz »

weebull wrote: post #274
herzigma wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jeff Goldberg loves his country more than he cares about a "source."

He might serves his country better by waiting for them to incriminate themselves more.

By what, sending another message to him?
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