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

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

#671
post #664

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a pretty big false dichotomy to present "people directly opposed to their policy platforms " as the sole alternative to people "picked on the premise of just one qualification: they'd be Yes Man/Woman".

Yes, I was using a false dichotomy to highlight the absurdity of the statement. Every President surrounds themselves with people who are aligned with their policy platforms . For some reason, Trump is the one President where suddenly it's an issue.

No because Trump is interested in weasels who put loyalty to him above the law or the good of the country.

Trump doesn't give a shit about policy. He doesn't know anything about it and can't be bothered to learn.

Its just a viral racist corrupt scream all the way down.

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

#672

I began my career in a classified environment working on government satellite programs. In my first week on the job, I was told, explicitly, that if I shared Classified or Controlled Unclassified information over unapproved channels, I would be reprimanded—likely fired, or less likely, prosecuted. It was also made clear that safeguarding the nation's secrets from the carelessness of others was my responsibility, too.…

Why shouldn't punishment or prosecution be suggested. I've worked with classified information, and I would have been held accountable for my actions, why shouldn't they? I'm tired of this Too Important To Have Consequences business. It defeats the whole purpose of having qualifications, and security, and rules of any kind.

Anything less than criminal prosecution would be an abomination of justice.

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

#673
post #653

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that most of those 18 people are just random folks picked on the premise of just one qualification: THey'd be Yes Man/Woman!! They aren't career professionals. I believe that explains the mess they've created and their incompetent approach to their duties. It's still not too late to impeach that entire shack of clowns.

[flagged]

It's pretty easy to compare the backgrounds of every prior secretary of defense with Pete Hegseth. They're typically people with significant experience managing government agencies, retired 3 and 4 star generals, or senators/congressmen with serious foreign policy experience. The last person with as little defense policy experience as Hegseth was probably McNamara, and he was President of Ford, e.g. someone who knew how to manage a large organization.

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

#674

I began my career in a classified environment working on government satellite programs. In my first week on the job, I was told, explicitly, that if I shared Classified or Controlled Unclassified information over unapproved channels, I would be reprimanded—likely fired, or less likely, prosecuted. It was also made clear that safeguarding the nation's secrets from the carelessness of others was my responsibility, too.…

Why shouldn't punishment or prosecution be suggested. I've worked with classified information, and I would have been held accountable for my actions, why shouldn't they? I'm tired of this Too Important To Have Consequences business. It defeats the whole purpose of having qualifications, and security, and rules of any kind.

But have you considered that they are Billionaires and therefore can do whatever they want?

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

#675

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's still not too late to impeach that entire shack of clowns. The problem is that the people in control of the power to impeach are also picked for being yes men/women. It's yes-men all the way down by design.

It’s Trump’s one true talent. He got the Supreme Court and the judiciary leaning his way in his first term. Congress is controlled by either his Republican primary candidates, or Republicans who are too afraid to cross him. Now he’s purging from the federal branch anyone who is not completely ideologically loyal to him. That is the true purpose of Doge.

For years I've been taught that US political system is based on checks and balances. Now I see that just like in any other country it was based on morals of people: voters, elected, and appointed.

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

#677

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because I don't know whether either of those are appropriate. There aren't many comparable breaches to this one. The closest in modern times may be Hillary Clinton's email server being used for government business. In that case, the FBI investigated and declined to bring charges, under the expectation that a jury would be unlikely to render a guilty verdict. Okay, fine. But the FBI investigated and laid out the facts…

> The closest in modern times may be Hillary Clinton's email server being used for government business. Wait, there's more!! https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/cummings-jared-kushner...

T took a top secret binder about Russian election interference to his beach house and we never got it back.

https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2023/12/politics/missing-rus...

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

#678

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are you specifically calling out you are not suggesting punishment nor prosecution?

Because I don't know whether either of those are appropriate. There aren't many comparable breaches to this one. The closest in modern times may be Hillary Clinton's email server being used for government business. In that case, the FBI investigated and declined to bring charges, under the expectation that a jury would be unlikely to render a guilty verdict. Okay, fine. But the FBI investigated and laid out the facts…

> We should feel lucky that merely an American journalist was added by mistake.

Might not even be the first time already, just the first time they messed up and we found out...

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

#679
post #390

In my opinion there are at least two ways to interpret this: a) It's an unintentional opsec failure. Perhaps there was an address book collision with another intended user. Perhaps it was fat-fingered. This seems likely. b) It was an intentional leak. Perhaps overtly, perhaps covertly, by one or more of the channel members for unknown purposes. This seems less likely as there are better ways to leak with less blowbac…

Using Signal in this case is wrong and foolish full stop, and the extremely likely reason they did so is so they could escape standard government record keeping compliance (NARA). To start with, classified information is ONLY supposed to viewed in a SCIF. Secondly, it should never be loaded onto private devices. The private phones of national security leadership would be prime targets for every hostile intelligence a…

"classified information is ONLY supposed to viewed in a SCIF"

No.

No, no, no.

Most classified information is NOT designated SCI. When classified info was mostly paper, it was placed in GSA approved safes in regular 'ole office buildings. You'd get to work, open your safe, and do your work. Most SIPRNet computers are not in SCIFs.

Heck, you can even mail classified documents via USPS. Confidential and secret documents can be sent registered mail.

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

#680

I began my career in a classified environment working on government satellite programs. In my first week on the job, I was told, explicitly, that if I shared Classified or Controlled Unclassified information over unapproved channels, I would be reprimanded—likely fired, or less likely, prosecuted. It was also made clear that safeguarding the nation's secrets from the carelessness of others was my responsibility, too.…

Why shouldn't punishment or prosecution be suggested. I've worked with classified information, and I would have been held accountable for my actions, why shouldn't they? I'm tired of this Too Important To Have Consequences business. It defeats the whole purpose of having qualifications, and security, and rules of any kind.

Do you honestly think that (a) Trump's Justice Department would prosecute any of these offenses, and (b) even if so, that Trump wouldn't just pardon anyone involved?
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