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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

#921

Post by belter »

20after4 wrote: post #727
Folcon wrote: post #717

I'm an external individual to the US, but I must admit that some of the sentiments being expressed here in this thread and elsewhere about the lack of accountability deeply concern me, it reminds me of many things I saw growing up and still see today in south asia. Independent of anything else, I do see the overton window shifting in the US, the most subtle of which are norms and expectations around acts of corruptio…

It's so much worse than that already. If corruption was the only problem we face in the US then there might be some real hope to reverse course.

The full text now:

"The statements by Hegseth, Gabbard, Ratcliffe, and Trump—combined with the assertions made by numerous administration officials that we are lying about the content of the Signal texts—have led us to believe that people should see the texts in order to reach their own conclusions. There is a clear public interest in disclosing the sort of information that Trump advisers included in nonsecure communications channels, especially because senior administration figures are attempting to downplay the significance of the messages that were shared..."

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2025/03/signal-...

"Here are the Attack Plans That Trump's Advisers Shared on Signal" - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43481521

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

#922

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

chrisco255 wrote: post #838
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #680

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

[flagged]

Do you honestly believe this? The crime wasn't accidentally adding the wrong person to a group chat, it was discussing war plans in an unsecured channel, which anyone who has ever handled privileged government information knows is against the law.

As another commenter said, there is a thread over in r/army where soldiers are sharing stories of military careers that have ended for far less.

Or, if the chat participants really want to double down that no classified info was shared in the chat, then the Atlantic reporter should just release the full details of the chat, unredacted, and let the world make up their own mind in the info is or should have been classified.

Edit: Lol, I was too slow, looks like the Atlantic did exactly that. The CNN headline on their homepage is currently "Details Hegseth shared in Signal chat were classified, sources say. After intel officials and the White House said the group didn't disclose classified info, The Atlantic decided to release the texts." https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/trump-presidency-news...

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

#923

Post by johntitorjr »

Aeolun wrote: post #719
cjohnson318 wrote: post #665

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

> I'm tired of this Too Important To Have Consequences business Sure, but short of something similar to the UH CEO, do you think anything will actually happen to them? If they’re doing this then the president presumably knows and does too. Even if they get prosecuted and convicted (after years of legal nonsense) they’d just get pardoned.

[dead]

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

#924

Post by letouj »

chrisco255 wrote: post #838
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #680

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

[flagged]

Using Signal to coordinate foreign policy and military actions runs afoul of the Federal Records Act, a duly-enacted law passed by Congress and binding on the executive branch.

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

#925

Post by sethammons »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #398
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…

Entirely possible. Which is why Government services for 'chat' explicitly don't allow contacts to appear who aren't already in the government. You've also no doubt seen email as it appears in Government inboxes with the big red banner "Came from outside, don't trust this" kinds of things will all the links disabled. Two things that are really troublesome. The first, as Josh Marshall of TPM points out, "No one on that…

> So either 'Kremlin Free WiFi' or the local cell tower providing connectivity

Or just let someone look over your shoulder?

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

#926

Post by devaler »

mandmandam wrote: post #863
0xEF wrote: post #789

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm in the same boat. This whole thing is a War of Attrition, and my enemies are willing because I am getting too old and increasingly stressed out to keep up with and counter their irrationality. I honestly don't know where they get the energy to continuously be so stupid as to take classified information to a group chat, encrypted or not, like they're planning a night out. These morons are going to get American cit…

> I'm still trying to wrap my head around the fact that half my country said "yep, let's go with these guys" when they saw a bunch of bungling Nazis yelling at clouds like something out of Hogan's Heroes. I'm still trying to square how 98% of American voters went for candidates promising to continue arming the world's most live-streamed genocide, even with all those protests; even with all the footage we've seen. How…

> I'm still trying to square how 98% of American voters went for candidates promising to continue arming the world's most live-streamed genocide, even with all those protests; even with all the footage we've seen

in case you’re not being flippant and genuinely believe what you’re saying, it’s because we had only two viable candidates, one of whom should never have been legitimized. the line of thinking you present throws the baby out with the bathwater and represents a false choice. it comes across as saying that you’d rather do nothing than do something to—if not move things in the right direction—at least make it easier to permit the right direction in the future. no, instead you or others like you choose to exercise your cynical blend of moral superiority, demonstrating that you care more about your own sense of self worth than actually, you know, holding your nose and doing something. holders of that philosophy can’t seem to stand the smell of ‘imperfect’, regardless of how much damage they’ll allow to happen in the name of some false standard.

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

#927

Post by sethammons »

boringg wrote: post #541
alistairSH wrote: post #425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"abysmal mistake" makes it sound like this wasn't a considered action and willful disregard for both op-sec and the law. There is zero chance these guys didn't know what they were doing... At minimum, Mike Waltz is retired special ops, Rubio has had high-level clearance for ages from his time in the Senate, same for Gabbard in the House. None of them responded "Hey, this is poor op-sec and illegal, perhaps take this…

Im not defending anything here but i also know how unsophisticated executives are and these guys are for sure not technical savvy people. Normally handlers do all the orchestration. I mean it looks pretty clear they chose to work outside the standard operating channels.

you know what execs are not un-savvy about? Things that can put them in jail. They take financial reporting seriously.

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

#928

Post by noboostforyou »

bsenftner wrote: post #864
20after4 wrote: post #727

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's so much worse than that already. If corruption was the only problem we face in the US then there might be some real hope to reverse course.

The corruption is caused by their short sightedness, a total lack of critical analysis capacity to see past the surface assessment of pretty much everything. The problem in the United States is that adults are no longer adults, we manufacture immature people with simplistic world views that seriously know no better, and they have the entire Republican Party hostage, a material percentage of the Democratic Party, and…

Bingo! And the sadder part is this isn't even anything new, but it's all come to a head now.

“There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.”

― Isaac Asimov, 1980

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

#929

Post by [deleted] »

pembrook wrote: post #799
mentalgear wrote: post #761

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd recommend for Entrepreneurs, just like Scientists now do, to consider Europe as a safe-haven. In the EU the rule of law still matters.

Not sure how you could possibly come up with this idea — but I’d recommend not consuming hysterical media narratives and instead looking at actual data. This is a chart of globally relevant companies founded in Europe in the last 50 years: https://www.reddit.com/r/neoliberal/s/1Fn23uYVxK The data depicts the exact opposite of what you are saying. As an entrepreneur, you can be “safe” knowing you will have far less ch…

[deleted]

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

#930

Post by chrisco255 »

letouj wrote: post #924
chrisco255 wrote: post #838

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Using Signal to coordinate foreign policy and military actions runs afoul of the Federal Records Act, a duly-enacted law passed by Congress and binding on the executive branch.

Please point me to the line in the law that prohibits group chats on Signal.
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