The CIA director - excessively biased as he may be - testified last week that Signal is a CIA-approved application that was preloaded onto the device he was issued on his first day. He said this practice extends back to at least the Biden Administration.
Given this, and assuming it’s true, I wonder to what degree a controversy can be predicated on usage of an approved application on an approved Government device. I’m sure there is plenty to nitpick around the edges (“classified vs. top secret,” “managed device vs. personal device,” “expiring messages,” etc.), but the fundamental transgression cannot be “using Signal.”
More importantly, I just don’t think people care — beyond pearl-clutching, tribal narratives and palace intrigue — about the safety of “classified data.” And the sad part is that it’s obfuscating the real story, which is the federal government’s seemingly indiscriminate bombing of Yemeni residences in an attempt to execute a mildly infamous terrorist. It’s the banal tone with which the government officials discuss it – like it’s a new product launch or a weekly check-in meeting – that we should find disturbing. Nobody cares about the communication medium; if anything, we should wish for _more_ transparency and visibility into discussions like this…
I agree that a lot of people don't care. But the government installs secure rooms (SCIFs) in various locations for the safe discussion of classified material:
Exactly, Signal should be used for "official" things like scheduling lunch with colleagues. I don't think it's proper (and potentially illegal) to be planning the things they did on there. It's too easy to screw up which is why the public knows about it now; you're not able to easily invite third parties into a SCIF.
Scheduling lunch is a great example. It's the kind of low-grade information which would be marginally beneficial to adversaries (who might arrange to, say, bug a restaurant if they knew VIPs would be meeting there), so it's worth hiding, but it's not really of public interest so doesn't need to be recorded durably. And the downside of leaking impending lunch plans to a journalist, one time, by accident, is likely inconsequential compared to, say, leaking impending military attack plans to a journalist, one time, by accident.
I'd have liked to see the CIA Director cite something to corroborate HIS claim.
The Biden Administration strongly denies his claim.
>Former Biden officials, though, said that Signal was never permitted on their government phones.
“We were not allowed to have any messaging apps on our work phones,” said one former top national security official on the condition of anonymity. “And under no circumstances were unclassified messaging apps allowed to be used for transmission of classified material. This is misdirection at its worst.”
Yes, though don't forget about the incompetence of adding the wrong person to the chat which goes part and parcel with the embarrassingly superficial/cynical discourse.
I still can’t believe this. It’s just so comically absurd, like it’s straight out of the plot of Veep. Of all the people to add to the group chat, you add your most vocal critic with the largest megaphone?
There are a few possible explanations:
- “It was intentional.” This doesn’t pass the smell test and it’s not clear who benefits.
- ”It was a setup.” I suppose this is possible, if the Intelligence Community is preloading the application onto the devices in question.
- ”It was an accident.” In some ways this is the most believable and unbelievable. What are the chances that you just happen to add Jeff Goldberg to the chat?! Which leads to the final possibility…
- ”It was an accident, and not the first time.” We just heard about it this time because Goldberg was the one included. This would explain the astounding coincidence, because it changes “the one time they messed up was in front of the editor of The Atlantic” to “this time they messed up was in front of the editor of The Atlantic.”
If they did it once, what are the chances the most vocal recipient was the first example of the mistake?
I’m sure we can count on an extensive audit of the participants in these 20+ other chats……
There's a lot here, and it's more complicated then "the government should never use Signal".
First off, I 100% agree that the bombing of civilian buildings in Yemen should be a bigger controversy. I don't really have anything to add to that, I just agree that it's important.
There are a lot of situations where it'd be acceptable for a government employee to us Signal, even to communicate potentially sensitive data. There are a lot of times where someone with only phone access may need to communicate sensitive info, and Signal is a good tool for that. It's a hell of a lot better then text messages or Slack or whatever.
The issue isn't Signal's security, it's the security of the phone it's installed onto. The phones of high-ranking government employees are a huge security weak point, and other countries know it. One has to imagine that Russia (or some other country) is trying very hard to hack into Pete Hegseth's phone. A lot of countries have invested huge amounts of money into developing hacking teams, and it should be assumed that any device with access to the broader internet is a potential target.
That's why government devices that access high-security information have immensely high security requirements. From air-gapped networks, to only buying hardware from vetted vendors, to forbidding outside devices (like phones) from even being in the same room. This is a level of security that Signal can't provide, and is necessary when discussing things like military plans.
Finally, the fact that someone accidentally added a journalist to this group and no one said anything shows a frankly reckless attitude towards security. Someone should have double checked that everyone on the group was supposed to be there, and the fact that no one did is fucking embarrassing.
That message is in 100% direct contradiction with literally every other piece of evidence to come out of the IC. I would put it to you that he lied under oath.
> More importantly, I just don’t think people care — beyond pearl-clutching, tribal narratives and palace intrigue — about the safety of “classified data
This doesn't actually contradict your point about tribal narratives, but it's not that long ago that data misuse was an election-defining narrative involving FBI investigations and crowds chanting "lock her up"...
I'd say the 'nitpicking around the edges' is actually incredibly important, but as you also said, people don't care. Yes, all the attention is on the use of Signal, and not the bombing/killing innocent Yemenis to score some political points.
The bombing/killing of innocent Yemenis can't be politicized because everyone agrees with it, nobody can score political points from it if everyone is in agreement.
> the real story, which is the federal government’s seemingly indiscriminate bombing of Yemeni residences in an attempt to execute a mildly infamous terrorist
also the story about how a natsec reporter just happens to be so intimately in contact with these officials that they accidentally add him to the group chat in the first place. There is no adversarial relationship between journalists and the state department, there never was, no matter who is in the white house. They just parrot whatever the US or allied nations are saying when it comes to foreign policy (that is the illegal invasion and murder of innocent civilians in foreign sovereign nations).
The fact that they used signal and leaked some messages to a propagandist is a distant third, but everyone only cares about that, makes me sick. This is why the US is hated around the world, and nobody gives a shit about Trump outside the western bubble.
Given this, and assuming it’s true, I wonder to what degree a controversy can be predicated on usage of an approved application on an approved Government device. I’m sure there is plenty to nitpick around the edges (“classified vs. top secret,” “managed device vs. personal device,” “expiring messages,” etc.), but the fundamental transgression cannot be “using Signal.”
More importantly, I just don’t think people care — beyond pearl-clutching, tribal narratives and palace intrigue — about the safety of “classified data.” And the sad part is that it’s obfuscating the real story, which is the federal government’s seemingly indiscriminate bombing of Yemeni residences in an attempt to execute a mildly infamous terrorist. It’s the banal tone with which the government officials discuss it – like it’s a new product launch or a weekly check-in meeting – that we should find disturbing. Nobody cares about the communication medium; if anything, we should wish for _more_ transparency and visibility into discussions like this…
(Also, it’s quite an endorsement of Signal.)