The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Me Its War Plans. “I had very strong doubts that this text group was real, because I could not believe that the national-security leadership of the United States would communicate on Signal about imminent war plans…”
Advertise here with Carbon Ads
This site is made possible by member support. 💞
Big thanks to Arcustech for hosting the site and offering amazing tech support.
When you buy through links on kottke.org, I may earn an affiliate commission. Thanks for supporting the site!
kottke.org. home of fine hypertext products since 1998.
Comments 10
thread
latest
popular
my takeaway from reading this is that i have to assume that every half-competent intelligence agency in the world has an almost real-time glimpse into what the white house and the pentagon are doing
https://bsky.app/profile/jamellebouie.net/post/3ll56h3v7mk2a
Hillary Clinton on Threads about this story: "👀 You have got to be kidding me."
The latest crazy just proves what we all know. They are discussing everything on Signal to avoid any discovery or FOIA or archival laws. So illegal but here we are.
It goes without saying that Defense leaders shouldn't be doing military planning on a commercial app. But the issue here isn't just OPSEC. Especially in security matters the govt often has to act with great security. And some of those secrets have to be kept for a long time. But they're the US ...
This is the first post in a longer thread about information archival — read the whole thread here.
What you have to understand about Pete Hegseth copying and pasting war plans into Signal is that it almost certainly means he’s got classified documents on his personal UNSECURE devices. Signal isn't on a secure device...are our war plans on his personal devices? @jeffreygoldberg.bsky.social
From @annieallaround on Threads:
I am BEGGING people to frame this properly. The issue here is not one colossal blunder where a reporter got info. The issue is it’s clear these people are all routinely ignoring the most absolutely basic security protocols, and WE HAVE NO IDEA what breaches this has already enabled.
https://bsky.app/profile/mitchellepner.bsky.social/post/3ll7kmp7hz32c
Total incompetence, and gross negligence to put a legal point on it:
Trump WH "envoy Steve Witkoff was in Moscow, where he met with Russian President Vladimir Putin, when he was included in a group chat with more than a dozen other top administration officials" discussing war plans on Signal.
From The Atlantic Daily newsletter, A Conversation With Jeffrey Goldberg About His Extraordinary Scoop.
Hello! In order to comment or fave, you need to be a current kottke.org member. If you'd like to sign up for a membership to support the site and join the conversation, you can explore your options here.
Existing members can sign in here. If you're a former member, you can renew your membership.
Note: If you are a member and tried to log in, it didn't work, and now you're stuck in a neverending login loop of death, try disabling any ad blockers or extensions that you have installed on your browser...sometimes they can interfere with the Memberful links. Still having trouble? Email me!
In order to comment or fave, you need to be a current kottke.org member. Check out your options for renewal.
This is the name that'll be displayed next to comments you make on kottke.org; your email will not be displayed publicly. I'd encourage you to use your real name (or at least your first name and last initial) but you can also pick something that you go by when you participate in communities online. Choose something durable and reasonably unique (not "Me" or "anon"). Please don't change this often. No impersonation.
Note: I'm letting folks change their display names because the membership service that kottke.org uses collects full names and I thought some people might not want their names displayed publicly here. If it gets abused, I might disable this feature.
If you feel like this comment goes against the grain of the community guidelines or is otherwise inappropriate, please let me know and I will take a look at it.
This thread is closed for new comments & replies. Thanks to everyone for participating!