It seems that there is this app called Signal. From what I've learned, it is an encrypted app that lets users send reasonably secure messages over the interweb. It seems that it is also approved for government work.
Recent news indicates that a group of Trump officials was using the app for a test chain, and somehow a rabid left wing reporter got included on the chain. Of course, he waited till the most inopportune moment to reveal that he was party to the messaging, and the Democrats lost their minds.
When we learned years ago that Hillary was running a server out of a broom closet, the Republicans list their minds. Fair enough. What goes around comes around. It appears from testimony, this most recent brouhaha revealed no classified information, unlike Hillary's broom closet server.
Oh, the Democrats are outraged, as we might expect and this should serve as a learning opportunity for Hegseth, Gabbard, Radcliff and others. The interweb is a poor place to discuss government matters. To misquote Shakespeare, "Get Thee to a SCIF."
How this rebid lefty reporter got added to the chain is a bit of a mystery, and I'm sure they will sort it out. But the happiest guy in Washington today is Chuckie Schumer, because the heat is off him for a little while.
4 comments:
I haven’t see anything credible that this was a “test”. At best that is an after the fact excuse and a poor one.
No rational person would think signal chat is ok for discussing classified matters.
That said this isn’t a strategic issue, more just an embarrassing incompetency.
I use Signal as a replacement for (completely insecure) text messaging. It is end to end encrypted and supposedly not even the people who run Signal can read them.
Of course, take it with a grain of salt...it's a commercial enterprise communicating over the internet so "security" is a relative concept. I have no doubt it can be cracked and I continue to rely more on my incredibly boring life protecting my privacy than any "secure" app. You'd have to be pretty hard up for entertainment to waste your time spying on me.
With that said, it is completely unreasonable to expect government actors to only communicate through official, secure channels. There are plenty of unclassified conversations that are perfectly acceptable to be conducted through non-secure media and have been since long before the internet existed.
And from what I've seen, there was no classified information discussed in that Signal group.
The only real concern I have with the use of third party apps like those is records retention and freedom of information. Signal is especially concerning because it even includes a "self destruct" feature that automatically deletes messages after they've been opened by the recipient.
https://x.com/charliekirk11/status/1904930473819988288
There were no sources, no locations, no targets, no routes, and no units described in the Signal chats
I've always assumed folks in those positions had access to scrambler phones, but apparently not so.
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