Post by potheadPost by NoBodyOn Thu, 27 Mar 2025 13:00:59 -0000 (UTC), pothead
Post by potheadPost by -hhPost by potheadPost by -hhPost by NoBodyPost by Bradley K. Sherman...
<https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/5212589-warner-hegseth-waltz-intel-group-chat/>
--bks
They're DUI hires.
I love that you take the word of a reporter from the Atlantic that
there were any plans discussed in the chat.
Unfortunately for such spin attempts ... Goldman/Atlantic has receipts.
Which is why multiple government sources have already confirmed key
elements of the story. Its already pretty damn airtight.
Plus a Catch-22 dilemma that the Administration has is that if they now
try to claim that the Signal thread was a nothingburger because nothing
was classified (which is BS, but let's continue), then they have zero
legal basis to then try to go after the Atlantic.
Plus as of last week, the Signal App was specifically not allowed to be
installed on Gov't secure devices, so it begs the question of how did
"Sometimes Sober" Pete copy/paste the strike data over to the chat?
The prisoner's dilemma: either knowingly passed data from secured (high
side) device to unsecured (low side) device -or- had spillage from
having/allowing a prohibited App be installed onto a secure Gov device.
Both are equally bad from a criminal culpability standpoint, because
ignorance of the law isn't an excuse.
And finally...the Atlantic already has the receipts that show that the
Signal App had been configured for a one week auto-delete, which means
if/when it goes missing, they've violated Federal document retention
laws. This law applies regardless of classification status.
-hh
Personally, this needs to be investigated thouroughly to determine where the
escape was.
Was it a simple invite error?
We all have sent emails to the wrong person based upon autofill.
Careless, but it does happen.
The invite might have been, but protocols to positively verify each
attendee didn't happen (violation), nor their need-to-know (violation).
Post by potheadWas it a rogue insider leaking?
Anything's possible when you didn't individually clear each attendee.
Post by potheadWas it a security hack into someone's phone or the Signal app itself?
Also possible, more likely at the individual phone level. Despite how
Signal likes to brag that it is encrypted, the devices its on aren't,
which is probably part of the reason why it isn't an authorized App for
secure devices ... recent DoD guidance allows Signal for some very minor
things, but it is not authorized even for just the FOUO/CUI level, let
alone S / TC / SCI stuff.
<https://www.npr.org/2025/03/25/nx-s1-5339801/pentagon-email-signal-vulnerability>
Another threat vector is that everyone was outside of a SCIF, so their
cellular tower signals were at risk of interception...and for those who
were OCONUS, like 100% odds...and encryption can be broken by various
means today by State actors: not only huge AI farms, but this is also
quantum is many orders of magnitude faster than brute force.
Post by potheadI will not speculate at this point but the latest information from the WH admits
sensitive data was shared but not secret data which emails were sent to secure
mailboxes.
Problem is that Signal's not even authorized for use for sensitive, so
all that this announcement is doing is *trying* to protect Pete & the
others from straight-up criminal charges over classified spillage...and
yes, the details that were listed were operational & always classified
in advance.
<https://www.cbsnews.com/news/nsa-signal-app-vulnerabilities-before-houthi-strike-chat/>
Post by potheadAs for the reporter and The Atlantic, both are Trump/conservative hating so
I have to wonder why a conservative, or other MSM liberal reporter was given
access to the call but instead one of the most rabid haters on the planet was.
Seems a little too coincidental to me.
Use of Signal to violate the Presidential Records Act is reportedly
listed in the Project 2025 playbook. This breach is indicative of it
being extensively used as a method to violate the law on document
retention, as it was set with a "one week" auto-expire.
Post by potheadLet's see how it plays out but for now Trump owns it.
He certainly does own it ..
.. and I read last night a short paragraph from a military SME who
pointed out the key datapoints within the Signal discussion which very
reasonably could have been used within the timeframe allowed to not only
protect their own people (which may have been a war crime BTW), but
harden air defenses against the F/A-18s (higher risk for our pilots) but
it also disclosed the region that our Aircraft Carrier battle fleet was,
which could have come under attack as well: the "what's the worst that
could happen?" scenario is that we could have lost an entire Carrier in
addition to whatever aircraft.
We got lucky a couple of ways this time that nothing bad happened, but
we've also revealed vulnerability vectors that won't be overlooked next
time by opponents. This is why this shit is taken seriously by real
adults: "Loose Lips Sink Ships".
-hh
Good post.
I confess I know nothing about Signal and in fact had never heard of it before
recently.
I know that What's App is forbidden by most large corporations due to security
concerns.
I'm interested to see how this one plays out and at this point nothing will
surprise me.
The reporter needs be charged. It most certainly can't be legal to
publish official governent conversations. He can't hide behind the
usual "sources" nonsense because he himself is the source.
Legal precedent was from the Pentagon Papers.
From a post I made yesterday:
"...the [SCOTUS] majority simply voted for a brief per curiam opinion
stating that the government had failed to meet the “heavy burden” of
proof required for prior restraints, accompanied by separate opinions by
each of the nine justices."
<https://firstamendment.mtsu.edu/article/pentagon-papers/>
And "prior restraints" is hyperlinked to here:
<https://firstamendment.mtsu.edu/article/prior-restraint/>
Which states:
[quote]
Pentagon Papers case affirms “no prior restraint” and free press role in
democracy
Although Near v. Minnesota reaffirmed that governmental censorship of
media publications is unconstitutional, the ruling still left questions.
For instance, did the First Amendment apply to situations in which a
newspaper or magazine publication could potentially threaten national
security by divulging sensitive military information? This became an
issue of concern after secret government documents began appearing in
the New York Times in June of 1971, and later in the Washington Post.
Known as the Pentagon Papers, these documents, which contained
classified and top secret information related to American policies and
activities in the ongoing Vietnam War, were copied from the State
Department and Department of Defense by Daniel Ellsberg.
The federal government responded immediately by filing a legal suit
against the two newspapers, citing national security as the primary
reason for preventing publication of the material. The New York Times
contended this violated its First Amendment rights.
In a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court ruled in New York Times Co. v.
United States (1971) that despite the sensitive nature of the
information, the newspapers could still publish it under the no prior
restraint doctrine. Free expression outweighed the potential harm that
could have resulted from publishing the story. The decision reinforced
the media’s role, under the First Amendment, to serve as a watchdog and
publish information, even critical or embarrassing reports about
government officials and their actions.
[/quote]
TL;DR: that the Atlantic preemptively held the story until after the
airstrike removes the Government's basis to have it censored.
Post by potheadIt's going to get interesting for sure.
The left wing media are foaming at the mouth of this one but the average person
doesn't really give a hoot.
Well, the average person isn't familiar with security protocols to
understand just how big of a deal this is. Those who do know can
remember in their mandatory training things like how any VIP site visit
has classified/controlled info on dates/times, general itinerary, etc.
Case in point, ass I said earlier in one of these threads, the
information that was disclosed ~2hrs prior was sufficient for a hostile
state actor to respond in at least three ways:
a) protect their own high value individuals
b) alert air defense to quite narrow time windows
c) opportunity to launch an attack on a US carrier at a known fixed location
Post by potheadIt happened. Fix it so it never happens again and
move on.
True, and the remedy here is to shitcan all of those who so grossly
failed to follow OPSEC & prosecute accordingly. This includes the
security goof on attenders, but also all participants who disseminated
information to individuals who clearly didn't have a "Need to Know", and
also those who didn't have N2K but nevertheless chose to not disengage.
-hh
