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Hegseth security breach
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 Hegseth security breach Just had to drop by to see if anyone is discussing this. But no…. Hope y’all are well. Life better without social media. So much time to study portugués and play guitar. Peace out my friends. Over and out. If Pete Hegseth Had Any Honor, He Would Resign March 24, 2025 I don’t know how Pete Hegseth can look service members in the eye. He’s just blown his credibility as a military leader. On Monday, The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg published one of the most extraordinary stories I’ve ever read. President Trump’s national security adviser, Michael Waltz, apparently inadvertently invited Goldberg to join a Signal group chat (Signal is an encrypted messaging app) that seemed to include several senior Trump officials, including Stephen Miller, JD Vance, Marco Rubio and Pete Hegseth. A National Security Council spokesman told The Atlantic that the chat “appears to be authentic.” No one apparently noticed Goldberg’s presence, and he had a front-row seat as they debated Trump’s decision to attack the Houthi rebels, an Iran-backed militia that had been firing on civilian shipping in the Red Sea. Then, at 11:44 a.m. on March 15, the account labeled “Pete Hegseth” sent a message that contained “operational details of forthcoming strikes on Yemen, including information about targets, weapons the U.S. would be deploying and attack sequencing.” This would be a stunning breach of security. I’m a former Army JAG officer (an Army lawyer). I’ve helped investigate numerous allegations of classified information spillages, and I’ve never even heard of anything this egregious — a secretary of defense intentionally using a civilian messaging app to share sensitive war plans without even apparently noticing a journalist was in the chat. There is not an officer alive whose career would survive a security breach like that. It would normally result in instant consequences (relief from command, for example) followed by a comprehensive investigation and, potentially, criminal charges. Federal law makes it a crime when a person — through gross negligence — removes information “relating to the national defense” from “its proper place of custody or delivered to anyone in violation of his trust, or to be lost, stolen, abstracted or destroyed.” It’s way too soon to say whether Hegseth’s incompetence is also criminal, but I raise the possibility to demonstrate the sheer magnitude of the reported mistake. A security breach that significant requires a thorough investigation. Nothing destroys a leader’s credibility with soldiers more thoroughly than hypocrisy or double standards. When leaders break the rules that they impose on soldiers, they break the bond of trust between soldiers and commanders. The best commanders I knew did not ask a soldier to comply with a rule that didn’t also apply to them. The best commanders led by example. What example has Hegseth set? That he’s careless, and when you’re careless in the military, people can die. If he had any honor at all, he would resign. |
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All of Them Pete has the authority to order strikes on international targets while Groper golfs? |
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Shiva This is becoming ever more common in government. The Westminster System here in Oz (and I presume the American system) has what is called 'Ministerial Responsibility'. The Minister is responsible for whatever happens under his authority. Even if it is a rogue who commits the wrongdoing, the Minister is responsible for putting the rogue in that position, or for allowing the appointee of a previous Minister to continue in that position. This has been modified over time as the right of Ministers to hire and fire at will has been hedged around; but in so far as is within his power to prevent a blunder, the Minister remains responsible for what he COULD have done to prevent it but didn't. This responsibility seems not to be understood even by Ministers. I remember a classic case about 20 years ago involving Amanda Vanstone, Minister responsible for aged care facilities. Some stories came to light that horrendous abuse of residents was happening on a routine basis for an extended period. When challenged, Vanstone said "I acted on that as soon as I learned about it. I can't be held responsible for what I don't know about." She was wrong. It was not her duty to be responsible for what she knew about, but to KNOW ABOUT what she is responsible for. Otherwise it is the perfect excuse for neglect of duty. Her own words convicted her. (In passing, I seem to recall Trump saying quite often that there were things done under his authority by his minions that he didn't know about. QED.) |
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“I am Not Responsible for Anything.” Following is from HCR: Today the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg, dropped the story that senior members of the Trump administration planned the March 15 U.S. attack on the Houthis in Yemen over Signal, a widely available encrypted app that is most decidedly not part of the United States national security system. The decision to steer around government systems was possibly an attempt to hide conversations, since the app was set to erase some messages after a week and others after four weeks. By law, government communications must be archived. According to Goldberg, the use of Signal may also have violated the Espionage Act, which establishes how officials must handle information about the national defense. The app is not approved for national security use, and officials are supposed either to discuss military activity in a sensitive compartmented information facility, or SCIF, or to use approved government equipment. The use of Signal to plan a military attack on Yemen was itself an astonishingly dangerous breach, but what comes next is simply mind-boggling: the reason Goldberg could report on the conversation is that the person setting it up included Goldberg—a reporter without security clearance—in it. Goldberg reports that on March 11 he received a connection request from someone named Michael Waltz, although he did not believe the actual Michael Waltz, who is Trump’s national security advisor, would be writing to him. He thought it was likely someone trying to entrap him, although he thought perhaps it could be the real Waltz with some information. Two days later, he was included in the “Houthi PC small group,” along with a message that the chat would be for “a principles [sic] group for coordination on Houthis.” As Goldberg reports, a “principals committee generally refers to a group of the senior-most national-security officials, including the secretaries of defense, state, and the treasury, as well as the director of the CIA. It should go without saying—but I’ll say it anyway—that I have never been invited to a White House principals-committee meeting, and that, in my many years of reporting on national-security matters, I had never heard of one being convened over a commercial messaging app.” The other names on the app were those of Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Vice President J.D. Vance, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Brian McCormack from the National Security Council, Central Intelligence Director John Ratcliffe, Trump’s Middle East and Ukraine negotiator Steve Witkoff, White House chief of staff Suzy Wiles, perhaps White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, and Trump’s nominee for head of the National Counterterrorism Center, Joe Kent. Goldberg assumed the chat was fake, some sort of disinformation campaign, although he was concerned when Ratcliffe provided the full name of a CIA operative in this unsecure channel. But on March 14, as Vance, for example, took a strong stand against Europe—“I just hate bailing Europe out again”—and as Hegseth emphasized that their messaging must be that “Biden failed,” Goldberg started to think the chat might be real. Those in the chat talked of finding a way to make Europe pay the costs for the U.S. attack, and of “minimiz[ing] risk to Saudi oil facilities.” And then, on March 15, the messages told of the forthcoming attack. “I will not quote from this update, or from certain other subsequent texts,” Goldberg writes. “The information contained in them, if they had been read by an adversary of the United States, could conceivably have been used to harm American military and intelligence personnel, particularly in the broader Middle East, Central Command’s area of responsibility. What I will say, in order to illustrate the shocking recklessness of this Signal conversation, is that the Hegseth post contained operational details of forthcoming strikes on Yemen, including information about targets, weapons the U.S. would be deploying, and attack sequencing.” On the chat, reactions to the military strikes were emojis of a fist, an American flag, fire, praying hands, a flexed bicep, and “Good Job Pete and your team!!,” “Kudos to all…. Really great. God Bless,” and “Great work and effects!” In the messages, with a reporter on the line, Hegseth promised his colleagues he would “do all we can to enforce 100% OPSEC,” or operations security. In a message to the team outlining the forthcoming attack, Hegseth wrote: “We are currently clean on OPSEC.” Two hours after Goldberg wrote to the officials on the chat and alerted them to his presence on it by asking questions about it, National Security Council spokesperson Brian Hughes responded: “The thread is a demonstration of the deep and thoughtful policy coordination between senior officials.” When asked about the breach, Trump responded: “I don't know anything about it. I'm not a big fan of The Atlantic. To me, it's a magazine that's going out of business. I think it’s not much of a magazine. But I know nothing about it. You're saying that they had what?” There is nothing that the administration could say to make the situation better, but this made it worse. As national security specialist Tom Nichols noted: “If the President is telling the truth and no one’s briefed him about this yet, that’s another story in itself. In any other administration, [the chief of staff] would have been in the Oval [Office] within nanoseconds of learning about something like this.” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is evidently going to try to bully his way out of this disaster. When asked about it, he began to yell at a reporter that Goldberg is a “deceitful and highly discredited so-called journalist who’s made a profession of peddling hoaxes time and time again.” Hegseth looked directly at the camera and said: “Nobody was texting war plans.” But Goldberg has receipts. The chat had “the specific time of a future attack. Specific targets, including human targets…weapons systems…precise detail…a long section on sequencing…. He can say that it wasn’t a war plan, but it was a minute-by-minute accounting of what was about to happen.” Zachary B. Wolf of CNN noted that “Trump intentionally hired amateurs for top jobs. This is their most dramatic blunder.” Senator Jon Ossoff (D-GA) told Brian Tyler Cohen: “My first reaction... was 'what absolute clowns.' Total amateur hour, reckless, dangerous…. [T]his is what happens when you have basically Fox News personalities cosplaying as government officials.” Foreign policy scholar Timothy Snyder posted: “These guys inherited one of the most functional state apparatus in the history of the world and they are inhabiting it like a crack house.” Many observers have noted that all of these national security officials knew that using Signal in this way was against the law, and their comfort with jumping onto the commercial app to plan a military strike suggests they are using Signal more generally. “How many Signal chats with sensitive information about military operations are ongoing within the Pentagon right now?” Senator Adam Schiff (D-CA) posted. “Where else are war plans being shared with such abject disregard for our national security? We need answers. Right now.” End quote. There is more, but I just wanted to emphasize the illegality of what these cats, who gave Hillary such a bad time for using a secured server, are doing. She may have had secret communications stripped of classification headings on her phone, but none were active war plans distributed over commercial apps to Atlantic reporters along with Russian and Chinese spies. |
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Zorro Brig/Athena/Miss Mo recently sent me a PM wondering how I was doing; apparently because of an PM from y'all. I sent her a return PM explaining that I had packed my computer in prep for my move to Arizona --- My computer contains all of y'all's tele and e-mail data, so rush an email back to me to dottyshade@gmail.com when y'all have the time. PS: We're still in West Virginia, but Dotty says that we'll be hitting the road to Arizona on 04/29/2025. Mo One/Photon |
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Google Elsewhere I had said Russia cracked Signal’s end to end encryption, which was inaccurate. Instead, Russia’s hack was to add itself to distribution lists via links. While they may have cracked encryption, that isn’t actually known. It is the case they can compromise private cell phones, intercepting messages either side of the encryption. The email lady did have classified messages on her private server, but no military secrets. Mostly just content that would embarrass the State Department or WH if revealed. Reputation damage, vs. placing lives and military assets at risk. And admitting what she did was wrong, she stopped. No such admissions or changes in procedure to comply with the law are indicated here. They are proud of their flaunting basic security. As the highest ranking member of the Houthi PC Small Group Chat VP JD Vance was responsible for who was on the list—the list they were prohibited from using. Pete is guilty of publishing classified attack plans and lying about it. Tulsi is guilty of lying about the classified intel to congress. Everyone on the list, except Treasury (?) should have been fully aware the intel was classified and that NONE of the communications should occur over Signal. The journalist was fully aware of the law and requirements. I don’t think JD Vance, despite his responsibility, should resign. Hegseth absolutely must resign, and Tulsi should be removed from office for her willingness to commit perjury. I don’t hold National Security Advisor Mike Waltz responsible for anything beyond a gross mistake he should have rectified. For him, a letter of reprimand. There also needs to be some oversight. They will continue using Gmail and Signal despite this SNAFU. |
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Shiva 08:14 Yes, there needs to be, but there won't be. The entire Trump administration works on the basis of the Führerprinzip, not the Rule of Law. If the guy above you in the pecking order says to do it, you just do it! It's a principle that ensures nobody is ever actually held accountable; at most someone BELOW the guilty party might be sacrificed as a scapegoat. I sense that there are a few appointees who have been picked specially with this possibility in mind; Kennedy is obviously one, and Musk might well be another once he has served his purpose (after all, who needs a billionaire donor if you can't stand again?). I largely agree with your assessment of who should suffer what as a result. Vance should offer an apology, but stay as VP. Hegseth must resign as you say, and perhaps Tulsi should be done over for perjury as well as being sacked. Walz also needs to 'fess up to his blunder, but that should be enough. |
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Waltz The claim is obvious nonsense. Signal DOES have an option for importing contacts via links, but that clearly wasn't the case here. Waltz (I just can't seem to shake a desire to add a "t" to his name--maybe for dancing around an issue?) obviously added him. Who was intended? Why was the National Security Advisor adding anyone to the list? And again--they aren't supposed to be using that in the first place--OR Gmail. And like you said--they aren't going to change any practice as a result. I doubt anyone bothers to check group lists in the future as a result of this mistake. What HAS changed? Trump suspended US cyber operations against Russia. If you are a Russian hacker engaged in cryptolocker schemes against our despised enemies in the UK, EU, Canada, or Asia (Taiwan, South Korea, Thailand, etc.) don't expect any opposition from us. Trump explained that if Putin wanted to attack a NATO ally he would happily encourage him. Now he has extended that to any cyber operations against any of our most hated enemies. www.cnn.com Trump wants Russia back into the G7 (G8). Trump will restore Russian consulates and embassies, and reopen air travel between the US and Moscow. Trump will relax restrictions on Russia. Trump is refusing to cooperate with our despised enemies (the EU, Australia, etc.) on Russian sabotage and cyberwarfare. www.reuters.com I suspect the Trump administration will also refuse to assist traitorous US companies like Disney, Costco, & Delta Airlines (for their DEI), Macy's (which refused to carry Trump products) if Russians succeed in hacking their systems. I wish this was just an obscene joke, and not a description of our new reality. |
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First of all, I evaluated Signal myself, and it is not as safe and secure as they say. It has the same deficiencies, holes and risks as Line, WhatsApp, Telegram, Viber and other public platforms. In fact, large chunks of code is copied and used directly and identically in each of these platforms. Blocks upon blocks of code can be found on the internet to download for free, and used in these platforms- and that is what they do! Why invent the wheel again if it is already there? The only significant difference is the algorithms used to encrypt these platforms, and if these codes are not changed regularly (each country have different policies and legislation of the frequency of changing encryption codes) these platforms are guaranteed to be broken, both by nation-states, hackers and other actors. That is besides the fact that the keys are shared by certain participating countries and agencies. Under South African legislation they would have been arrested and charged with any/all of the following crimes: * leaking information/intelligence * using a public platform to discuss state matters * obstruction of justice * (I am not sure exactly how our military legislation phrases it, but:....) revealing an active operation and putting soldiers' lives at risk * sedition * treason *perjury Even my wife was amazed when this story broke; she has learned enough from me over the years to realize how serious this really is. Now the next question is: who else is leaking information/intelligence? |
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jonheck 07-Apr-25, 06:10 |
riaannieman Naturally there are some opposing positions over in NG land. “another nothing burger in the DNC attempts to discredit” “precived security breach” - hi lit-ed for emphasise. “Didn't’ Biden——-“? “a mistake”, Was unintentional”, “not sure that it rises to loosing job and going to gail”. “Deleting emails and scrubbing server,”. “worth loosing your job and going to jail”. In reference to the frequently mentioned Mrs. Clinton, who was functioning as the Secretary of State 4 presidency's ago.—real old news. |
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I truly believe RIM when they claimed that the sun will burn out before anybody could hack their algorithms- that is entirely possible if the encryption is strong enough, but who needs to hack it if you have the keys in hand? |
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Unreadable? This is expected to enter public markets as early as 2030-2035. |
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Riaan What's your backup? |
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South Africa |
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First of all, during State Capture (the period of massive and whole scale fraud and theft committed under the reign of Jacob Zuma) one of the parastatal entities robbed to the point almost total collapse was ESCOM: our single semi-state owned electricity provider. We have a term here called load shedding. Check these out: www.news24.com www.youtube.com We are quite used to go without electricity for long periods of time. Most people have fuel generators and/or solar panels to take up the slack. I have a combination of both myself. We have manual encryption as well, which I brush up on every once in a wile. It is not as strong as logical encryption, but then the documentation is transported by hand under some pretty strict rules and SOP's. |
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Shiva 10:01 |
