[honk]

Let's see if I can be more clear. The entire discussion is what should have been kept secret here. The whole thing. Every single part of it that we're reading about in this article, not just the one or two bits that the author is keeping vague. Those are all secret war plans that should not have been discussed on an unsecure platform, let alone with a journalist present for it.

[Lord Dave]

Honk is correct.
This is top level violation of security processes.  Like having top secret meetings by cell phone light on an open air patio at a golf course.

Meanwhile Trump wanted to send Hillary to jail for *maybe* having state secret emails hacked by enemy states.

Combine that with classified documents in a bathroom, tweeting classified images for bragging rights, etc..
And its clear Trump and his administration are not security minded with data.

[AATW]

An argument based on "Trust me bro" only works if you are trustworthy.

What argument? The White House have admitted doing this.
You're going to hurt yourself if you bend over backwards any further to defend the indefensible.
This isn't even "Orange Man Bad". I know he's your Supreme Leader and you have to commend and laud everything he does, but he's not directly responsible for this.

[Tom Bishop]

An argument based on "Trust me bro" only works if you are trustworthy.

What argument? The White House have admitted doing this.
You're going to hurt yourself if you bend over backwards any further to defend the indefensible.
This isn't even "Orange Man Bad". I know he's your Supreme Leader and you have to commend and laud everything he does, but he's not directly responsible for this.

The White House only admitted that it appears to be accurate that the journalist was included in the chat. What exactly was shared is still in question. We only have the claim of the journalist that what was shared put military members at risk. The journalist claims that the information could have endangered military members through the "broader middle east", so we are starting with a situation where you need to dig yourself out of a hole of stupidity.

Let's see if I can be more clear. The entire discussion is what should have been kept secret here. The whole thing. Every single part of it that we're reading about in this article, not just the one or two bits that the author is keeping vague. Those are all secret war plans that should not have been discussed on an unsecure platform, let alone with a journalist present for it.

There are plenty of times that someone, such as a defense secretary, has participated in a public interview and discussed that "military operations are commencing" or "we are focusing our attention on the terrorists hidden in bunkers". This broad sort of speech is normal and does not put military members in danger. In this case Trump had already stated that he is establishing operations against the Houthis, so this type of broad discussion about military operations from the defense secretary is typically normal to spread publicly.

If this journalist thinks that what he heard put military members in the "broader middle east" in danger, or members in a specific country, he will need to specific in his claims. Without this specify, I can only declare from this vagueness that this is an imaginative liar, who has stretched the truth about many other issues in his lustrous career as a left-wing journalist.



Pete Hegseth accurately states that this is a discredited journalist who has peddled every hoax story against Trump, including "Russia, Russia, Russia" which was the claim that there was evidence that Trump was a Russian asset. After years of investigations that went nowhere, and the Steele dossier is discredited as a hoax.

Now, after years of stretching and arguing the most ridiculous hoaxes with the thinnest evidence, you want us to believe this POS reporter is suddenly reporting honest journalism?

[Lord Dave]

We get it Tom.
Everyone on Earth has a higher standard of evidence required than "concepts of a plan" Trump.

"Broader middle East" yes this is appropriate to say vs "the 2nd fleet will position itself here and launch strikes at these locations while the 27th rocket stationed outside of ....."

It's reasonable to keep it vague so as to not give away intelligence on troop movement or locations.

That being said, had his story been false, Trump would have said so immediately and we both know it.

[Tom Bishop]

In the video I posted Pete Hegseth appears to implicitly admit that he was talking about it, yes. But I don't for a second believe that he was giving extreme specifics or anything equivalent to coordinates that would be necessary to put military members at risk to the Vice President. That is obviously unnecessary for communication to high level officials.

Again, Trump had already announced operations against the Houthis, and it is normal for the Defense Secretary to talk about military operations in a broad sense publicly. There are many interviews with military and operations leaders discussing start of operations and general areas of involvement. If you think that the Defense Secretary can't talk about operations that the President has already announced, this is incorrect. There will need to be a lot more specifics beyond that to determine if something wrong was done here.

[honk]

"I don't think any tangible harm was caused by this specific breach in security, so it's no big deal" is not how information security works. Divulging classified information in an unsecure channel - and with at least one confirmed unauthorized person being present for it - is a serious offense. People have lost their jobs and security clearances over this kind of thing in the past. Some people have even faced criminal penalties for it. This also raises the obvious question of how often senior administration officials have been casually discussing military policy over unsecured group chats. There's no reason to assume that this was just a one-time thing.

And yeah, Hegseth is apparently denying the whole incident even after the White House confirmed that it was real. Ordinarily I'd say that he's making himself look like an idiot, but it won't resonate with the MAGA fanbase, because, as I've said before, Trumpism is inherently contradictory. Trump is both a cool bad boy who scores with women all the time and a pious, respectable family man. The Jan. 6th protesters were both innocent concerned citizens unfairly oppressed by the government and Deep State plants trying to make Trump supporters look bad by staging an outrageous insurrection. Elon Musk is both a high-ranking official whom everyone in the government has to obey and a private citizen who doesn't answer to Congress or the courts. And this latest incident both didn't happen and wasn't a big deal, depending on the discussion you're having at the time.

[Lord Dave]

In the video I posted Pete Hegseth appears to implicitly admit that he was talking about it, yes. But I don't for a second believe that he was giving extreme specifics or anything equivalent to coordinates that would be necessary to put military members at risk to the Vice President. That is obviously unnecessary for communication to high level officials.

Yes.  Why would the VP need to know information about what troops are going to do and when. >_>

Even just saying "we're going to hit this target here.  And this one here at 11:05" is more than enough of a security breach to cause an issue.

[AATW]

"I don't think any tangible harm was caused by this specific breach in security, so it's no big deal" is not how information security works. Divulging classified information in an unsecure channel - and with at least one confirmed unauthorized person being present for it - is a serious offense. People have lost their jobs and security clearances over this kind of thing in the past. Some people have even faced criminal penalties for it. This also raises the obvious question of how often senior administration officials have been casually discussing military policy over unsecured group chats. There's no reason to assume that this was just a one-time thing.

I was watching a video about all this earlier. The person speaking was asking how we process this in a world where stuff like this just doesn't matter.
The usual suspects will pretend it didn't happen or will downplay it. Trump's claiming he didn't know anything about it.
The MAGA lot just don't care or refuse to acknowledge there's an issue. None of this stuff moves the dial for them an inch.
The other side do care but can do nothing about it.
It's all quite alarming.

[markjo]

Something to keep in mind about Signal; it isn’t officially approved by the government for secure communication and therefore can’t be downloaded on to government phones.  This means that high ranking military and government officials are using personal devices to discuss top secret information.   This alone should worry even the most diehard MAGA supporter.

[Lord Dave]

Something to keep in mind about Signal; it isn’t officially approved by the government for secure communication and therefore can’t be downloaded on to government phones.  This means that high ranking military and government officials are using personal devices to discuss top secret information.   This alone should worry even the most diehard MAGA supporter.

It's not?  It's decently secure far as I know.

[Tom Bishop]

Something to keep in mind about Signal; it isn’t officially approved by the government for secure communication

Neither is CNN, NBC, or FOX News, but we can find plenty of government and military leaders who have talked about about the commencement of operations, areas of focus, and about active wars in general. Trump had already announced operations against the Houthis so it is not a surprise, and officials normally talk about the generalities of the operations freely.

We are supposed to assume that something specific was said, which for some reason put the American military forces in the "broader Middle East"in danger. Considering the history of this journalist and his outlet, this is incredibly doubtful.

[markjo]

Something to keep in mind about Signal; it isn’t officially approved by the government for secure communication

Neither is CNN, NBC, or FOX News, but we can find plenty of government and military leaders who have talked about about the commencement of operations, areas of focus, and about active wars in general.

We aren’t talking about operations in the past tense.  We’re talking about operations that are either in the planning stages or are about to happen.   Do you honestly think that it’s okay to give a target the heads up that they’re about to be attacked?

[AATW]

Do you honestly think that it’s okay to give a target the heads up that they’re about to be attacked?

That's not quite what happened here. But as honk says above, to be MAGA you have to constantly believe contradictory things.
Or you have to decide what to think about something depending on who did it.
It's all very strange, almost mental illness.

[Lord Dave]

Something to keep in mind about Signal; it isn’t officially approved by the government for secure communication

Neither is CNN, NBC, or FOX News, but we can find plenty of government and military leaders who have talked about about the commencement of operations, areas of focus, and about active wars in general.

We aren’t talking about operations in the past tense.  We’re talking about operations that are either in the planning stages or are about to happen.   Do you honestly think that it’s okay to give a target the heads up that they’re about to be attacked?

Tom is trying to apply "we are going to attack the Hoothie in Yemen" as the same as "We're going to hit the Hoothie site 40 miles north of sana'a."

[honk]

Something to keep in mind about Signal; it isn’t officially approved by the government for secure communication

Neither is CNN, NBC, or FOX News, but we can find plenty of government and military leaders who have talked about about the commencement of operations, areas of focus, and about active wars in general. Trump had already announced operations against the Houthis so it is not a surprise, and officials normally talk about the generalities of the operations freely.

We are supposed to assume that something specific was said, which for some reason put the American military forces in the "broader Middle East"in danger. Considering the history of this journalist and his outlet, this is incredibly doubtful.

Okay, I'll play along. Suppose you're right and Goldberg made up the parts of the exchange where a CIA official was supposedly mentioned by name and where Hegseth supposedly said something that would have hurt American military and intelligence operations if an enemy had read it. Taking that for granted, do you know what difference it makes to how reckless having this conversation on an unsecured platform was? Very little to none. Because, as I keep trying to explain to you, the whole conversation is the problem. This wasn't an interview or an authorized release of information to the media. It was high-level officials in the administration discussing and coordinating an active military operation. That kind of discussion involves classified information, and cannot be discussed on unsecure platforms. Whether or not you can point to any tangible harm caused by the disclosure doesn't matter. It's still a major security breach, and something that the government takes very, very seriously, even if you don't (unless it involves Hillary, of course ). Like I said, careers have been ended over this kind of thing. Careers have been ended over far less than this.

[Tom Bishop]

None of this even matters. Pete Hegseth is the Secretary of Defense. Here is a reminder:

"The secretary of defense's position of command and authority over the military is second only to that of the president of the United States, who is the commander-in-chief."

If Trump is Zeus, then Pete Hegseth is Ares, the God of War. Pete Hegseth can talk about ongoing military operations if he wants to. Your imagined rules for discretion mean nothing, and if they did apply, would apply to low and medium level soldiers, and not the people who make the rules and communicate military activities. The Secretary of Defense has operational freedom at his discretion.

Again, plenty of defense secretaries have talked openly about ongoing conflicts, so this narrative has been thoroughly debonked by history.

[AATW]

None of this even matters. Pete Hegseth is the Secretary of Defense.

It doesn’t matter if you have an incompetent secretary of defence? Ok then 

[Lord Dave]

Ah yes the "The person at the top can do whatever they want because they're at the top and shouldn't be held to the same standards and rules as everyone else." argument.
Classic.

[honk]

No, the Secretary of Defense does not have carte blanche to reveal military secrets at his pleasure. Only the president has that privilege, and for once in his scandal-ridden career, Trump genuinely seems to have had nothing to do with this latest debacle. Besides, even if Hegseth did have that power legally, this was clearly not a deliberate disclosure on his part. This was a mistake - a stupid, clumsy mistake. He can't just retroactively say "Yeah, I meant to do that!" Especially not given his insincere denial of the entire story.

Your imagined rules for discretion mean nothing

Bait used to be believable.