The article highlights serious lapses in judgment among senior U.S. officials who openly discuss classified military operations in unsecured communication channels. Notably, members of Trump's national security cabinet, including the Secretary of Defense and Director of National Intelligence, seemed unfazed by the implications of such discussions. The risks posed by potential adversaries intercepting these communications could lead to blackmail situations. The article suggests that the motive behind using insecure channels might be to evade documentation requirements mandated by law, indicating a systemic issue of negligence towards handling classified information and a lack of accountability within high-level government roles.
No senior US government official in the now-infamous Houthi PC Small Group Signal chat seemed new to that kind of group, nor surprised by the sensitivity of the subject discussed in that insecure forum, not even when the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, chimed in with details of a coming airstrike.
Reasonable conclusions may be drawn from these facts. First, Trump's national security cabinet commonly discusses secret information on insecure personal devices.
As a first-term Trump administration official and ex-CIA officer, I believe the reason these officials risk interacting in this way is to prevent their communications from being preserved as required by the Presidential Records Act.
No one seems to have feared being investigated by the justice department for what appears to be a violation of the Espionage Act's Section 793(f), which makes gross negligence in mishandling classified information a felony.
#national-security #communication-security #classified-information #trump-administration #espionage-act
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