Jeffrey Goldberg on the Group Chat That Broke the Internet
theatlantic.com
theatlantic.com
Everyone likes to imagine this kind of stuff is done by operators acting in American interests with a steady hand on the wheel. But it turns out decisions about life and death are being made using shallow analysis by a list of unqualified political insiders with the level of care given to organizing a fantasy football league.
I can't think of a better parable about technology. We have removed massive barriers and instilled ease of use. We have also created complacency and instilled recklessness. Add in the political elements and this is a seminal 21st century moment.
> “Every young person who wants to break into DC-politics hope it’s West Wing, fear it’s House of Cards and find out it’s Veep”
Because high ranking government employees don't want to be told they can't use whatever they're already familiar with for whatever they want, and they would rather heaven and earth move to accommodate them than be inconvenienced. Even if it exists, which is probably does, you can't force such people to use it, they'll just have you fired and maybe have the program axed for good measure.
The problem is these officials chose not to use the secure systems, because they don't want those records to exist.
Yes these intel guys and gals certainly should be spanked to improve their operatsec. That’s inexcusable, but this guy is squeezing the most he can out of the story.
Signal is an approved app. The prior admin also used it for non classified discussions.
Whoever invited that putz accidentally into the chat needs to be fired.
The transcript that's linked here says the exact opposite multiple times.
> But this level of specificity—actual planning for an ongoing operation, the sharing of intelligence and information about strikes—that is clearly not what Signal’s intended for.
> Harris: So details like the number of aircraft that are involved, the kinds of munitions that are being dropped, specific times—
> Rosin: That was on the chain?
> Harris: Specific targets on the ground, um, you know, intelligence-related matters relating to the strike and to the targets, names of individuals—of U.S. officials—who should not have been put in an unclassified chain because of their status as intelligence officers. You know, you can kind of, like, you can—there’s probably six or seven different kinds of information that are arguably implicated under the rules and the law for how you’re supposed to handle this stuff.
I cannot comprehend what kind of twist a mind has gone through to believe a journalist doing exactly their job is being an attention whore, bringing attention to a uniquely important scoop is the whole point of journalism.
Imagine during WWII somebody accidentally forwarded plans about Operation Overlord to the press before D-Day. The response wouldn't be "oh, well it didn't include details on specific targets".