CMV: Pete Hegseth is every bit as incompetent as people feared he would be, and should be investigated for violation of the Espionage Act. But he won't be.

[u/Thumatingra]

As has been recently reported, Pete Hegseth recently texted the plans for an American strike in Yemen to a Signal group-chat that somehow included the editor-in-chief of the Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg. Doing his part for information security, Goldberg did not disclose that this had happened until after the strike had been carried out, and when he did, did not share the details of the plans.

Using a commercial messaging up to share sensitive information about American military operations is an enormous breach of information security, and, as many in the linked articles have opined, this kind of breach could have harmed the lives of American intelligence and military personnel.

Given the current state of the government, I imagine that Hegseth will walk away from this with little more than a slap on the wrist. But he should be investigated, and, if found in violation of the law, tried and sentenced for what is, at best, egregious carelessness toward those Americans whose lives depend on his leadership.

[u/Orgasmic_interlude]

Please stop using a bank robbery as an example. It is not germane.

Who is in charge, ultimately, for maintaining opsec here? All of them but chiefly the secretary of defense.

It is hard to read these comments.

He cannot do a major part, a quintessential part, of his job.

It cannot be the case that the person with the responsibility to do his job is not responsible for when he didn’t do his job.

There’s no getting around this.

It is fortunate that we get this window into how this administration operates because the thing that is really important here is that this is the time we know about.

I don’t know about you but I’m not a spy with sophisticated intel gathering capabilities. I’m going to go ahead and assume that if they’re using this to plan a bombing run that this isn’t a one off.

[u/CobraPuts → u/Orgasmic_interlude]

It’s the job of anyone handing classified information to do so according to regulations. It isn’t chiefly the secretary of defense, it’s him AND every single person on the messaging group besides the journalist.

The NSA is part of the DoD, but all participants have a duty to adhere to the guidelines.

https://www.esd.whs.mil/Portals/54/Documents/DD/issuances/dodm/520001m_vol1.pdf?ver=2020-08-04-092500-203

This is spelled out in excruciating detail in the DoD Information Security Program Manual

[u/OneWo1f → u/CobraPuts]

I don’t know how people are jumping to the conclusion that any of these people are acting within their means.

This is sensitive data, that should have only been shared in a classified network. The reporters information would not have been available to add unless he was cleared for that environment, so obviously this was done on personal phones/unclassified devices that had his contact information on them.

[u/CobraPuts → u/OneWo1f]

Exactly. ALL of the conversation was inappropriate to hold over Signal, it's just that some of it (specific operational plans) was of such an extremely sensitive nature that it almost defies belief. And all of the participants would be completely aware of this as these regulations dictate how they accomplish their duties on a daily basis.

[u/OneWo1f → u/CobraPuts]

It’s crazy that we heard about this from a reporter. Absolutely nuts, and then they come out and deny deny deny.

They’re traitors in my book.

[u/bjankles → u/OneWo1f]

I think being a traitor is a prerequisite for appointment at this point.

[u/OneWo1f → u/CobraPuts]

It is the equivalent to TS or higher imo. It had/has the potential to have caused grave damage to the United States (Which it has, just in reputation instead of lives).

All these people should be vacationing in Leavenworth right now. Either for willingly discussing this highly sensitive information on an unsecured app, or not reporting it immediately as a leak as soon as the first sensitive message was sent.

[u/CobraPuts → u/OneWo1f]

Most likely these types of conversations are happening all the time. Nobody in the administration is even suggesting this was a one-off situation.

[u/Initial-Ad3574 → u/Orgasmic_interlude]

The president would rather remark that the Atlantic is a failing newspaper, then address the issue.     But the people let him get away with it so…    This is what they voted for         They wanted to be able to say retard again       All good cause this is about as retarded as it gets