Warner says that there was plain sloppiness

The ‘Signaling’ Of A New York State: a Demonstration Of A Security Breakdown Involving the U.S.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., supported the Trump administration’s claims that there were no war plans shared on the group chat.

Warner: … whether she was using her phone or a government phone, but Ailsa step back for a moment — even with what we know right now, we have the vice president disagreeing with others about an imminent bombing — having that information, if it had gone out ahead of time, I can tell you that Russia and China, Iran, that’s what their spies would love to have. That very information alone in any traditional way would be viewed as classified and not supposed to be disclosed.

Chang: But I ask you, if none of your Republican colleagues are willing to speak out against what happened without their support in seeking accountability, are we going to see any accountability?

Mark Warner: I believe they do. It was shocking that no one from my party came to these folks’ defense. If anybody hasn’t heard, let’s just review very quickly there was a Signal — a good encrypted application, but it is not a classified means of transmitting information. Russia and China are suspected of trying to break into Signal-based systems. Two, you’ve got this senior level of individuals communicating on this non-classified channel and plain sloppiness put a journalist on and nobody bothered to check who’s this other person on the line.

As expected, you and your fellow Democrats had some words for the director of national intel and the head of the CIA. Notably, none of your Republican colleagues seemed intent on focusing at all on this whole Signal episode. Do you have a sense of whether any of those Republicans share your concerns?

A Pentagon-wide advisory against using the app was issued last week, saying that a vulnerability has been identified and should not be used.

According to Rep. Mike Lawler, who is a Republican from New York, sensitive information should not be sent on secure channels or given to reporters with security clearances.

“It was a chilling thing to realize that I’ve inadvertently discovered a massive security breach in the national security system of the United States,” he said in an interview with All Things Considered.

Jeffrey Goldberg, The Atlantic’s editor-in-chief, revealed that he was added to a group chat where the nation’s top security officials were discussing plans to bomb Houthi targets in Yemen.

“You’ve got this senior level of individuals communicating on this non-classified channel and plain sloppiness put a journalist on and nobody bothered to check who’s this other person on the line,” Warner told All Things Considered’s Ailsa Chang.

Among the senators reprimanding members of the Trump administration was ranking member Sen. Mark Warner, a Democrat from Virginia, who slammed the incident as “mind-boggling.”

Jack Reed was the top Democrat on the armed services committee and said that he and Wicker would be gathering evidence to begin a probe. “It is an egregious violation” he told NPR.

Warner: There was no conceivable circumstance. They should not be changing the rules of the country as we over classify. And the hypocrisy here of the director of national intelligence, who literally 11 days ago tweeted out, like, we’re going to go after every leaker and anybody that leaks, we’re going to pursue to the full extent of the law and then to be so cavalier and treat this information because if it’d gotten out, Americans could have died in terms of the Houthis being able to reconfigure or redirect their defensive capabilities. This is kind of Security 101. If this had been a military or CIA officer, they would be fired for this kind of behavior.

One of the things I like about the Senate Intelligence Committee is that it always has a tendency to be bipartisan, and I was the committee chair under the last administration. I absolutely believe if the administration tries to stonewall this, we will have bipartisan support for us as the Intelligence Committee, the oversight committee that’s supposed to be making sure things are appropriate. We will look at this at the transcript.

The recent news that a journalist was added to a group chat in which senior leaders discussed a potential military strike on the rebels in Yemen is stunning security and intelligence veterans.

The former congressman said that all of them who served in the military and were in the Air National Guard would be in Leavenworth.

NPR’s Morning Edition: “Heads are exploding” is a “top secret network” that surrounds the White House Situation Room

“Heads are exploding,” Ned Price, a former CIA analyst who was deputy to the U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. in the Biden administration, told NPR’s Morning Edition as he described conversations with former colleagues about high-ranking Trump officials’ Signal chat.

“The meetings of the Principals Committee are held in the White House Situation Room, perhaps the most secure venue within the U.S. government,” Price said.

“These secure rooms are built to discuss classified information,” NPR’s Greg Myre reports. “You can’t take a phone into these rooms. All of the high-ranking national security officials have a system for storing sensitive documents at their homes and offices.

“This is a top secret network that beams them into the White House Situation Room,” Price says, adding that if a member is traveling, a national security team accompanies them to set up a secure tent and other equipment to protect their communications.

Goldberg told NPR on Monday that Hegseth shared “operational military information” that included targets, weapons and attack sequencing. Goldberg said he would not provide additional details because he considered the information to be too sensitive to share more widely.

Goldberg did not say what damage the communications could do, but he did say that they would include details of upcoming strikes.

Jun Harada, a Signal vice president, stated that the Pentagon warning was not related to the core technology of the company. “After learning that Signal users were being targeted and how they were, we introduced additional safeguards and in-app warnings to help protect people,” Harada said.

Comments on the Security Breach by a Secret Service Message Group: Reply to Goldberg, Gabbard, Ratcliffe and Wiles

But experts say sensitive government communications normally occur via official devices and through elaborate security measures, not by using open-source software offered by a nonprofit.

The 18 members on the Principals Committee chat included Vice President Mr. Vance, the White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, and the apparent reference to Stephen Miller. Also in the group: CIA Director John Ratcliffe, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, both of whom were questioned about the breach during a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on Tuesday.

Greg Myre says that the CIA is fanatical about secure communications. “Yet based on Goldberg’s account, no senior national security official raised concerns about sharing war plans on Signal.”

The Pentagon sent out an email last week to warn staff of a vulnerability in the messaging app. The notice cited risks from “Russian professional hacking groups” working to spy on encrypted communications. A notice was sent days after Goldberg said he had been added to the PC group.

Democratic senators on the Senate Intelligence Committee pushed back aggressively against those claims by CIA Director John Ratcliffe and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard.

In a Signal message group, Ratcliffe’s communications were permissible and lawful but did not include classified information.

She has not passed any classified information outside of proper channels and she refused to say if she was on the Signal chat group.

Goldberg wrote that the 18 individuals that participated in the text chain were led by Gabbard and Ratcliffe, as well as Vice President’s Quayle and Hegseth.

Goldberg initially thought it may have been a hoax when he read the texts over the course of several days. He said his inclusion in the group must have been inadvertent. He thinks that an aide is trying to include someone else with the same initials as Goldberg.

At the White House, the National Security Council confirmed the authenticity of the message thread on Monday, saying it was “reviewing how an inadvertent number was added to the chain.”

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have criticized the security breach, saying the incident raises questions about the Trump administration’s handling of sensitive information.

Democrats in Congress had roundly criticized many of Trump’s security and intelligence picks for their perceived lack of experience during the nomination process — and are now calling for further investigation.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer have publicly called for an investigation into what they respectively called “this unacceptable and irresponsible national security breach” and the “damage it created.”

“We’re very concerned and will take action immediately,” Senate armed services committee Chairman Roger Wicker told reporters on Monday.

Maine Sen. Susan Collins is a member of the Intelligence Committee. The incident was “easilyifiable” to Collins.

Another member of the intel panel, Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., suggested ahead of Tuesday’s hearing that the committee would have a deeper conversation on the breach behind closed doors.

I don’t think it’s a good idea, but I want to hear from the people involved in the situation so I can make a decision, according to Rounds.

Rep. J.D. Johnson, R-Newtonian Physicists, and the Particle Spectator at the Fermilab Tevatron

In the House, Republicans have been more quiet. Hopes to downplay the issue were apparent during the House GOP weekly meeting on Tuesday.

“Obviously that was a mistake, and a serious one,” he said. But Johnson described the participants in the chat as “patriots,” adding, “that was a successful mission.”