In one of my last corporate jobs, a guy was brought in above me to manage our PR team because he was more “tech-savvy.” We did PR, not coding, so that in itself was mystifying. One of the first things he did was make the team download Snapchat so that we could better communicate with each other.
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For starters, we had an internal messaging system, email, and phones. Yet trying to prove that he had “tech chops,” he refused to use the company-sanctioned services. I came to find out later, after I left, that because of privacy concerns, we weren’t allowed to use Snapchat.
I felt like a child answering his Snaps when he was about 50 feet from my desk, and he would send a draft of press releases, for example, through Snapchat, which required you to cut, and paste it into an email and send it to yourself. I once said to him, “Why don’t you just send the drafts through email?” He said, “Snapchat is better.” Whatever.
Further, I was getting inundated with notifications from Snapchat to add people who the company was picking up from my contacts. If I hung up the phone from someone, ding! I got a notification to add that person to my Snapchat. It was annoying and frustrating, and there were times I wasn’t sure what to do with those notifications. Was I supposed to add them?
When I saw the news Monday about the Trump bumpkins using the Signal app to make war plans against the Houthis in Yemen prior to our attack on them this weekend, I have to say that I wasn’t surprised. Stupid is as stupid does.
Speaking of which, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth reminds me of my former boss, a liar and a know-it-all. I can only imagine that, first, it was he who suggested using Signal, and when he got protests about using the app, he gave an answer similar to the one I got: “Signal is better.”
Also, I’m sure we can all agree he probably said something like, “Let’s not use secure government tools since the ‘deep state’ is listening." In their testimony before Congress, CIA Director John Ratcliffe and Director of National Intelligence (I still can’t believe this) Tulsi Gabbard did put the onus on Hegseth for sharing the information on Signal.
It defies logic that these man-children (and one lost-in-space woman, Gabbard) were communicating plans about military attacks that threatened the lives of our service members and would surely result in the death of innocent people in Yemen. Can you imagine what our allies think? “Thank God we’re keeping ourselves away from the dopey U.S.,” they are uttering. “We ain’t sharing any intelligence with those dunces.”
Even an imbecile knows that our enemies are listening in on everything that’s communicated on our national security team’s phones. That’s a no-brainer that the no-brainers inexplicably ignored.
Nothing that we hold in our hands and walk around with is ever secure. Google, Apple, and Facebook are listening to you, so why wouldn’t Russia be listening to Hegseth, Gabbard, Marco Rubio, Ratcliffe, Mike Waltz, and JD Vance?
Here’s what I think happened. Waltz claims he put this Signal group together. Just as Snapchat recommended adding from my contact list, so most likely did Signal with Waltz, and not knowing what he was doing, Waltz probably inadvertently accepted the suggestion of Goldberg, to whom he had apparently just spoke, by pressing “yes.”
Doing a little digging, I found that for secure communication, the federal government national security teams employ various methods designed to protect sensitive information, like the Sensitive Compartmented Information Facilities, secure rooms or buildings that prevent electronic eavesdropping. There is also the Secure Telephone Equipment and the Secure Video Teleconferencing. These systems are specifically designed to handle classified information and are subject to rigorous security protocols. I seriously doubt they are suggesting adding contacts to the approved list.
Furthermore, officials are provided with government-issued secure devices equipped with specialized encryption and security features.
Gee, with all this at their fingertips, the smarmy and smug Hegseth, Waltz, and Vance, et. al., probably thought they knew better than everyone else by dishing their war plans on an external app. Yes, they were stupid, but I also think that there was a strong hint of egomania.
Cybersecurity experts have emphasized that while Signal offers substantial security for general use (investigative journalists use it all the time to protect certain communications with sources and colleagues), it does not meet the stringent requirements necessary for handling classified government communications. The app is not accredited for classified data.
While even a government security newbie would recognize the enormous danger for exposure in using Signal for national security and war planning, what really makes your stomach turn is the reaction to the strikes against the Houthis in Yemen, namely by Waltz, who used those emojis to boast (and ostensibly to try to look “hip”) about the strikes.
By using a series of emojis — no one else in the group did — it reminded me of my mother after she learned how to use emojis. For months, that’s all her texts consisted of: just a series of random emojis.
Remember, at the time Waltz was getting creative with his emojis, the “Houthis Group” wasn’t aware whether service members had been killed, and more galling is that people would have inevitably been killed. They were dropping bombs, not leaflets.
At the end of the day, Trump’s appointees to safeguard our national security are no better than 12-year-olds playing video war games. So, if you think it’s OK for seventh-graders to run our military and protect our nation against our enemies, then perhaps you’ll share your thoughts among those that are on your messaging apps.
Don’t worry; no one else will be listening to you, so you can say whatever you want. And don’t forget the emojis.
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