Posted on 03/28/2025 8:02:32 AM PDT by Mariner
What’s a good analogy for Signal, the commercial, publicly available encryption app?
Have you ever watched a public hearing of the Senate or House Intelligence Committee? It happens almost every time: A witness from one of our intelligence agencies is asked a question that, whether the interrogating lawmaker realizes it or not, calls for an answer that includes national defense information — in the main, classified intelligence.
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So what happens next is a commonplace: The agency official will tell the panel that he or she cannot answer the question in public, but may be willing to address the matter in the closed, classified setting — in which the only people present (including members of these select intelligence committees) have the appropriate security clearances.
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On Wednesday, National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard provided some audacious testimony to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. With a straight face, Director Gabbard claimed that the patently classified national defense information about imminent U.S. military strikes on the Houthis in Yemen was not classified. I will come back to that in a separate post — with another analogy that I hope will make the administration’s machinations easier to pierce.
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What you won’t hear these officials say in their word salads is that it’s permissible to communicate about national defense matters and disclose patently classified information while using Signal. That’s because it’s not. In government regulations, Signal is not an authorized system for transmitting government secrets. Period.
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalreview.com ...
And, yes, flight ops plans for a future air strike are always classified at least Secret. I've seen several. So have many Freepers here who can testify to that fact.
So why did Gabbard and Radcliff testify to congress they were not?
Signal story makes no sense.
Basic internet security calls out one question:
How could there be an encrypted app used for classified discussions, that does not have password access, and even an authentication scheme? Access to a Charles Schwab account has more safeguards! Really, just an erroneous phone number can give an anti American “journalist” access? WTHeck is this? I don’t find this story believable!
ok. I’m gonna have to do a deeper dive into this.
The administration decides what is secret and what tools it will use. Neocons love the rule of bureaucrats and their empire of ludicrous secrets.
Signal has never been authorized for any classified communication.
Stopped reading at National Review.
The proper way is to set up a private email server in the bathroom closet for official public communications rather than using official State Department email accounts maintained on federal servers.
Was Hillary CLinton’s computer authorized for classified information? Oh, we’ll never know what was on it bc the FBI collaborated in its destruction.
Everybody in the chat had a “Clearence” except GOLDBERG! If this was “Clasified” and Goldberg was in there and then published the information why is he not in handcuff right now!
This dead horse will be riding until after next week’s special elections in Florida and Wisconsin. Right now. It is a fundraiser for the Democrats.
The info was classified at least Secret when Hegseth pulled it off the military network.
So, yeah, I guess he could say the declassified it when he copied it to Signal.
I’d sure like to see him make that case before congress. It ought to be quite amusing.
“If this was “Clasified” and Goldberg was in there and then published the information why is he not in handcuff right now!”
First Amendment...Pentagon Papers.
Cell phones and apps and all these internet and phone security issues have been around for decades, people have lived out their military and security, and Secret Service careers and retired, and the government and military still doesn’t have a grasp of how to handle this stuff?
Frequently one gets the impression that true interest in nitty-gritty security issues became too much trouble both in hiring diverse people complicating security clearances and in dealing with modern technology, so people just decided to sort of push it aside and adopt positive thinking and coast down the easy lanes.
I doubt this story is true.
I could look it up, but I’m pretty sure I’ve read where White House people in the know say Signal was secure.
COMSEC and OPSEC are hard.
That’s why there are real penalties
I'm getting sick of these intrusions into executive processes. If they want to use Signal, let them use Signal. That shouldn't be reviewable.
Exactly. He was spying
“White House people in the know say Signal was secure”
It OBVIOUSLY WAS NOT.
The point being it was NEVER authorized for classified comms. NSA and DCA are the controlling authorities on that.
Oh FGS let it go. I’m sick of the hysteria over this. The operation was a success and we discovered a vulnerability in communications. Fix it and move on.
You are quite wrong. Signal was a safe and secure app even when Obama first began using it. The problem was not within the app itself but within whoever leaked the information to the Atlantic through that secure app..
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