Elect clowns, get a circus
this post was submitted on 24 Mar 2025
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So instead of quietly sitting on his accidental inclusion into the hot mailing list and waiting for a truly big one to come down the pipe, he spills the beans - and no doubt got ejected from the mailing list faster than you can say "Is this administration a data security disaster or what?!" - to write an article about how he got a two-hour advance notice of the US military bombing lousy targets in lousy Yemen.
Not smart...
Maybe he was afraid that if he kept lurking they’d eventually charge him with espionage.
This is the most likely answer. Yes it would have been good to have inside access to the fascist War plan. Although we already know most of it just by virtue of them being fascists. But the fascists would have 100% come after him his family the company he works for etc etc etc once they realized their mistake. Charging him with Espionage and all sorts of other things. Making them disappear. Instead he gets to look like the good guy being responsible while pointing out the well known incompetence of fascists. Hurting them the one place that actually hurts, their image.
Being a journalist is about taking huge risks to expose things like corrupt governments. Man got the golden ticket and threw it away once he verified it was real
He’s not just a journalist, he’s the editor-in-chief of the Atlantic. He’d be risking the whole publication, not just himself.
Okay and? He has a direct line into the administrations secret signal group. This is tremendous thing dropped into his lap
It’s like if bob woodward met with deep throat once, reported there was nonsense going on in the Nixon administration, but then told him to fuck off becuase it was too risky to continue. That’s insane and his bravery led to Nixons corruption being exposed
Or like Snowden going to greenwald and co and them reporting that “some guy told us about government corruption but we sent him on his way” instead of coordinating his transport to Hong Kong and Russia and passing of the document cache because it was “too risky”
Modern journalists being cowards is a huge part of the reason we have trump. He should be ashamed he threw away such a tremendous opportunity. You better believe they’re going to improve their opsec now.
I really don't think they will.
I'm not sure how to put this, but... Fascists are always really, really, really bad at everything. Like sure, they can sometimes make the trains run on time out of sheer terror on the part of the rail staff, but actual, legitimate competence? That's anathema to these people, especially the bloated sack of festering anuses at the top. Leaks - deeply, incomprehensibly stupid leaks like this one - will continue.
Like sure, they can sometimes make the trains run on time out of sheer terror on the part of the rail staff,
Even that is a myth. The trains were actually running on time due to reforms by his predecessor. Mussolini actually fucked up the train system and they stopped running on time. People still credited him with that shit for some reason.
Yeah maybe. But maybe not. I’d rather not bank on a potential when the actuality was literally manifested, but what’s done is done
Maybe the only way this happens again is if someone from within the administration develops a spine and leaks info
A spine isn't necessary for that, just greed and self-interest. Leaks will happen whenever the slimy weasels Trump surrounds himself with think they'll benefit from them or are too incompetent to prevent them.
The problem is that a fascist regime will always be in a state of damage control, and that control will become more and more violent to the population.
I feel like he got enough for it to be a huge bombshell report.
This is nothing on the order of watergate, prism, etc and you and I both know this admin has that level of corruption going on
Sit on this bombshell, which is ultimately that the admin uses a non approved communication modality that hides their tracks (shocker, they’re afraid of being on record). You still have evidence of that by sitting on this. Wait until they drop some real shit and leak that. But that would probably end with you needing to leave the country
I guarantee you they are too stupid to realize as long as he didn't type anything.
Have you seen boomers and gen x operate anything on a smartphone? If it doesn't 'just work' then all bets are off. It's as bad as gen z only understanding smartphone UIs.
LOL, dunking on Gen X, the generation who made the fucking smartphones in the first place. Get a grip.
and no doubt got ejected from the mailing list faster
I can tell you didn't read the article, since he left on his own once national secrets were being spilled.
He removed himself from the group, as he should have, once he realized it was real and not a PsyOp.
FTA:
"The Signal chat group, I concluded, was almost certainly real. Having come to this realization, one that seemed nearly impossible only hours before, I removed myself from the Signal group, understanding that this would trigger an automatic notification to the group’s creator, “Michael Waltz,” that I had left. No one in the chat had seemed to notice that I was there. And I received no subsequent questions about why I left—or, more to the point, who I was.
Earlier today, I emailed Waltz and sent him a message on his Signal account. I also wrote to Pete Hegseth, John Ratcliffe, Tulsi Gabbard, and other officials. In an email, I outlined some of my questions: Is the “Houthi PC small group” a genuine Signal thread? Did they know that I was included in this group? Was I (on the off chance) included on purpose? If not, who did they think I was? Did anyone realize who I was when I was added, or when I removed myself from the group? Do senior Trump-administration officials use Signal regularly for sensitive discussions? Do the officials believe that the use of such a channel could endanger American personnel?"
Why? It's not like they hide their agenda. Just read Project 2025
I'm sure he will tell us he magically declassified in his head so it's not treason.
And... This is over our highly compromised cell tower communications? Not through an app like signal? Not through some proprietary military app? We really just SMSing war plans..?
For real???
...
...what?!? This makes no sense. It is both Malice and incompetence.
Edit: okay there is mention of an invite to a signal group chat but it's unclear about the original message...
Edit2: y'all seriously lack basic reading comprehension skills and are out here telling me to read the article is adorable.
You should probably read the article before commenting on it.
Oh I did read it. Twice, actually. Wild how reading comprehension works, right? The article mentions Signal for some of the messages, but it’s pretty fuzzy on how the whole mess started. That’s literally what I was pointing out. But hey, let me know what you find after your first read.
Well try a third time
It's not fuzzy at all. He was accidentally invited to a group chat. They thought he was someone else.
If you've ever used signal, the detail in the article would be more than enough to understand the sequence of events.
Paragraph 6, first sentence:
On Tuesday, March 11, I received a connection request on Signal from a user identified as Michael Waltz.
Next paragraph:
I accepted the connection request, hoping that this was the actual national security adviser, and that he wanted to chat about Ukraine, or Iran, or some other important matter.
Next paragraph:
Two days later—Thursday—at 4:28 p.m., I received a notice that I was to be included in a Signal chat group. It was called the “Houthi PC small group.”
Paints a a pretty clear picture. Author got a signal connection request, which he accepted. The article intuits that no communication between the author and the signal user ID'd as Michael Waltz between the connection request and the author's addition to the signal group.
Nothing I have read is ambiguous in how the communication occurred, so I'm at a loss at what you're seeing that says differently.
You're reading into the article more than it actually says. Yes, it notes a connection request on Signal and later a group chat invite - but it never explicitly states that the connection request was the first contact. If that were clear, the article would have just said “the first message came through Signal.” It didn’t.
The sequence is vague enough to raise the question. If you think that ambiguity is settled by implication, cool - but don’t conflate inference with certainty.
Your claim: communication occurred between the author and at last one or more of the individuals noted in the article over unencrypted methods.
Your clam is debunked by the article simply with the quotes I set out in my previous message. Comments about first message being signal or not is not relevant to the meat of the article, namely that the group of individuals listed were communicating about classified/top secret information on the Signal app and had (likely inadvertently) added the journalist
Addressing your comments about stated facts:
All connection requests to connect via signal happen through signal. The connection request must be the first contact, no messages can be transmitted before the connection request is approved.
The only thing missing here is weather or not the author received any messaging in the 2 day lapse between the connection request and the notice that he was being added to the signal chat group. While possible that they did communicate with the individual identified as Michael Waltz, it has no bearing on the content of the article nor the assumption you made about unencrypted communications being held.
I recommend getting familiar with the software being used (signal in this case). While I appreciate pedantic individuals like yourself that get into the details and phrasing of messaging in order to discern the truth or intent of the author, that has to be tempered with a larger understanding in general.
See https://support.signal.org/hc/en-us/articles/360007459591-Signal-Profiles-and-Message-Requests#message_requests for information about signal and message requests.
The irony of misreading an article then accusing other people of lacking reading comprehension.
You're an absolute moron.
I think the people downvoting you are a little confused. Not only SMS but even direct phone calls can be intercepted and the owner would never be any the wiser, because the network for phones called SS7 and the access points, the "global titles", are so widespread around the globe that anybody and their grandmother can get one, imitate your Sim card's unique identifier "IMSI", and get your calls and texts routed to them. (If they have a spare $10,000 anyways)
This is why many communication options these days advertise that they are encrypted.
the people downvoting read the article and saw that the messages were sent from Signal
The article says they were later added to a Signal group chat. It doesn’t clearly state how the initial messages were sent. So yeah, maybe give it another read and level up that reading comprehension XP while you're at it, instead of casting stones making yourself look silly.
What initial messages?
- March 11 - Journalist receives Signal connection request
- March 13 - He gets added to Signal group. All quotations are from messages in this chat
- March 15 - He leaves group
This is why many communication options these days advertise that they are encrypted.
Like Signal. You know, the app they were using, as was mentioned in the article, multiple times. You did read the article, right?
I know nothing about Signal, nor do I care to, but thank you for informing me.
The article states they were later invited to a signal group chat. It is not clear from the article how the first messages were sent.
Maybe read the article yourself.
Are you assuming there were any messages prior to the group chat?
I think this guy is trying to fight everybody on this thread
Yep. And anyone whose been to DEFCON knows a guy who knows a guy with SS7 access.
When a "reporter" supports genocide but not leaks about genocide.
While I have many questions, I will say that this administration sure does butt texts people a lot.