No. of Recommendations: 5
For those who may have just read the post, groaned, and perhaps clicked the recommend link, I encourage you to actually read the article.
This wasn't just some one off text message. This was an entire planning and execution thread for an attack by US military on foreign soil. This is cabinet members and the Vice President having highly classified (likely Top Secret) discussions on an open source messaging app. These kinds of discussions should be happening on tightly controlled US government computer systems in a SCIF. But these guys are basically sending encrypted texts over their smart phones while they are gos-knows-where. For all we know they were reading and sending these messages while waiting in line to check out at a grocery store. (OK - probably not that - most of these guys wouldn't know a grocery store if they got locked in one for days. More likely while sitting in some fancy restaurant with the waiter looking over their shoulder.)
Every last one of them has violated the espionage act by this action. Every last one of them should be fired from their positions in the government, have their security clearances revoked, and be banished from any government positions permanently. You can be sure they all would have been apoplectic had anything similar happened during the Obama or Biden administration.
Thank heavens the leak happened to a man of some considerable integrity who looked at it with a critical eye and then kept it quiet just in case it was real. Then he had the courage to go public with the information - again maintaining the confidentiality of certain critical information as needed.
Oh - and to tie in with the impeachment thread running - this would be an impeachable offense for the one guy on the thread who can't be fired. Violating the Espionage Act would almost certain qualify as a "high crime or misdemeanor". And if it weren't a violation of their due process rights, I wouldn't cry if they were all loaded on a plane and delivered to El Salvador without stopping in a court room first.
--Peter
