Comment by Balgair
8 months ago
If anything, I'm a bit surprised that Jeff Goldberg burned this source.
If anything, I'd suspect that he'd keep the channel open as long as he could.
Or, he's got other channels that work better.
All the same, I mean, wow. These guys are just morons here, there's really no other way around it. I'm trying to think of a charitable way to spin this and I've got nothing.
Like, very clearly, these people are going to get service-members killed due to their idiocy
As soon as he realizes (or a reasonable person would realize) that the group chat is not a hoax, and that he is getting confidential military information over that channel, his continued membership in the channel demonstrates intent to receive the information, which makes anything he writes about it in the future legally problematic. It's complicated and it's not like just receiving classified information from a source is intrinsically criminal, but it'll be the entire fact pattern he'd be confronted with by prosecutors.
The fourt cases related to Watergate established that receiving classified information is not illegal, and affirmed 1A rights. I'd argue it's a exactly the same as a journalist overhearing this motley crew discussing the war plan in the halls of the White House without being aware there's a journalist nearby. I wouldn't bank on the current supreme court to uphold precedence, or the current administration persecuting the journalist for "hacking" into a "secure" government chat group - which is what they'll allege without evidence. I suspect the journalist cares more about national security than the cowboys in the chat group, and is acutely aware that they are a target for hacking by nation-states, which would leak classified information.
> I would bank in the current supreme court to uphold precedence
Counting on SCOTUS to respect precedent at this point is either extremely optimistic or extremely naive.
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The US Supreme Court hews close to precedent. The only two significant overturned decisions in the last decade are Roe v Wade, which regardless of your views on abortion was a poorly reasoned decision, which was really judicial legislation, that had to be essentially amended several times (whether abortion should be permitted is a separate question from whether Roe was good law, which it obviously wasn't) and Chevron, which was contrary to the most fundamental principles of the rule of law (that is, that the interpretation of the law is a fundamentally judicial function).
Neither were really political decisions. The SCOTUS doesn't split along ideological or party lines all the time. It often splits in different ways, and often makes decisions on very politically heated topics unanimously. You should have more confidence in it. It is the least bad of your three major institutions of government by far.
To go back to Chevron, you have to look beyond the US and understand that for anyone else anywhere else in the world, the idea of the courts deferring in their interpretation of the law to executive agencies is just ridiculous. It never made any sense. Its result was inevitable: a new government was elected and suddenly the law changed overnight because government departments all published their new "interpretations" of the law. That is just silly, it makes a mockery of the principles of the rule of law, and it gives too much power to the government. Law should be made by parliament (which you call congress, for some reason) and rulemaking powers should be explicitly delegated to executive agencies where appropriate. Vagueness in the law should be interpreted and resolved by the courts, not by the executive in a way that is subject to political whimsy.
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There should be protection for people that receive information in this manner that is equivalent to whistleblower protection. No law abiding citizen should ever be prosecuted in favor of protecting a government fuck up.
I agree. I'm remarking positively, not normatively.
"his continued membership in the channel demonstrates intent to receive the information"
Nope. His authority as a journalist prevails. He published the article -- so his intent was to do his job as a journalist, and the public has a right to know.
National security or institutional trust was not damaged by the journalist -- only by the ignorance of the politicians now running our military.
The information was newsworthy and in the public interest.
Publication did not cause harm (and you might argue that dropping actual bombs caused much more harm).
The information was obtained legally and without foresight.
The journalist has an obligation to report the information if it serves the public interest, especially if it reveals systemic failures, endangers democracy, or impacts public policy.
I think you are talking past each other. OP's point was about future publications (possibly including confidential information only shared through that Signal group).
That's the part you're concerned with? Criminal liability of the journalist while the alcoholic was sending government secrets over a signal group chat to unverified members?
> If anything, I'm a bit surprised that Jeff Goldberg burned this source.
> If anything, I'd suspect that he'd keep the channel open as long as he could.
> Or, he's got other channels that work better.
The Signal chat group was called the “Houthi PC small group.” It appeared to be a short-term, mission-specific group rather than a long-term, open-ended group. Thus, it's unlikely that much more information would be gained in the future. Goldberg's inclusion in the chat was the main story here, not the specific details revealed to Goldberg, many of which he kept confidential.
They've been bombing the Houthis for quite a few days now
He was probably worried about the legal ramifications of not doing so, though these days he may be more likely to get sent off to some El Salvadoran prison for writing the article and exposing their staggering incompetence than he would be for continuing to knowingly listen in on the chat.
He did the right thing. He's obviously of a certain political bent, but recognized this kind of leak could lead to the loss of American service member lives. He didn't share everything from the chat. I respect him for what he did.
And I agree with your assessment. Morons...
Hard to say. Sharing it may have lead to saving of servicemen lives since it may cause an abort. Not like it is a self defense mission, attacks on Houthi is totally optional meddling that likely breeds more 'terrorists'.
Trying to assess the consequences of publishing highly classified information on military operations is a ridiculously reckless idea. None of us have enough data about the full picture to even try to guess correctly here. The only sane thing to do is to maintain confidentiality and leave it to the involved agencies to draw consequences as they see fit.
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My guess is that he was consulting their lawyers during this. IANAL but it might have been a crime if he did not leave the group as soon as he was sure it was real. He keeps mentioning that he was not certain this is real until the first attacks. After the first attack, he could not continue this argument.
Jeff Goldberg loves his country more than he cares about a "source."
He might serves his country better by waiting for them to incriminate themselves more.
By what, sending another message to him?
My theory is that he had to balance the journalistic scoop of the century with the risk of being arrested for illegally accessing/storing classified information. If they had noticed before he published the story then he could have been vanned and the public told that he had infiltrated a secure channel, and who would be able to say otherwise? MAGA people would cheerfully call for his execution.
Under US federal law it is generally not a crime for a person without a security clearance to receive or store classified information. The legal problems come in when they solicit it or take some other action to obtain it.
Laws matter less than they used to. When the President regularly uses the term "retribution" to describe his mode of operation, I don't blame someone for taking a more careful approach in a case like this. It shouldn't be that way, for a journalist. But a lot of things shouldn't be the way they are today.
Would you trust the current DOJ to handle this fairly if it landed in your lap?
"If anything, I'd suspect that he'd keep the channel open as long as he could."
The real story is that he was added to the channel, so it doesn't surprise me that he didn't try to lurk indefinitely. I'm guessing these things are also ad-hoc, so perhaps the well was already dry after the attack?
But this is some truly amateur-hour shit. I've seen better communications discipline from volunteer open source projects than this.
> I've seen better communications discipline from volunteer open source projects than this.
Because those people are likely competent. The problem with hiring mostly yes-men/women is competence is secondary.
One lawyer I follow on Bluesky mentioned the longer he stayed on more exposed he became to legal ramifications. Also, this involves national security which courts may treat differently than other issues.
I am more surprised that he did not save this incident for a future book
Might boost their subs. This legit got me to resubscribe to the Atlantic.
I think that's a fair assessment. Goldberg seems to have strong journalistic ethics too. Again, from Bluesky,
David Graham asks Jeffrey Goldberg about possible retaliation
Jeffrey: It's not my role to care about the possibility of threats or retaliation. We just have to come to work and do our jobs to the best of our ability. Unfortunately, in our society today—-we see this across corporate journalism and law firms and other industries--there's too much preemptive obeying for my taste. All we can do is just go do our jobs.
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What legal ramifications?
Are you saying it's a crime for someone else to accidentally add you to their chat?
Yeah, there is a crime defined for intentionally gathering national defense information, and that crime is called "espionage"; while the courts have found constitutional limits beyond what is in the text of the law that restrict when it can be applied, the application of those limits isn't super consistent in practice and the formal boundary could be changed by the courts at any time when the government is pushing it, and a journalist knowingly taking advantage of someone else's mistake to continue gathering such information would not be out of line of the situations in which the government has pursued charges for that in the last decade.
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The Atlantic is not a typical publication. It is run by serious people.
This is the type of thing that can get you on jail or even (quietly) killed during a normal US administration. I'm not surprised Goldberg GTFO intermediately.
Dunno, I was surprised how digitally literate these old dudes are to the point of writing long autistic messages in Signal, so long that the author can quote them only as "wrote a lengthy message". Even normie programmers of all people can communicate only with meat sounds.
Who complained here that email can't be replaced by messengers, because you can't write long messages there? Here's a counterexample.
Maybe they used the desktop client?
He could have continued for weeks, imho he did the good citizen and responsible journalist thing here. Made the public aware before it really got out of hand.
I'm betting that Goldberg realized, once it was confirmed real, that his only feasible defense was exiting the chat and going public immediately. Otherwise, someone notices he's there, and he's arrested by ICE and disappeared to El Salvador, or worse.
In many ways, being a public enemy of the Trump Admin is the safest enemy to be.
Agreed.
Very similar to this case in Australia.
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2018/feb/02/abc-agrees-to-...
The ABC had a public interest duty to publicise everything, instead they left 99% unread and returned the contents to the government.
Pathetic.
Knowingly keeping sensitive US national security data on a personal phone would be a very bad idea.
So, like the other 18 people in the chat?
Yes. But we haven't heard from them what they did with it.
I thought that at first, but the group was clearly temporary, intended for this particular military action. There was likely little value to staying, and as other comments note, a nonzero risk of (likely unsuccessful) prosecution.
Imagine if he stays and obtains some critical information that later happens to get leaked. You're now a prime suspect for the leak, possibly facing charges of something like treason. I think leaving was the wise choice.
Sounds like he received the message purposefully and pretends it was an mistake?
2h is a lot but also not that much time, everything is prepared already it’s more a countdown I would say. What would be a usual timeframe to inform the people you want to inform about an immediate event which is going to happen?
> Sounds like he received the message purposefully and pretends it was an mistake?
Why would he have been added to the group? For what purpose would the current National Security Advisor have to bring in an outsider to discussions that ended up involving almost certainly classified data?
> 2h is a lot but not that much time
He was added to the group two days (13 March) before the strikes (15 March), not two hours.
My guess is as a honeypot: see who would publish this alleged "leak" and give the administration justification to "open an investigation" on them.
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