Comment by flyingcircus3
8 months ago
I think that there is a parallel story to this one that is equally as interesting. There is one group of consumers of this story who see the receipts provided by Jeffery Goldberg, along with confirmation of their authenticity from a spokesperson at the National Security Council, followed by admissions by cabinet member participants of the Signal chat in hearings before congress, and those consumers of all this news can only conclude that the evidence is about as conclusive as you can get that Jeffery Goldberg is telling the truth, that these people are sharing the names of active intelligence officers, and describing imminent plans of action of the US military.
Then there is another group of consumers of this story, with the same access to all of the same evidence, and all of the same first person confirmations, who confidently declare the argument that this might be illegal null and void because Joe Biden allowed the CIA to use signal, and are persuaded away from accepting all of that evidence by articles with that contain such gems as "what the media wont tell you about the Atlantic hit piece", "Democrats talking points on this story quickly unraveled", and "help us continue to expose the lefts desperate attempts to manufacture scandals".
How can propaganda be so effective that people lose the skill of object permanence?
I have little doubt that Jeffery Goldberg is telling the truth.
So, was he added to the conversation inadvertently, or was it deliberate?
On the question of whether the use of the application was negligent, well, that is now moot.
There is just no way this is deliberate. They have nothing to gain from this.
We need to stop thinking these guys are playing 3D chess when they try to shove the pieces up their nose
Call me crazy, but they have lots to gain. They got to see whether a journalist would dare stand up against them knowing very well they risk being found with 50 terabytes of illegal porn on their computer then dying of a suicide with 2 shots in the back of the head. Turns out journalists aren't yet afraid of them.
They also got a loyalty test with their own people. Everyone is saying "not my problem" and accepting no responsibility. They've passed that test.
Then the final loyalty test is of their voters. When this first broke, the script was "Oof. This is bad. Heads will roll because of this." When it became apparent that, no, heads will not roll, the script amongst them changed. "This doesn't matter. Why would it matter? Everyone uses insecure things and makes mistakes. Why did the journalist embarrass our country?" It's very obvious that the breaking point with their base is very far away, assuming there is one.
And the final result is seeing whether there will be consequences. A small time guy can get pinched for this and the president and everyone else will remain completely void of responsibility no matter what. But it's pretty obvious that even a small time guy won't be facing consequences.
So they've gained something very valuable from this: the realization that there really are no consequences. They're going to keep pushing things like this and they'll get bigger and bigger each time. And each time it sets a new standard for a tolerable level of bad. And any time someone supportive of them starts to think "maybe this isn't good", they'll be quick to rush in and say "it's a nothingburger, just like the last thing they were whining about." And they'll fall back in line.
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Well the FBI investigated it already -- even though the Hillary Clinton investigation took years -- and said there would not be charges brought.
It's a win on government efficiency I guess (no more year long investigations). But also, this is clearly not the first time they used Signal, and it won't be the last.
Just to clarify on what is moot, you are claiming that sharing classified, perhaps TS/SCI information, over signal, as well as deleting the messages, which are both illegal when isolated from any specific communication method, has all been blessed as above board and legal, simply because Joe Biden allowed Signal usage at the CIA?
Couldn't every whistleblower and double agent from now on just make sure to do their leaking over signal, and therefore receive the magical immunity your logic claims signal usage provides?
Then act against the Biden administration that approved it.
Move against those that approved its use.
That would be an interesting turn of events.
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There is also a large group who think it's a nothing burger and that Goldberg is simply lying or exaggerating about the nature and seriousness of the messages that were omitted from the reporting.
Luckily for those people, more messages were released this morning, with times, planes and weapons described.