When Texting War Plans Goes Wrong

US officials set up a group chat to discuss military strikes, then accidently added a reporter

Senior US leadership set up a Signal chat to discuss striking the Yemen based Houthis and in the process appear to have mistakenly added a reporter to the group. Over the course of the conversation it becomes clear that the chat is genuine and that has since been confirmed by the National Security Council spokesperson.

[wrayday]

They issued an apology and moved the conversation to the War Thunder Forums.

[ThePercalator]

Didnt we wanna put politicians in prison for this ?

[tosa]

Pete Hegseth would send Pete Hegseth to jail for this.

[BadCatArmin]

It sounds like something Onion would write.

[sensei]

Remember when Hillary Clinton using an unsecured email was a massive controversy and sparked fears over national security? Why don't we apply these same standards??

[LizardSpork]

The implications of why they're choosing a civilian messaging app that deletes messages after a period of time over an officially approved one is very disturbing.

[ilpazzo]

As an Italian - our parliament once streamed hentai in a committee, y'all managed to top this one.

[covrtdesign]

I couldn’t tell my mother where I was being deployed, but the defense secretary can send unencrypted real time war plans, and the obvious disdain for the UK by our VP, is INSANELY DISGUSTING!!!
I want heads!!!
We are getting to a point where us veterans need to take this into our own hands and end this coup!!!

[MixBernstein]

Preston saying this is the “craziest story in a while” as an intro is literally the scariest thing I’ve heard in weeks.

[SHGames]

Thank you for the nonstop work you're doing man, it's crazy as heck & can't imagine keeping track

[adam-k]

If this were done by a service member he would be spending his life behind bars.

[OrcAuzubillah]

So we got "boys chat history leaked" meme irl before gta 6, wild

[tabortollefson]

Former USAF Intel NCO. Saying they take opsec seriously over signal is irony at its grandest display.

[jakeholmannf]

If you need another example to show that sharing intelligence with the U.S. is a bad idea that can endanger your service members and assets, this is a pretty good reason to not do so.

[waldo]

When you go from DEI hire to DUI hire.

[randommmST]

You can bet every state sponsored hacker is going to be focusing on Signal for the next while...

[cpierce]

This grieves me. Amateur hour needs to stop. Thank you for all of the intense reporting work you've been doing over these past weeks Preston. YOu are much appreciated.

[liamwhitman]

Imagine being a US service member and knowing your top brass has this level of carelessness for you.

[bob-ydxv]

The thumbnail is misleading. It wasn't a leak, it was gross misconduct and incompetence.

[Tanktaco]

The reason there wasn't any fallout is because a journalist from the Atlantic cared more about operational security than:
The Secretary of Defense, National Security Advisor, Director of National Intelligence, Secretary of State, Vice President of the US, and an unnamed CIA intelligence officer. (Plus others briefly mentioned in the report, and God knows how many happening behind America's back.)