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Hegseth had an unsecured internet line set up in his office to connect to Signal, AP sources say (apnews.com)

submitted 1 day ago by BrikoX@lemmy.zip to c/usa@midwest.social

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Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had an internet connection that bypassed the Pentagon’s security protocols set up in his office to use the Signal messaging app on a personal computer.

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[–] SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca 3 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

He's the Secretary of Defense, he makes most the rules about how military secrets are handled. Even if it were against some rule, if he orders someone to break a rule, then he's the one breaking not the person setting up the connection. Sure in the military, you don't follow illegal orders, but that's reserved for being ordered to do a war crime or go against the constitution in some way. Sec Def telling someone to set up an internet connection doesn't rise to this level.

Sure we don't have sworn testimony, but the AP is a reliable source of information and they verify their sources. I'd default to trusting the story rather than doubting it because you can't imagine anyone in the pentagon having the ability to set up an unsecured internet connection when ordered to do so by Sec Def.

[–] xor@lemmy.dbzer0.com 0 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

i believe neither… i am skeptical….

i DO believe the signal leaks, and this is kinda plausible, but it feels a lot more far fetched….

if the SecDef order the Pentagon be open to the public and that they allow anyone to walk in and look around, i think people would say “no” and there’d be a whole thing about stopping that.

… installing an unsecured internet connection seems about the same level of absurd to me….

could be true, but i don’t completely believe it… and the AP has been wrong many times before…

[–] SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 hour ago

There's being skeptical, then there's being contrarian for the sake of it.

if the SecDef order the Pentagon be open to the public and that they allow anyone to walk in and look around, i think people would say “no” and there’d be a whole thing about stopping that.

Who do you imagine would be the one to say "no"? The military is required to follow the orders of the civilian leadership, which at the moment is Pete Hegseth. The only person who could say "no" would be Donald Trump. But that's not going to happen, they don't even want reporters in the press room of the Pentagon these days.

I think you've just become accustomed to there being competent civilian leadership of the military, so you can't imagine these scenarios as being possible. Yeah under a competent SecDef these things are impossible, because someone competent would never even consider discussing war plans over civilian communication channels, or at the very least listen to the advice of experts if they suggested it. Dude is an idiot, but that idiot is the person in charge. Being competent doesn't overrule the chain of command. Expertise in subjects like network security (or anything else) doesn't overrule Hegseth's position.

When people said putting an undisciplined Fox News personality in charge of the military was an extremely bad idea, this is why.