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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   33154 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 24, 2025

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Just saw this article about the British intelligence community in response to the Signal leaks https://inews.co.uk/news/uk-spies-intelligence-leaks-trump-blunder-3604544

I think that's an interesting way to gauge how serious (or not serious) this is by observing how allied nations in Five Eyes/Israel/Japan/etc react, especially given they've already been concerned about Intel leaking from the Trump admin

For the UK we have

“There is some deep-rooted fear in the rank and file of intelligence community at the moment,” a UK intelligence source said.

Another security official said trusting the US will be a “challenge”, adding: “This will make the UK more nervous about the conversations they are having and how they are being discussed across groups.”

But it's not just anonymous names, there are some former British officials too

John Foreman, the UK’s defence attache to Moscow until 2022, said the leak could have led to a compromise of US sources, but “worse still the compromise of allied sources”.

And from "Nicholas Williams, a former senior official at Nato and the Ministry of Defence"

“There must be doubts among the UK that the Trump administration can protect the intelligence and its UK source.”

It seems even some US intelligence officials are concerned about this, although no names attached..

A US intelligence official said the leak of US war plans over Signal showed that distrust in the administration is justified. “Why would allies trust the US with their critical intelligence?” they said.

New Zealand Government's declined to comment, but we do have this https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/25/trump-signal-leak-reaction-canada-five-eyes.

Behind closed doors, senior government officials would likely be discussing the risks of sharing intelligence with the US, amid what could be viewed as a lowering of protocol standards, but the breach would not be a dealbreaker, said Andrew Little, whose ministerial roles covered security, intelligence and defence under New Zealand’s last Labour government.

Robert Patman, a professor at the University of Otago in Dunedin who specialises in international relations, called the security breach “extraordinary” and “cavalier”. “It does confirm what many of us felt, that Mr Trump has picked people according to loyalty, rather than competence, and this was almost a perfect storm waiting to happen,” Patman said.

I can't find anything specific for Australia at the high level but this article from an Australian "Military Operations Expert" says it's concerning and gives their reasoning for it https://theconversation.com/why-is-the-us-group-chat-on-houthi-attack-plans-so-concerning-a-military-operations-expert-explains-253029 with one bit I find rather interesting

If high-level conversations do need to happen on an unclassified platform like Signal, the participants would normally use a code word that doesn’t give away what they’re talking about. This keeps a conversation encrypted to a degree until a secure device can be accessed.

But they come to the conclusion that this is definitely concerning and they're going to be having a bunch of back channel discussions but most likely it's not an immediate deal breaker for intelligence sharing.

Mark Carney has talked about it himself a little but he also has incentive to distance from Trump already what with the trade war and comments on making Canada a state.

US war plans leak shows allied nations must ‘look out for ourselves’, says Mark Carney

I haven't seen or found anything about other nations responses yet. I imagine they're probably going to be along the same lines of "This isn't a deal breaker but it is serious and adding more fear when we're already feeling wary"

The whole thing is really bizarre. Like the outsider added to the chat just so happens to be a journalist? What are the odds of that?

I don't believe the theories about it being deliberate and some manipulative exercise against friendly and hostile foreign governments. Hegseth purportedly posted operational details which isn't 'no classified information was discussed'. It was specific details about a military operation before it occurred. And then in the Senate Intelligence hearing they glossed over things with the CIA Director saying Signal is an approved app for comms like this.

If the whole thing was some sort of PsyOp, why did Hegseth post those details? Did it never happen and the journalist is complicit? Isn't there an easier way to PsyOp without making the administration look incompetent?

I think its just what it looks like. A big stuff up.

Like the outsider added to the chat just so happens to be a journalist? What are the odds of that?

Not low. Vance's phone will be full with high profile beltway people. As will everyone else's. A nice chunk of them are journalists.

Mike Waltz, the National Security Advisor added everyone to the group and he used his phone's contacts to do so. He denies having ever met or having the contact on his phone of the journalist in question.

In this interview he says the the contact he had in his phone was for someone else that should have been in the group. But that contact's name was somehow attached to the journalist's number instead. The interviewer asks if it was a rogue staffer who substituted the number, but Waltz denied it. He says there is an investigation underway with attached technical experts trying to determine how the wrong number was assigned to the legitimate persons name in his phone.

It would make sense that a motivated person would try to substitute a hostile journalist's number in this way, but how that happened is still up in the air. Still, some of the blatant smearing of the journalist in question by Waltz in this interview (and Hegseth when interviewed earlier today) in some post-hoc Poisoning the Well makes it more difficult to take everything Waltz is saying at face value.

US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer has been suggested as the intended person. As for how the number got into his phone... I'm going to guess he just fucked up and put in the wrong J.G. from some other list at some point.

Mike Walz

Note: Waltz (Michael) ≠ Walz (Timothy)

Thanks, fixed.

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