For U.S. service members of a certain era of the Global War on Terrorism, the Defense Department’s operational security training featured a familiar hero. Jeff, sporting a blue sweater-vest and goatee, served as a comforting guide to troops getting caught up on their OPSEC hygiene as part of the Pentagon’s annual Cyber Awareness Challenge, offering recommendations and advice to his hapless digital coworker Tina.
Before he was summarily replaced in 2019, Jeff also became the subject of thousands of memes over the years, both a cheeky joke between service members and, in turn, an avatar of cyber mindfulness and effective OPSEC. Jeff wasn’t the hero we deserve, but in an era defined by pervasive cyber and information warfare threats from adversaries like Russia and China, he was the one we needed.
But if Jeff were alive today, he would be absolutely furious.
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On Monday, The Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg published a bombshell article detailing how several high-ranking members of the Trump administration had accidentally included him in a group chat on commercial messaging platform Signal involving the military’s March 15 bombing of the Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen.
Added to the signal group — titled “Houthi PC [principals committee] small group” — by White House National Security Adviser Michael Waltz, the group included Vice President JD Vance, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, among others. The timeline of the chat covers the run-up to and execution of the airstrikes, including back-and-forth conversations on whether to go forward or pause with the campaign — a decision that Hegseth stated in a message he would “do all we can to enforce 100% OPSEC” around.
(The Signal thread is worth reading in full. When reached for comment by The Atlantic, the White House confirmed the authenticity of the Signal messages, stating that “the thread is a demonstration of the deep and thoughtful policy coordination between senior officials.”)
There are a few questions that come to mind upon reading through the group chat. Why are senior White House and defense officials using a commercial chat app like Signal instead of, say, a sensitive compartmented information facility, known as a SCIF, or a room built specifically for these kinds of situations? How did someone accidentally add a seasoned journalist (let alone the magazine’s top editor) to such a sensitive conversation, apart from confusing their initials for someone like, say, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer? And, more importantly: What does Hegseth think “100% OPSEC” means?
This entire episode is, it goes without saying, world-historically embarrassing for a national security apparatus that has in recent weeks made a fuss about identifying and punishing leakers. But the episode gets even worse when you consider Chief Pentagon Spokesman Sean Parnell’s March 17 comments to journalists on accountability among military leaders.
“If you have a private that loses a sensitive item, that loses night vision goggles, that loses a weapon, you can bet that that private is going to be held accountable. The same and equal standards must apply to senior military leaders,” Parnell said.
Time will tell whether those standards are actually applied. In the meantime, one thing is certain: The White House has utterly and entirely failed Jeff — and when it comes to OPSEC, I can think of few crimes worse.
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