CIA is anal as fuck about releasing the names of just about anyone who works there. The head of what used to be called the Directorate of Operations (DO) and is now the NCS (National Clandestine Service) -- the spying division -- used always be undercover, for instance. A very large percentage of CIA employees have a random cover name they use for interagency emails, etc.
"What I will say, in order to illustrate the shocking recklessness of this Signal conversation, is that the Hegseth post contained operational details of forthcoming strikes on Yemen, including information about targets, weapons the U.S. would be deploying, and attack sequencing."
I don't think this is particularly serious, but it is, nonetheless stupid as fuck and a huge mistake.
If CIA cared that much they'd tell their people not drive to work with their phones in the car. Google/Apple, telecom, and insurance companies know who nearly every employee is.
Trump-hating author says he's shocked. Uses nebulous terms like "conceivably" and "information about". Attack already happened so there's no problem giving at least a few specifics on what was said and yet there's no details at all, only characterizations of it. No 'first we're going to bomb this outpost, then this one'?
Because that kind of detail was not in there. Obviously.
If CIA cared that much they'd tell their people not drive to work with their phones in the car. Google/Apple, telecom, and insurance companies know who nearly every employee is.
They did when I worked there (briefly, 15 years ago).
They, at the time, told people to take the batteries out of their phones before they got close to HQ. They said even back then that they had evidence of foreign services utilizing cellphone towers with malicious tracking devices. I guess cell phone towers are basically public so any company, or shell company, is allowed access. Anyway, you were supposed to take the battery out because that just made your cellphone "disappear" as if it lost signal, ran out of battery, etc. If you turned off your phone it sends a "shutting down" signal which they thought was more suspicious.
I have no idea how they manage things now that cellphones rarely have removable batteries. No phones were allowed to come into the building, you had to leave them in your car. People who needed to be on call had pagers--in the 2010s~!
Another good one was being able to figure out who was CIA or military based on their strava runs in Afghanistan and elsewhere.
That's in conflict with the information I have from some time later, but it wouldn't surprise me if they are so incompetent they don't even have a consistent sane policy on phones (put them in a faraday bag at home, not in the parking lot after listing to podcast on the way). Also every modern car has a cell phone that should be disabled.
It wouldn't surprise me at all. Things have to have changed since I was there. Additionally, I was not deeply under cover. The really deeply under cover people can spend a career working for CIA and literally never once come to HQ. I imagine they gv\ave the DO agents different rules.
CIA is anal as fuck about releasing the names of just about anyone who works there. The head of what used to be called the Directorate of Operations (DO) and is now the NCS (National Clandestine Service) -- the spying division -- used always be undercover, for instance. A very large percentage of CIA employees have a random cover name they use for interagency emails, etc.
I was basing my statement on these quotes:
https://archive.is/4X5JZ
"What I will say, in order to illustrate the shocking recklessness of this Signal conversation, is that the Hegseth post contained operational details of forthcoming strikes on Yemen, including information about targets, weapons the U.S. would be deploying, and attack sequencing."
I don't think this is particularly serious, but it is, nonetheless stupid as fuck and a huge mistake.
If CIA cared that much they'd tell their people not drive to work with their phones in the car. Google/Apple, telecom, and insurance companies know who nearly every employee is.
Trump-hating author says he's shocked. Uses nebulous terms like "conceivably" and "information about". Attack already happened so there's no problem giving at least a few specifics on what was said and yet there's no details at all, only characterizations of it. No 'first we're going to bomb this outpost, then this one'?
Because that kind of detail was not in there. Obviously.
They did when I worked there (briefly, 15 years ago).
They, at the time, told people to take the batteries out of their phones before they got close to HQ. They said even back then that they had evidence of foreign services utilizing cellphone towers with malicious tracking devices. I guess cell phone towers are basically public so any company, or shell company, is allowed access. Anyway, you were supposed to take the battery out because that just made your cellphone "disappear" as if it lost signal, ran out of battery, etc. If you turned off your phone it sends a "shutting down" signal which they thought was more suspicious.
I have no idea how they manage things now that cellphones rarely have removable batteries. No phones were allowed to come into the building, you had to leave them in your car. People who needed to be on call had pagers--in the 2010s~!
Another good one was being able to figure out who was CIA or military based on their strava runs in Afghanistan and elsewhere.
That's in conflict with the information I have from some time later, but it wouldn't surprise me if they are so incompetent they don't even have a consistent sane policy on phones (put them in a faraday bag at home, not in the parking lot after listing to podcast on the way). Also every modern car has a cell phone that should be disabled.
It wouldn't surprise me at all. Things have to have changed since I was there. Additionally, I was not deeply under cover. The really deeply under cover people can spend a career working for CIA and literally never once come to HQ. I imagine they gv\ave the DO agents different rules.