Sound Off: March 27, 2025

Signal

There is comedy. There is high comedy. Then there is the editor of The Atlantic responding to a day full of Trump administration officials saying “it wasn’t classified” and “they weren’t war plans” by calling their bluff and releasing the full string.

Not his fault

One recent Sound Off said the reporter who was inadvertently included in a group text by government officials detailing plans to attack Houthi Rebels, should have removed himself from the group. Really? No mention of the incompetency of the government officials with top security clearance, who posted the attack plans on a non-secure chat site. This is absurd. The government officials who violated national security protocols should be fired immediately. Don’t blame the media. They did not create the security breach.

Indefensible

In my lifetime, I have never witnessed such indefensible actions by our national security leaders. The posting of war plans on an unclassified chat text with the time, location, target, deliver aircraft, in the bombing of Yemen before the surprise attack was unconscionable, as are the disgraceful denials by the Director of National Intelligence, CIA chief and more who have said the information was “unclassified.” The deny, deny, deny by Republicans is sickening. Anyone in the military knows these details are classified and supposed to be protected thru operational security. Sec. Hegseth should be called the Secretary of the Indefensible and all should be fired for putting servicemembers’ lives in jeopardy, and lying to the Senate.

Not ‘war plans’

President Trump’s press secretary Karoline Leavitt posted to X on Wednesday that “these were not ‘war plans.’” So it appears the administration is going with that. These are not “war plans,” just incredibly specific details about an U.S. attack on a foreign enemy.

Signal safe?

According to Wikipedia, Signal is an open-source messaging system that is encrypted end-to-end. I suppose it’s confidential enough, but I rather doubt it has a Department of Defense security certification. Especially for the level of stuff those guys were discussing about the Yemen air strikes. If DoD does certify such systems, they’ll insist that they run on DoD servers. Signal doesn’t.

Blaming The Atlantic

The Atlantic is no different than any other liberal news outlet, a propaganda rag that set up the app Signal to try and discredit the Trump administration.

Measles

A viral infection of measles or tuberculosis will kill you. The open-border policies of the Biden administration put us all at high risk.

Send your Sound Offs to soundoff@sunherald.com.