Signal leaks have almost no precedent

Defense Secretary usually encounters a strict attitude when it comes to disclosing confidential information on watches.

During the George W. Bush administration, Donald H. Rumsfield, his successor, said that this should be a career offensive for anyone in the Department of Defense.

But the Trump administration played the episode after the commercial messaging app leaked and said there was no chance of investigation.

President Trump insists that administration officials, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, discuss secret military plans in a group chat, only on signals.

Discussing the upcoming combat operations on platforms that are not approved for confidential information is itself very irregular. What’s even more extraordinary is that a senior official accidentally invited a reporter to chat.

The Trump administration hovered over the van, adopting a line where the time used in the attack and the advance words of the weapons platform were not classified, Attorney General Pam Bondi said Thursday that a criminal investigation is unlikely.

But often, any government employee, whether civilian or military member, suffers serious consequences for failing to protect the security of operations.

If they intentionally pass on national security secrets to persons who are not authorized to receive these acts, or if they disclose them through serious negligence, they can be prosecuted in court under various regulations.

The Espionage Act criminalizes unauthorized retention or disclosure of defense information that could undermine the aid of the United States or the enemy and has been used to prosecute spies and leakers.

For example, in November last year, Jack Teixeira of the Massachusetts National Guard was sentenced to 15 years in prison for posting photos of the highest secret files in online chat using the Discord app. These documents include detailed information on some of the military hardware provided to Ukraine and how it is transported.

The military has taken extraordinary measures to preserve its upcoming plan of action. For example, in Naval Services, commands to plan and perform combat operations are classified as secrets and received only through secure and encrypted channels. Often, the commander will limit the upcoming communication with simple verbal orders: “River City”.

This is likely nodding from a line from the Broadway hit and song “Ya Got Trucers” from the movie “The Music Man”, but the implications are obvious when broadcasting to the crew on the boat’s speakers immediately.

All outgoing phone lines and emails will be closed immediately except the highest-level officials. Only in this way can the rest of the crew give a brief introduction to the upcoming plans.

“When talking about the mission, you just didn’t reveal some details on the unclassified channel,” Sabrina Singh, deputy secretary during the administration of Pennsylvania’s deputy prime minister Beden, said in an interview on MSNBC on Wednesday. “You keep these operating details safe to ensure fighter pilots are safe to ensure military personnel and women.”

When The New York Times published details of the planned invasion of Iraq in 2002, Mr. Rumsfeld said unauthorized disclosure of confidential information could help terrorists and put American lives at risk.

“It’s illegal,” Mr. Rumsfield wrote. “This loses American lives. It reduces the chances of success in our country.”

He said in a TV interview that anyone who leaked should be prosecuted.

“There are sometimes some people in the U.S. government that decide to violate federal criminal law and release confidential information should be imprisoned,” the Defense Secretary said. “If we find out who they are, they will be imprisoned.”

Mr. Gates spoke in anger after a series of leaks in 2009, talking about an investigation into President Barack Obama’s war plans in Afghanistan and a shooting of Fort Hood that killed 13 people and injured 30 people.

“Frankly, if I’m confident to find anyone who leaks in the Department of Defense, that’s who it’s, that’s probably a career,” Mr. Gates said.

For much of the U.S. history, governments have generally not made unauthorized disclosures of national security secrets through criminal prosecution. Instead, people usually deal with people suspected of improperly classified information through other means, such as losing security permits or being fired.

But in the 21st century, the Justice Department’s criminal charges in leak cases are more routine.

The transition started midway through the George W. Bush administration, in the years following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, secrets leaked such as controversial surveillance and torture programs, and as technology began to become easier to identify possible culprits.

New practices continue to enter the Obama administration. By the end of eight years, prosecutors collected more leaks than all previous presidents had filed in total.

The Justice Department then stepped further into unprecedented charges in the first Trump administration, proposing a charge against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange for publishing American secrets, even if he was just the recipient of the information, not himself the leaker. Under the Biden administration, the department convicted plead guilty in this case.

While more and more cases involve officials obtaining confidential information from all over the government, a subset involves people working for the military, whether civilians or unified roles. Notable cases include:

• In 2011, Thomas A. Drake, a former civilian official of the National Security Agency, a part of the Defense Department, reached a misdemeanor plea agreement to end the leak against him. Mr. Drake is accused of being linked to a long-running investigation involving a leak in the Baltimore Sun, a case that began in the Bush era and was accused in the Obama era but largely collapsed.

• In 2013, Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning was sentenced to 35 years in prison, the longest ever case sentence – convicted in a court military court trial that provided archives of military and diplomatic documents to Wikileaks. In January 2017, Mr. Obama sentenced most of the remaining sentences, but after being arrested in 2010, she stayed in jail for about seven years.

• Also in 2013, the Justice Department accused a civilian contractor for the National Security Agency (Edward Snowden) for leaking a large number of documents regarding government surveillance and hacking activities. Mr. Snowden, who lives in Russia, is a fugitive on these charges.

• In 2015, former CIA Director David H. Petraeus made a plea deal with prosecutors to demand that his misdemeanor charges of unfortunate confidential information related to keeping his notebooks at the height of the war in Afghanistan, some of which were shared with his biographer.

• In 2016, retired Marine General James E. Obama pardoned him before being sentenced.

• In 2018, the reality champion of a former Air Force linguist and intelligence contractor pleaded guilty and was sentenced to more than five years in prison for leaking a secret government report on Russian hacking. She is released in 2021 with good behavior.

• In 2020, Henry Kyle Frese, a former Pentagon counterterrorism analyst, was sentenced to more than two years in prison by a federal judge for sharing national security secrets with a pair of journalists and consultants.