The Washington dipsticks who discussed apparently classified United States military planning on an unsecure chat app before a March 15 attack on Yemen’s Houthi militants must not have been familiar with teenagers. Had they had any experience whatsoever with kids and apps, they would have known that nothing stays secret for long once it’s shared. For example, an embarrassing moment involving one of my children ended up on school officials’ radar after a chat thread was found on someone else’s phone.
A good rule to live by is to never put anything in writing that you would not want to see on the front page. The internet is endlessly full of reasons why, such as hitting “reply all” when unleashing a helping of snark regarding a mutual friend. In the digital age, we are always just one click away from utter exposure. Just ask the alter ego that launched a thousand memes, Carlos Danger, who, by the way, I saw next door at the library recently looking like a disheveled tech bro.
Not that being embarrassed is reason enough for teens (or members of Congress) to be cautious. The part of the brain most responsible for reasoning, planning, and decision-making, the prefrontal cortex, is among the last to develop in adolescence. It may also remain undercooked in Fox News hosts, like the Neanderthal-browed Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, who until recently manned one of the reactionary right-wing television service’s weekend shows. Mr. Hegseth was thrown under the bus by intelligence officials during a Senate hearing on Tuesday at which the Signal security breach was discussed, even though it was the national security adviser, Michael Waltz, who had added the editor of The Atlantic magazine. The chat also appeared to include Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, C.I.A. Director John Ratcliffe, and several other senior aides.
As the comedian Jon Stewart commented after the news broke, “Oopsie.”
A paradox, according to The Washington Post, is that many rank-and-file federal workers are picking up Signal or another encryption app to talk about their jobs amid the Elon Musk-led purges. Fear is the motivating factor; they are afraid that using official government channels for water-cooler chat could cost them their jobs — or worse. The issue is that while Signal itself scrambles messages, the devices on either end — phones and PCs — can be hacked or more prosaically, subject to human error. It’s a shame that the nation’s top national security people don’t even understand this basic fact of life in the digital age.