One night in the basement of Luter during my freshman year, I added an ex-friend from high school to a group chat for a Buzzfeed quiz party. It was an accident, of course. My suitemates and I had the grand idea of spending our Tuesday night taking silly quizzes instead of tackling our mountains of homework, and I had been tasked with creating a group chat to send the link.
As I was adding one of my suitemates, I only read the first name before selecting her contact. It just so happened that this ex-friend of mine had the same name.
While we were answering questions to find out which “Gilmore Girls” character we were, my ex-friend was probably staring at her phone in confusion. Right as my suitemate confessed to us that she hadn’t gotten the link yet, my ex-friend texted in the group chat, “You didn’t mean to add me to this, right?”
My mouth hung open in horror. I quickly apologized, removed her from the group chat, and moved on with my life. Yes, it was embarrassing and a bit awkward—but at the end of the day, it was totally harmless.
It’s not like we were sharing state secrets.
Unfortunately, I don’t think the White House can say the same.
On March 15, Editor of The Atlantic Jeffery Goldberg was mistakenly added to the White House Signal group chat by Donald Trump’s national security adviser, Mike Waltz. Unfortunately for everyone involved, this was not a casual group chat. Instead, it included extremely confidential information regarding U.S. strikes in Yemen. If these details had gotten into the wrong hands, the results could have been disastrous. This chat didn’t just reference the plans in the abstract but gave precise information about the timing, targets and weapons.
So, how did this happen?
According to people close to Waltz, this scandal was all caused by a simple mistake. Goldberg’s number was somehow saved under the wrong contact name.
While a small part of my ego is strangely boosted by the fact that I’m making similar mistakes to high-ranking officials, as a citizen of the United States, I’m mostly horrified. The idea that our government is handling sensitive military plans with the same level of attention that a sleep-deprived college freshman dedicated to a Buzzfeed quiz party invite is unbelievably terrifying.
What makes this leak different?
It might seem like I’m making a big deal over nothing. After all, we live in a digital era, and information is inevitably going to be leaked and databases will be hacked. However, I would argue that this dilemma is something different and something more alarming than we’ve faced before.
This didn’t happen because some experienced hacker broke through a firewall. It didn’t happen because of a betrayal of a trusted source. This happened because a high-ranking official made a careless, easily avoidable mistake. This highly classified information wasn’t stolen; it was shared. All because Waltz couldn’t double-check that the number under the contact name was really who he thought.
Crickets from the White House
What’s even worse than the mistake itself? The silence from the White House. Since the incident, there has been no disciplinary action and no formal apology, only a very disappointing press conference that attempted to minimize the issue instead of addressing it. They refused to even acknowledge that this data breach is extremely alarming and did not apologize or promise that it would not happen again.
Even when I accidentally texted my ex-friend the group chat invite, I knew that the least I could do was apologize. But these people who are supposed to lead and protect our nation refuse to even take an ounce of accountability.
In fact, Waltz is now claiming that he never added Goldberg’s number to his phone in the first place! Instead, he says that it was somehow mysteriously added to his phone.
Additionally, President Donald Trump refuses to take any action. He doesn’t want to punish Waltz because he says it will satisfy Democrats and open a door for criticisms of his other employees and himself. So instead of addressing a large blunder, he is trying to sweep it under the rug because he is more focused on his image than the safety of state secrets.
So while my Buzzfeed quiz fiasco ended with a quick laugh and a bit of embarrassment, this group chat mistake isn’t something to laugh about. When a nation’s leaders start to treat military plans and national security in such a careless way, the consequences may not just be awkward. They could be dangerous.
