The signal loss has little precedent

Defense secretaries usually take a hard line when it comes to the dissemination of information classified on their clock.

During the administration George W. Bush, Donald H. Rumsfeld said that those who break the federal law in doing so should be imprisoned. His successor, Robert M. Gates, said that he should be a career crime for anyone in the defense department.

But after a loss On a commercial messaging app, the Trump administration has played The episode and have reported that there are little possibilities of an investigation.

Trump president he insisted That the administration officials, including the defense secretary Pete Hegseth, had committed only a lower transgression in discussing secret military plans in a group chat on signal.

Discussing imminent combat operations on a platform not approved for classified information is, alone, highly irregular. Even more extraordinary was the fact that a high official had inadvertently invited a chat journalist.

Looking for the wagons, the Trump administration has adopted the line that anticipates the word of the timing and weapon platforms to be used in an attack were not classified and the attorney general Pam Bondi reported on Thursday that were there It is unlikely that it is a criminal investigation.

But usually, any employee of the government – whether it is a civil member or in uniform of the army – would be subject to serious consequences for not having protected operational safety.

An employee of the government accused of this law could be pursued in court pursuant to various statutes if they consciously transmit national security secrets to a person who is not authorized to receive them or if they reveal such secrets for serious negligence.

The Spionage Act, that criminalizes The retention or unauthorized dissemination of defense information that could damage the United States or help its enemies has been used to pursue both spy and leaker.

Last November, for example, Jack Teixeira, a Massachusetts Air National Guardsman, was sentenced At 15 years in prison for the publication of photos of top-secret documents in online chats using the Discord app. The documents included details on some of the military hardware provided to Ukraine and how it would be transported.

The army adopts extraordinary measures to maintain plans for imminent operations under casing. In the naval service, for example, orders to plan and perform combat operations are classified secret and received only through safe and encrypted channels. Generally, the commanders therefore limit the outgoing communications with a simple verbal order: “River City”.

This is most likely to nod a line of the song “You had problems“In success and in the Broadway film” The Music Man “, but its meaning is clear when it is transmitted to the crew immediately above the speaker of the ship.

All outgoing telephone lines and e-mails are immediately closed to all the highest ranking officers. Only then will the rest of the crew be informed about imminent plans.

“When it comes to the mission, there are some details that does not reveal itself on an unre nice channel,” said Sabrina Singh, a Pentagon press secretary during the Biden administration, in an interview on MSNBC on Wednesday. “Keep the safe operational details to protect your hunting drivers, to protect your military and women.”

In 2002, when the details of the planning for a potential invasion of Iraq were published by the New York Times, Rumsfeld he said that The unauthorized disclosure of classified information could help terrorists and jeopardize American life.

“It’s against the law,” wrote Rumsfeld. “It costs the life of the Americans. The success of our country decreases.”

And in a television interview, he said that anyone who lost should be pursued.

“Every now and then there are people in the United States government who decide they want to break federal criminal law and release classified information and should be imprisoned,” said the defense secretary. “And if we find out who they are, they will be imprisoned.”

Gates spoke angrily after a series of losses in 2009 on an investigation on the plans of President Barack Obama for the war in Afghanistan, as well as a shooting to Fort Hood who left 13 deaths and 30 injured.

“Frankly, if I had discovered anyone who lost in the Defense Department with great confidence, who was, would probably be a career,” said Gates.

For most American history, the government generally did not deal with unauthorized dissemination of national security secrets by the criminal procedure. Rather, people suspected of mistreating the classified information were generally treated through other means, such as losing their safety authorizations or being fired.

But in the 21st century, the Department of Justice brought criminal accusations In cases of losses much more habitually.

The round began halfway through the George W. Bush administration, between losses of secrets on issues such as controversial surveillance programs and torture in the years following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 and, when technology has started to make it easier to identify likely guilty likely.

The new practice continued in the Obama administration. At the end of his eight years, public ministries had Upload more cases of losses of those brought under all previous presidents combined.

The Department of Justice in the First Administration Trump went beyond carrying Unprecedented accusations against Julian AssangeThe founder of Wikileaks, for having published US secrets even if he was just a recipient of information and not a leaker himself. Under the Biden Administration, the Department a reason for guilt has been secured in that case.

While an increasing number of cases involved officials with access to information classified by the whole government, a subset involved people who worked for the military, in civil or uniform roles. The remarkable cases include:

• In 2011, Thomas A. Drake, former civil official at the National Security Agency, a member of the Defense Department, hit A crime agreement To end a case linked to losses against him. Mr. Drake had been accused in relation to a long -standing investigation that involved losses in the Baltimore sun, a case that began Bush over the years and was accused in the Obama era, but largely collapsed.

• In 2013, Chelsea Manning, an army intelligence analyst, was sentenced At 35 years of prison-the longest sentence ever in a case of losses-after having been sentenced in a martial court trial to provide archives of military and diplomatic documents in Wikileaks. In January 2017, Mr. Obama commute Most of the rest of his sentence, but spent about seven years in prison after his 2010 arrest.

• Also in 2013, the Department of Justice load A civil contractor for the National Security Agency, Edward Snowden, for his loss of a large number of documents on government surveillance and hacking activities for journalists. Snowden lives in Russia and is a fugitive from these accusations.

• In 2015, David H. Petraeus, former CIA director, has been a plea bargaining with ministries for a crime of mistreatment of classified information In relation to keeping the notebooks with information classified by his time as the best general in the war in Afghanistan, some of which had shared with his biographer.

• In 2016, James E. Cartwright, a retired Marine Corps General who was vice -president of the Chief of Staff Conjuncti, He stated guilty of lying to the FBI About his conversations with journalists in relation to a survey of losses. Mr. Obama he forgiven him before it could be sentenced.

• In 2018, the winner of reality, a former Air Force linguist and intelligence contractor, declared himself guilty and was sentenced to more than five years in prison For having traveled a top-secret government relationship on Russian hacking. She was Released early For good behavior in 2021.

• In 2020, Henry Kyle Fresse, an ex -anti -terrorism analyst of the Civil Pentagon, was sentenced by a federal judge of more than two years in prison for sharing national security secrets with a couple of journalists and a consultant.