WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:09.680 Music. 00:00:09.527 --> 00:00:15.467 Hello, welcome to the edition podcast. You may have noticed there's rather a 00:00:15.467 --> 00:00:17.527 lot of noise around signal. 00:00:18.667 --> 00:00:23.827 The US, well, almost the entire US national security infrastructure seemed to 00:00:23.827 --> 00:00:28.627 be using it to plan a bombing raid on Yemen against the Houthis. 00:00:29.787 --> 00:00:33.227 Which is not a great start anyway, as we'll discuss. 00:00:33.567 --> 00:00:38.287 But it was made worse by inviting a very, very senior journalist, 00:00:38.287 --> 00:00:43.027 the editor of The Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg, to said group chat. 00:00:43.747 --> 00:00:48.107 Which made it all the rather more messy and put it, not surprising, 00:00:48.227 --> 00:00:50.007 in the pages of The Atlantic. 00:00:50.247 --> 00:00:54.527 As soon as I saw this story, I knew there was exactly one person I had to describe 00:00:54.527 --> 00:00:56.327 this and discuss this with. 00:00:56.787 --> 00:00:59.427 It's James Ball. Hello, James. Hello there. 00:00:59.927 --> 00:01:03.287 Now, James is the political editor of The New European, but 00:01:03.287 --> 00:01:06.587 has written books on all sorts of tech political 00:01:06.587 --> 00:01:10.287 crossover stuff um when 00:01:10.287 --> 00:01:12.887 you were last on the show you were about to be sent off on a 00:01:12.887 --> 00:01:15.727 cargo ship i'm pleased to see your back so i 00:01:15.727 --> 00:01:20.007 i survived the cargo ship i'm pleased to report so i'm 00:01:20.007 --> 00:01:22.767 actually strongly recommend it really good fun riding on 00:01:22.767 --> 00:01:27.007 a cargo ship very tranquil you 00:01:27.007 --> 00:01:29.707 you found a place of zen did you on a 00:01:29.707 --> 00:01:32.527 cargo ship yeah you could uh go up and sit 00:01:32.527 --> 00:01:35.447 uh behind the the bridge they had a couple of deck chairs 00:01:35.447 --> 00:01:38.387 so you'd go up to the bridge sit out on your 200 00:01:38.387 --> 00:01:41.507 meter long boat 20 people aboard and uh 00:01:41.507 --> 00:01:46.347 read a bit uh as you sail through the north sea and then the baltic i mean it 00:01:46.347 --> 00:01:50.787 sounds heavenly to be honest it's like a cruise ship without any of the amenities 00:01:50.787 --> 00:01:55.647 and without any of the other people it's the dream perfect lovely stuff now 00:01:55.647 --> 00:02:00.647 there's lots of reasons as i said that i I wanted you to delve into this story with me. 00:02:00.947 --> 00:02:03.927 There's lots of media aspects to the story, which is obviously why it's on this 00:02:03.927 --> 00:02:08.007 show, but let's just deal with the tech of it because I think there's been, 00:02:08.187 --> 00:02:12.627 it's sort of been distorted as time has gone on. Signal. 00:02:13.596 --> 00:02:16.816 In and of itself, there is nothing wrong with that app. 00:02:16.876 --> 00:02:21.836 It is a very secure, encrypted messaging platform, correct? 00:02:22.396 --> 00:02:25.916 That's correct. It's a really good app. People shouldn't panic about, 00:02:26.196 --> 00:02:27.776 oh, well, should I not use that? 00:02:28.176 --> 00:02:34.116 It's that it's very, very different between sort of what you and I would use 00:02:34.116 --> 00:02:36.356 and what the military would use. 00:02:36.696 --> 00:02:41.836 So think about it as if you've got a passport safe at home because you like 00:02:41.836 --> 00:02:45.316 to have your valuables or a jewellery safe, that's a good thing. 00:02:45.536 --> 00:02:49.516 You'd probably feel a bit worried if someone told you that the nuclear codes were in it, right? 00:02:50.916 --> 00:02:55.656 That's a very good analogy, yeah. It's akin to that. And the problem isn't signal. 00:02:56.036 --> 00:03:00.796 What signal does is it means when your message is flying across the internet, 00:03:01.376 --> 00:03:04.576 it's encrypted, it's secure, and signal's really good at that. 00:03:04.836 --> 00:03:08.396 But what it doesn't do is anything to protect your actual phone. 00:03:09.076 --> 00:03:11.976 And if you're you or me you don't 00:03:11.976 --> 00:03:15.116 really need to worry about that it's not worth the expense 00:03:15.116 --> 00:03:18.376 and the effort to hack into our individual phones to 00:03:18.376 --> 00:03:24.716 monitor our stuff even if we're you know working on you know quite sensitive 00:03:24.716 --> 00:03:28.276 stories and so on it's still a pretty good place to start as long as you're 00:03:28.276 --> 00:03:33.656 careful with your device yes when we were reporting out the edward snowden leaks 00:03:33.656 --> 00:03:38.036 we were a high priority enough target that we didn't use our phones. 00:03:38.336 --> 00:03:42.056 And that wasn't because encryption doesn't work. It's because your phone is 00:03:42.056 --> 00:03:45.356 not secure enough and we had national security secrets on them. 00:03:45.596 --> 00:03:50.576 If you are looking at a corporate whistleblower or a politics story or something 00:03:50.576 --> 00:03:53.616 sensitive, that kind of security is fine. 00:03:53.896 --> 00:03:58.416 Now, if you're the director for national intelligence for the US or the secretary 00:03:58.416 --> 00:04:03.856 of defense or any of this, the vice president, you're an incredibly high priority 00:04:03.856 --> 00:04:08.716 target and intelligence agencies around the world will be hacking your normal phone. 00:04:09.036 --> 00:04:14.676 And so you're not supposed to talk about anything classified on any normal network. 00:04:14.916 --> 00:04:18.296 It doesn't mean that they're insecure for normal people. It means that they're 00:04:18.296 --> 00:04:20.796 insecure for this kind of thing. 00:04:21.056 --> 00:04:25.856 I mean, the usual arrangement to discuss this is that you have to be in a room 00:04:25.856 --> 00:04:32.556 called a SCIF, which is short for Sensitive Compartmentalized Information Facility. 00:04:32.556 --> 00:04:37.136 I'm glad you knew what the acronym was for, because I was totally drawing a blank. 00:04:37.956 --> 00:04:42.856 Yes, well, it sounds like a little boat, but no, it is. 00:04:43.799 --> 00:04:48.939 The US backronym is everything. They make sure it comes to something that you can say pithily. 00:04:49.179 --> 00:04:52.699 But you're not allowed phones in there. They've got linings in the walls to 00:04:52.699 --> 00:04:54.739 make sure that phone signals don't come in and out. 00:04:55.179 --> 00:04:59.659 And part of it is that you're all actually generally in the same room or you're 00:04:59.659 --> 00:05:02.299 all in secure rooms that are linked by video link. 00:05:03.399 --> 00:05:07.379 Now, part of this was... Sorry, forgive me to interrupt, but this is even to 00:05:07.379 --> 00:05:11.759 the extent that high national security figures have these installed in their 00:05:11.759 --> 00:05:14.259 homes as well. Yes, that's exactly right. 00:05:14.479 --> 00:05:19.019 And there are almost sort of portable ones that people can take on visits, etc. 00:05:19.839 --> 00:05:23.499 If you're just in a signal group doing this stuff, who's over your shoulder? 00:05:23.699 --> 00:05:25.619 Where else are you? Where might you show it? 00:05:25.979 --> 00:05:28.599 And several of these people were overseas. 00:05:29.159 --> 00:05:32.179 It looks like someone in the WhatsApp group might have been in Russia. 00:05:32.379 --> 00:05:35.779 Not WhatsApp. Sorry, the signal group might have been in Russia. 00:05:36.539 --> 00:05:39.339 It's, you know, that someone was at a 00:05:39.339 --> 00:05:42.739 state a states fair where the public were there like 00:05:42.739 --> 00:05:45.799 the the carelessness with this is partly about where 00:05:45.799 --> 00:05:48.719 you are when you do it it's about how you're handling it 00:05:48.719 --> 00:05:52.359 it's the fact that this was quite 00:05:52.359 --> 00:05:56.179 sensitive information it was a few 00:05:56.179 --> 00:05:59.119 hours ahead of time the fact that the u.s were going 00:05:59.119 --> 00:06:02.419 to have military assets over lebanon now 00:06:02.419 --> 00:06:06.939 that's the kind of thing that can get a pilot shot down that's the 00:06:06.939 --> 00:06:10.479 kind of thing that can get a pilot shot down and killed you know 00:06:10.479 --> 00:06:15.759 that's that's about as sensitive as information gets when you're talking about 00:06:15.759 --> 00:06:20.839 a military operation it didn't have the exact location of the target but it 00:06:20.839 --> 00:06:25.379 had everything else including the weapons package and so on you know this is 00:06:25.379 --> 00:06:27.999 this is stuff that is classified for a reason. 00:06:28.399 --> 00:06:32.619 And so it isn't a scandal because Signal is insecure. 00:06:32.839 --> 00:06:38.179 It's a scandal because this shouldn't touch personal phone devices and it is 00:06:38.179 --> 00:06:41.899 not allowed to have these kind of apps on secure government phone devices. 00:06:42.159 --> 00:06:46.679 And there are also public record implications, right? 00:06:47.079 --> 00:06:49.879 Yes, there are a lot of very strict laws in 00:06:49.879 --> 00:06:53.059 the US about how records are retained and various 00:06:53.059 --> 00:06:57.379 people in the group had set disappearing messages now when 00:06:57.379 --> 00:07:00.199 you do anything that involves authorizing the use 00:07:00.199 --> 00:07:03.019 of lethal force you are supposed to 00:07:03.019 --> 00:07:05.679 have evidence of the kill chain you are supposed to be 00:07:05.679 --> 00:07:08.779 able to show who considered it who knew what when 00:07:08.779 --> 00:07:12.279 how to sort of go about it if nothing 00:07:12.279 --> 00:07:15.339 else to show that you did it properly this actually protects 00:07:15.339 --> 00:07:18.199 the people involved and it doesn't mean 00:07:18.199 --> 00:07:22.939 the pilot who pulled the trigger well also the officials who authorized it you 00:07:22.939 --> 00:07:26.899 know this doesn't actually other than how they planned it this doesn't seem 00:07:26.899 --> 00:07:31.299 to have been an illegitimate operation this seems to have followed u.s law and 00:07:31.299 --> 00:07:35.839 procedure but and the hoochies are a perfectly legitimate target but let's say that. 00:07:38.740 --> 00:07:43.420 They wouldn't have been able to prove how it was cleared and authorised and put through. 00:07:43.740 --> 00:07:48.080 Now, that could mean that you can't prove wrongdoing, but it also means you 00:07:48.080 --> 00:07:49.140 can't prove you did it right. 00:07:49.420 --> 00:07:51.780 And that sometimes happens. 00:07:52.100 --> 00:07:55.500 And you're presuming this kill-tend that you refer to does have to go up to 00:07:55.500 --> 00:07:58.740 the commander-in-chief, i.e. President Donald Trump? Well, it generally does. 00:07:58.960 --> 00:08:02.200 I mean, the slightly bizarre thing in this was that the final word. 00:08:02.780 --> 00:08:06.860 Stephen Miller seems to be in the group, who is a domestic policy advisor. 00:08:06.860 --> 00:08:09.800 He's essentially uh trump's 00:08:09.800 --> 00:08:12.560 anti-immigration guy homeland security sort of 00:08:12.560 --> 00:08:16.360 you know senior strategy guy he sort 00:08:16.360 --> 00:08:19.120 of said that something along the lines 00:08:19.120 --> 00:08:22.160 of it definitely felt like it was a yes from trump 00:08:22.160 --> 00:08:25.020 last time i spoke to him and that was taken 00:08:25.020 --> 00:08:28.400 as a go order and that's incredibly vague and 00:08:28.400 --> 00:08:31.520 gives you a bit of a clue about have you 00:08:31.520 --> 00:08:34.740 ever heard the suggestion that every accusation is a confession with 00:08:34.740 --> 00:08:37.980 some of this lot right there are a lot of accusations 00:08:37.980 --> 00:08:40.760 that biden had no idea what he was signing and what 00:08:40.760 --> 00:08:43.900 was being done in his name and i think when 00:08:43.900 --> 00:08:46.700 you looked at the detail of this whatsapp group it 00:08:46.700 --> 00:08:49.980 seemed as if signal there was uh sorry 00:08:49.980 --> 00:08:52.680 i keep calling uh in my defense it is the 00:08:52.680 --> 00:08:55.640 same underlying technology that yes i was gonna say and 00:08:55.640 --> 00:08:58.480 whatsapp but uh they're implemented a bit 00:08:58.480 --> 00:09:01.360 differently but for people who's fairly secure as 00:09:01.360 --> 00:09:04.580 well in terms of encryption it's end to end encrypted it's 00:09:04.580 --> 00:09:07.560 the same protocol underlying it uh 00:09:07.560 --> 00:09:10.880 between whatsapp and signal and the founder 00:09:10.880 --> 00:09:14.420 of signal is a guy who goes by the name of moxie marlinspike 00:09:14.420 --> 00:09:20.380 because of course he does and he actually went in and sorted out a lot of the 00:09:20.380 --> 00:09:26.340 security for whatsapp's messaging signal is more secure for niche users for 00:09:26.340 --> 00:09:31.120 a whole bunch of reasons um you know all all a regular listener need to worry 00:09:31.120 --> 00:09:33.140 about is WhatsApp is secure. 00:09:33.380 --> 00:09:37.960 It's got pretty good security and Facebook have actually been quite good about defending that. 00:09:38.680 --> 00:09:44.040 Signal is even more secure. Yeah. But it's not a case of WhatsApp bad, signal good. 00:09:44.260 --> 00:09:48.080 But it does tend to mean in my head I use the two interchangeably when I'm talking 00:09:48.080 --> 00:09:51.540 about them, which is not at all helpful here. But... 00:09:52.172 --> 00:09:58.472 What I want to ask you is, do you think the conversation we have had has been 00:09:58.472 --> 00:10:01.452 conducted properly within the media? 00:10:01.712 --> 00:10:06.172 Now, I'm because I'm hearing things. This is a bit of a criticism from the left 00:10:06.172 --> 00:10:10.032 of people talking about text groups and things like that. 00:10:10.272 --> 00:10:15.092 Now, again, you could make a case about the sort of iMessage security that Apple 00:10:15.092 --> 00:10:16.972 implements on the iPhone, for example. 00:10:16.972 --> 00:10:20.072 But this is not a text message we're 00:10:20.072 --> 00:10:22.932 not they're not sending sms messages which have 00:10:22.932 --> 00:10:25.912 nowhere near the level of security a signal 00:10:25.912 --> 00:10:28.912 a message group on signal does the language to 00:10:28.912 --> 00:10:33.572 me that's being used both by politicians and the media seems to have not explained 00:10:33.572 --> 00:10:38.752 exactly what has gone on in the way you so excellently have so for me actually 00:10:38.752 --> 00:10:43.532 summarizing this to a text group is fine the second they're not doing this the 00:10:43.532 --> 00:10:46.912 second they're touching their personal devices to talk about this stuff, 00:10:47.092 --> 00:10:49.432 they have completely compromised the security. 00:10:50.292 --> 00:10:53.472 Even with a secure app? Yeah. For their particular threat model, 00:10:53.612 --> 00:10:55.232 the security of the app is irrelevant. 00:10:55.512 --> 00:10:59.292 They may as well be in a text group. They could be doing it in a Google Doc. 00:10:59.912 --> 00:11:05.592 By the time they've screwed it up by being on their own devices and doing it 00:11:05.592 --> 00:11:08.772 on a normal networked commercial app, 00:11:09.032 --> 00:11:12.352 they have so compromised the security that it's 00:11:12.352 --> 00:11:18.012 kind of irrelevant whether they used signal whatsapp or just normal text messaging 00:11:18.012 --> 00:11:24.992 and so as a shot you could have anything any kind of bug could be on your phone 00:11:24.992 --> 00:11:29.012 particularly these kind of people anything could have you know been their phones 00:11:29.012 --> 00:11:30.092 could have been attacked and, 00:11:30.630 --> 00:11:32.950 with anything that could record what's going on on their device. 00:11:33.210 --> 00:11:37.970 Essentially, there are ways to compromise individual handsets. 00:11:38.170 --> 00:11:41.630 Some of that relies on you making a mistake and installing something you shouldn't. 00:11:41.730 --> 00:11:46.770 But there are zero days, which are essentially a vulnerability that isn't known 00:11:46.770 --> 00:11:49.870 about yet, that gets exploited. And a series I need to watch. 00:11:50.330 --> 00:11:55.270 Spyware. We've seen things done with, you know, software like Pegasus, 00:11:55.350 --> 00:11:56.490 et cetera. That was huge. 00:11:56.830 --> 00:12:02.610 That's the threat for these kinds of people. And so once they're using an unsecure 00:12:02.610 --> 00:12:06.830 device, whether they're using Signal or not is just completely irrelevant. 00:12:07.110 --> 00:12:10.210 And we assume it's an insecure device because it was a commercial mobile phone 00:12:10.210 --> 00:12:12.090 with a commercial app. Yeah, it is. 00:12:12.450 --> 00:12:15.990 Any device for people like this, any commercial device is insecure. 00:12:16.550 --> 00:12:22.770 And again, this doesn't mean that they're insecure for us. 00:12:22.910 --> 00:12:27.350 But when you are a high priority intelligence target, you don't use commercial stuff. 00:12:27.350 --> 00:12:30.270 And we know they weren't using government phones because 00:12:30.270 --> 00:12:33.470 government phones don't have signal on right right 00:12:33.470 --> 00:12:36.590 very good point there are easy ways 00:12:36.590 --> 00:12:39.490 if you know the detail and it's a lot of detail 00:12:39.490 --> 00:12:43.170 you know i've reported this stuff for more than a decade i 00:12:43.170 --> 00:12:45.890 know these procedures and protocol things if you know the 00:12:45.890 --> 00:12:49.010 detail it's easy to know they were using personal 00:12:49.010 --> 00:12:52.430 devices and this wasn't secure um but 00:12:52.430 --> 00:12:55.610 signal's almost a red herring it is a good secure 00:12:55.610 --> 00:12:59.110 app that people should trust for their use cases it 00:12:59.110 --> 00:13:02.210 is not designed for planning national security 00:13:02.210 --> 00:13:06.110 strikes and it is a grievous grievous 00:13:06.110 --> 00:13:09.890 failing that they did it and weirdly it's 00:13:09.890 --> 00:13:13.150 it's actually the the smallest part 00:13:13.150 --> 00:13:17.350 of this mistake is accidentally adding a journalist to the group although that 00:13:17.350 --> 00:13:21.710 is by the way a large part of why you don't use things like signal to plan this 00:13:21.710 --> 00:13:27.730 because you can't do a fat finger in that instance but the the sin here was 00:13:27.730 --> 00:13:32.870 much more planning it on signal in the first place than it was adding jeffrey goldberg to the group. 00:13:34.087 --> 00:13:38.627 And do you, again, think that has been articulated in the media? 00:13:39.047 --> 00:13:42.967 I think most mainstream coverage I've seen has done it well. 00:13:43.307 --> 00:13:47.527 I think Trump world has tried to say, well, look, who hasn't made a mistake 00:13:47.527 --> 00:13:49.967 on a group chat? And that rather proves the point. 00:13:50.387 --> 00:13:54.327 Yes. And it's like, well, yes, that's why we don't. That's why most of us don't, 00:13:54.327 --> 00:13:56.687 you know, plan assassinations in the group chat, mate. 00:13:57.747 --> 00:14:01.767 We plan the visit to the pub afterwards. Yeah. You know, we take that to DM. 00:14:01.767 --> 00:14:04.707 But um so you know it it 00:14:04.707 --> 00:14:07.687 is it's easy i can see why they're trying to 00:14:07.687 --> 00:14:10.927 do it like there aren't any good defenses here i 00:14:10.927 --> 00:14:13.887 mean an incredibly stark thing was 00:14:13.887 --> 00:14:16.607 as soon as people were added to that group and saw 00:14:16.607 --> 00:14:19.347 what it was about they should have been saying why the hell is this on 00:14:19.347 --> 00:14:22.627 signal you know or something going i'm so 00:14:22.627 --> 00:14:26.067 sorry this is on signal we don't discuss any details but 00:14:26.067 --> 00:14:28.927 because we're all traveling we can only i can only 00:14:28.927 --> 00:14:31.687 keep you abroad this way and they should have kept 00:14:31.687 --> 00:14:34.727 things incredibly vague nothing on the weapons packages nothing 00:14:34.727 --> 00:14:39.367 on the timing but just to go the thing we discussed is going to go ahead you 00:14:39.367 --> 00:14:43.867 know kind of thing sometimes you can't set up a skiff sometimes you can't do 00:14:43.867 --> 00:14:49.707 it that would have been understandable but they started talking about distinct 00:14:49.707 --> 00:14:54.347 military details all of this they all started messaging in it very calmly very routinely. 00:14:54.847 --> 00:14:57.547 This isn't the one time it happened this is the 00:14:57.547 --> 00:15:00.847 one that we know about and that is because a 00:15:00.847 --> 00:15:04.667 very senior journalist jeffrey goldberg was accidentally added 00:15:04.667 --> 00:15:08.247 to the group or as we're trying to be told now his number 00:15:08.247 --> 00:15:12.207 was sucked in to the group 00:15:12.207 --> 00:15:16.087 whatever the hell that means i genuinely 00:15:16.087 --> 00:15:20.887 think some of this is aimed at donald trump who is horrible with technology 00:15:20.887 --> 00:15:25.667 doesn't really understand how phones work but watches fox news all the time 00:15:25.667 --> 00:15:31.707 and i think people who are trying to save uh secretary who defends Pete Hegseth 00:15:31.707 --> 00:15:33.007 and tried to save Mike Waltz, 00:15:33.087 --> 00:15:36.867 who's the advisor who actually added Jeffrey Goldberg to the group, 00:15:37.567 --> 00:15:42.547 are trying to give Trump the idea that Jeffrey Goldberg may have done some malicious 00:15:42.547 --> 00:15:47.887 journo-like trickery to magically suck his number into the phone. 00:15:48.047 --> 00:15:53.927 And I think that's largely an attempt to try and save them by having Trump believe it. 00:15:54.147 --> 00:15:58.407 I don't think even Fox News thinks its audience will actually believe that the 00:15:58.407 --> 00:16:00.567 number magically got sucked into the phone. 00:16:00.667 --> 00:16:03.087 It seems unlikely. 00:16:04.686 --> 00:16:09.346 But it is this, the counter-narratives of the bit I'm really interested in, 00:16:09.426 --> 00:16:15.606 because when I discussed this on the House of Comments podcast with Emma Bunnell, 00:16:16.526 --> 00:16:20.106 head over to patreon.com slash houseofcommentspodcast, by the way, 00:16:20.146 --> 00:16:24.366 if you want to hear that and subscribe to get all the good content and our newsletters. 00:16:25.026 --> 00:16:29.366 We were saying basically we thought Jeffrey Goldberg, as a journalist, 00:16:29.526 --> 00:16:30.886 had behaved pretty impeccably. 00:16:30.886 --> 00:16:34.326 I i agree i think he did 00:16:34.326 --> 00:16:37.266 every step of this exactly right in 00:16:37.266 --> 00:16:40.326 his telling of the story let's just put that little caveat but yes 00:16:40.326 --> 00:16:43.206 um i think watch and wait as 00:16:43.206 --> 00:16:46.466 soon as it's clear you're in something you shouldn't be leave 00:16:46.466 --> 00:16:50.006 but document what you've had there i think that's partly 00:16:50.006 --> 00:16:52.726 just for ass covering but also i 00:16:52.726 --> 00:16:55.506 think it's a responsible thing to do try and do 00:16:55.506 --> 00:16:58.506 it the first time round redacting as much 00:16:58.506 --> 00:17:01.546 as you think might be risky when he 00:17:01.546 --> 00:17:04.926 was goaded and accused of lying use that 00:17:04.926 --> 00:17:08.026 as a reason to publish more but contact them again. 00:17:08.026 --> 00:17:11.146 First give them another chance to confirm 00:17:11.146 --> 00:17:14.186 and say something different i think he 00:17:14.186 --> 00:17:16.966 has played an absolute blinder i think he did it 00:17:16.966 --> 00:17:19.906 responsibly but i think he did it cleverly as 00:17:19.906 --> 00:17:23.366 well given the ways they would attack him um and 00:17:23.366 --> 00:17:26.926 i think the people sort of saying he should have stayed in the channel indefinitely etc 00:17:26.926 --> 00:17:29.746 like firstly you could tell by 00:17:29.746 --> 00:17:32.746 the name of the group these were set up operation by operation not 00:17:32.746 --> 00:17:35.846 all the time but he would have been contributing to 00:17:35.846 --> 00:17:38.686 a security risk had they turned around and 00:17:38.686 --> 00:17:41.966 immediately sort of said look this guy's done this he 00:17:41.966 --> 00:17:44.886 would have been very exposed he may have actually 00:17:44.886 --> 00:17:49.726 been committing a criminal offense knowingly staying in there i think he struck 00:17:49.726 --> 00:17:53.886 the right balance of being able to report something of very significant public 00:17:53.886 --> 00:17:59.286 interest and actually seemed to be more concerned with minimising harm to US 00:17:59.286 --> 00:18:04.166 national security than any of the people running US national security at the moment. 00:18:04.326 --> 00:18:07.406 And in particular, protecting the names and lives of service people. 00:18:08.359 --> 00:18:14.539 Yes and no. There was a CIA officer in there. It was not a field officer. 00:18:14.899 --> 00:18:19.159 People constantly talk about CIA agents when they mean officers. 00:18:19.779 --> 00:18:23.619 An agent is someone who is sort of... A spy in the field. 00:18:23.619 --> 00:18:26.259 Yeah it's not even that really they're not an 00:18:26.259 --> 00:18:29.139 employee of the cia they're someone being run by 00:18:29.139 --> 00:18:32.079 the cia so they might be getting bribed they 00:18:32.079 --> 00:18:34.839 might be getting blackmailed they might be getting something in there 00:18:34.839 --> 00:18:41.999 but an agent isn't actually uh employed by the agency this was by all accounts 00:18:41.999 --> 00:18:46.779 the chief of staff of someone quite senior in an office job those people aren't 00:18:46.779 --> 00:18:50.039 named in britain i don't think it would have been a massive deal to have named 00:18:50.039 --> 00:18:52.559 them but better safe than sorry Exactly. 00:18:53.079 --> 00:18:59.099 It is one of those that can sound like a much bigger deal than it is. 00:18:59.399 --> 00:19:03.139 I don't think he would have been grossly irresponsible if he'd named that person. 00:19:04.839 --> 00:19:12.279 There's a whole row over the naming of a CIA desk officer from an old congressional 00:19:12.279 --> 00:19:15.519 thing that turned into a years-long very silly Fox News scandal. 00:19:15.739 --> 00:19:20.239 So this is part of why there's a lot of sensitivity around that and why he was 00:19:20.239 --> 00:19:21.979 probably so careful on it. Yeah. 00:19:22.179 --> 00:19:27.859 And again, it shows a sort of adeptness within the media understanding Trump world. 00:19:28.739 --> 00:19:33.099 Yes. And I think actually a lot of the people who criticised Jeffrey Goldberg 00:19:33.099 --> 00:19:35.959 had misunderstood Trump world and how it would react. 00:19:36.819 --> 00:19:40.859 You know, they were always if he held details back, they were going to say nothing 00:19:40.859 --> 00:19:44.699 was classified and it was fine. And look how innocuous it was. 00:19:44.899 --> 00:19:47.979 He didn't even publish anything damaging. if he'd 00:19:47.979 --> 00:19:51.539 have published anything damaging they'd have been saying he's exploiting 00:19:51.539 --> 00:19:54.679 this one error and he's just put servicemen's men 00:19:54.679 --> 00:19:58.039 and women's life at risk during a live military operation yeah 00:19:58.039 --> 00:20:01.739 um that's all a very fine line it's 00:20:01.739 --> 00:20:05.059 it's goldberg and all the people surrounding him 00:20:05.059 --> 00:20:08.719 had gamed this out and thought it through and they 00:20:08.719 --> 00:20:11.559 thought through the follow-up steps quite carefully and they 00:20:11.559 --> 00:20:15.159 they handled it both correctly in 00:20:15.159 --> 00:20:18.239 terms of ethics but correctly in terms of tactics in 00:20:18.239 --> 00:20:24.519 terms of how to deal with the fallout and i wish more news outlets would game 00:20:24.519 --> 00:20:31.119 out how trump would respond to stories or revelations that they do because it 00:20:31.119 --> 00:20:35.979 does show it can be done most of the coverage of this story has and the attention 00:20:35.979 --> 00:20:37.859 on this story has been where it should be, 00:20:38.579 --> 00:20:44.079 which is on the national security officials concerned, rather than turning into 00:20:44.079 --> 00:20:46.199 the kind of circus that Trump world prefers. 00:20:47.708 --> 00:20:53.188 Yes. You sort of predicted my next question, which is, do you think enough major 00:20:53.188 --> 00:20:57.728 publications game things out in this way? 00:20:58.048 --> 00:21:01.948 And I think I'm inclined to agree with you that most of the time the answer 00:21:01.948 --> 00:21:08.708 is no, because we've seen these things escalate and become a circus. 00:21:10.308 --> 00:21:14.088 And that is okay in and of itself but you 00:21:14.088 --> 00:21:16.968 know we have to you know these people these senior 00:21:16.968 --> 00:21:21.848 journalists do have to be aware of that for you know I'm thinking of Maggie 00:21:21.848 --> 00:21:27.208 Haberman right who does brilliant reporting on Trump world and knows how it's 00:21:27.208 --> 00:21:32.568 going to react but also sometimes you think not particularly having a go at 00:21:32.568 --> 00:21:35.868 her as an individual but reporters like her getting stuff You're like, 00:21:36.208 --> 00:21:38.248 but you must have known this would be the next game. 00:21:38.568 --> 00:21:42.128 Hold something back. I mean, you did this again with like the Snowden files 00:21:42.128 --> 00:21:45.968 and stuff, didn't you? Where you had to know what the next two or three stages were. 00:21:46.488 --> 00:21:49.488 Yeah, I mean, it is. 00:21:49.728 --> 00:21:52.568 Sorry, to be clear, I wasn't having a go at Maggie Haberman's reporting. 00:21:52.668 --> 00:21:53.468 She's a very good reporter. 00:21:53.648 --> 00:21:58.088 But there's a difference between what she's doing, which is the day-to-day grind 00:21:58.088 --> 00:22:03.968 of reporting, to sort of strategizing these bigger stories. 00:22:03.968 --> 00:22:08.128 It is a reporter's job to get the story and to work out how to tell it well 00:22:08.128 --> 00:22:09.388 and follow those ethics rules. 00:22:09.508 --> 00:22:13.988 It is an editor's job to game out how to do it, to make sure it lands with the 00:22:13.988 --> 00:22:17.348 right impact and that broader factors are concerned. 00:22:17.348 --> 00:22:22.288 And so to sort of take an example of this, this from a while ago, 00:22:22.508 --> 00:22:27.188 but during one of the series of offshore leaks from ICIJ, 00:22:27.608 --> 00:22:34.168 we had a whole bunch of Swiss bank accounts and we were publishing details of 00:22:34.168 --> 00:22:37.208 people doing tax avoidance, which is legal, tax evasion, 00:22:37.408 --> 00:22:42.268 which is not, and sometimes engaged in stuff that looked a lot more sinister 00:22:42.268 --> 00:22:46.028 even than that, that HSBC was aware of. 00:22:46.028 --> 00:22:51.448 But we did the ruling of well people's bank accounts are very sensitive information, 00:22:51.448 --> 00:22:53.348 we're not going to publish documents, 00:22:53.588 --> 00:22:58.128 we're not going to publish any details that are superfluous we're not, 00:22:58.228 --> 00:23:04.228 you know we had several tens of thousands of accounts and we published. 00:23:04.812 --> 00:23:08.072 A few the fact of accounts for a few dozen people 00:23:08.072 --> 00:23:10.952 you know we didn't and we we 00:23:10.952 --> 00:23:14.432 quoted little bits from the notes etc um but 00:23:14.432 --> 00:23:17.352 out of all of the people zach goldsmith came out 00:23:17.352 --> 00:23:22.052 and said we were just completely lying uh and that we hadn't he'd never had 00:23:22.052 --> 00:23:24.952 an account with it he'd never been a beneficiary of account he'd never sort 00:23:24.952 --> 00:23:30.972 of done anything like this now jemima goldsmith his sister uh was a beneficiary 00:23:30.972 --> 00:23:36.552 of the best known as jemina khan yes uh although she's reverted i think yes yes. 00:23:37.132 --> 00:23:40.792 But um but she 00:23:40.792 --> 00:23:43.812 had she wasn't very happy with the story but she 00:23:43.812 --> 00:23:46.692 had uh just said yep i didn't set 00:23:46.692 --> 00:23:49.872 it up it was set up for me but i was a beneficiary of 00:23:49.872 --> 00:23:53.732 it you know we all were yes you 00:23:53.732 --> 00:23:56.812 know thank you for ruining my birthday i recall uh 00:23:56.812 --> 00:23:59.792 she she said actually i felt terrible because she'd just 00:23:59.792 --> 00:24:02.592 given us an honest factual answer and 00:24:02.592 --> 00:24:06.372 a kind of well it wasn't even really me um 00:24:06.372 --> 00:24:09.292 which was true that we weren't suggesting she'd 00:24:09.292 --> 00:24:11.992 set it up but zach goldsmith came out he was still an 00:24:11.992 --> 00:24:15.952 mp then and said no and so we redacted 00:24:15.952 --> 00:24:19.432 any sort of details that could have got him in trouble but he 00:24:19.432 --> 00:24:22.352 ended up getting the uh the record of the 00:24:22.352 --> 00:24:25.972 account set up with him as the beneficiary published because 00:24:25.972 --> 00:24:28.952 we could say well here is here is the bank account zach 00:24:28.952 --> 00:24:32.012 goldsmith says he doesn't have and we kept 00:24:32.012 --> 00:24:35.892 those in reserve so that we weren't violating people's privacy we weren't doing 00:24:35.892 --> 00:24:41.032 it but we had we had thought through what we would do someone came out and lied 00:24:41.032 --> 00:24:46.792 um and we've done that you have to do that you do that in investigations you 00:24:46.792 --> 00:24:50.072 you you know what happens if you publish too much at once. 00:24:50.332 --> 00:24:56.052 You also, it's your job as an editor sometimes to give people enough rope to hang themselves. 00:24:56.372 --> 00:25:00.652 And so you might ask them to deny something without telling them that you've 00:25:00.652 --> 00:25:03.332 got a document proving that they did it because... 00:25:04.056 --> 00:25:06.896 Because if you tell them they've got the document in the first place, 00:25:07.256 --> 00:25:08.916 they're not going to deny it. 00:25:09.116 --> 00:25:12.416 If you say, did you ever do this? They say no. 00:25:12.716 --> 00:25:15.976 And then you go back to them and go, well, I've got a piece of paper proving you did. 00:25:16.816 --> 00:25:21.896 They've not only sort of tripped themselves up, they've shown themselves to be willing to lie. 00:25:21.896 --> 00:25:27.916 And so this kind of strategy, this kind of ability to see the response and to 00:25:27.916 --> 00:25:33.916 know how it's there is a core part of being an editor and being a manager in 00:25:33.916 --> 00:25:36.836 a newsroom or being a very experienced reporter. 00:25:36.836 --> 00:25:39.976 And I think especially when you're dealing with 00:25:39.976 --> 00:25:43.796 an administration that's very dishonest and has such 00:25:43.796 --> 00:25:47.616 an aggressive army of outriders and influencers if 00:25:47.616 --> 00:25:50.616 you're not gaming that out you are not doing your job 00:25:50.616 --> 00:25:53.636 properly you are not competent at your job but it's 00:25:53.636 --> 00:25:56.596 not about individual reporters it's about newsrooms and 00:25:56.596 --> 00:26:00.216 I think yes Goldberg and the Atlantic have 00:26:00.216 --> 00:26:04.136 played exactly as you should i don't 00:26:04.136 --> 00:26:07.276 think the u.s mainstream media is 00:26:07.276 --> 00:26:09.956 working to that standard yet and i hope a 00:26:09.956 --> 00:26:12.796 few people have looked at this one and gone we should 00:26:12.796 --> 00:26:15.436 take some lessons from this yeah that's really what i 00:26:15.436 --> 00:26:18.236 think i was thinking when you were talking about strategy and so 00:26:18.236 --> 00:26:23.496 on i was thinking very much about the telegraph and mp's expenses which again 00:26:23.496 --> 00:26:29.456 they strategized and played a blinder with because everything slightly ramped 00:26:29.456 --> 00:26:34.596 up and ramped up and ramped up until we got to duck houses kind of thing uh 00:26:34.596 --> 00:26:36.716 american listeners just google it um. 00:26:37.743 --> 00:26:42.083 But that's how you have to do these longer term stories, which leads me to my 00:26:42.083 --> 00:26:47.043 next and probably final question, which is, do you reckon there's any more of this from this story? 00:26:48.903 --> 00:26:52.423 In a normal administration, there would be a lot further to go. 00:26:52.683 --> 00:26:56.563 I mean, you would have to sack people. This is an absolutely grotesque mishandling 00:26:56.563 --> 00:27:01.283 of classified information. It's worse than anything on the Hillary Clinton email 00:27:01.283 --> 00:27:07.283 server, et cetera, that Republicans turned into a four-year sort of farrago. 00:27:08.103 --> 00:27:10.743 That ultimately probably cost Hillary Clinton the presidency. 00:27:11.043 --> 00:27:15.683 In this administration, I suspect we'll move on quite soon. 00:27:16.363 --> 00:27:21.083 But will the media, do you think the Atlantic is holding more in reserve? 00:27:21.303 --> 00:27:24.783 I genuinely don't know this question. No, I think the cupboard is bare. 00:27:24.783 --> 00:27:28.403 I think they have now published everything they will publish. 00:27:30.003 --> 00:27:34.263 Goldberg, in his first story, had set out. 00:27:34.523 --> 00:27:40.563 I mean, what surprised me here was it doesn't speak well of the intelligence 00:27:40.563 --> 00:27:44.883 of Tulsi Gabbard or of other people on the phone call, because I'm not sure 00:27:44.883 --> 00:27:49.263 they ever actually did a close reading of Jeffrey Goldberg's first article. 00:27:49.603 --> 00:27:54.323 Right. Because he made it clear what he had seen and wasn't publishing. 00:27:54.783 --> 00:28:01.443 He, without giving the details, he said in between these messages were several 00:28:01.443 --> 00:28:08.683 about the precise timings and weapons payloads of X that we are not publishing after this was this. 00:28:08.863 --> 00:28:13.763 So he had actually spelled out in more detail than I would what he wasn't publishing, 00:28:13.763 --> 00:28:16.783 which I think was a totally legitimate thing to do. 00:28:16.783 --> 00:28:22.643 But it meant that when when people like Tulsi Gabbard gave their evidence to 00:28:22.643 --> 00:28:28.763 Congress, they had enough information to know that Jeffrey Goldberg could prove 00:28:28.763 --> 00:28:31.243 they were lying and they did it anyway. 00:28:31.243 --> 00:28:38.323 So they either didn't care or they were so stupid that they walked into the dumbest trap ever. 00:28:39.783 --> 00:28:43.923 And so it wasn't even meant to be a trap. Yeah. I mean, what surprises me and 00:28:43.923 --> 00:28:47.663 what alarms me looking at that is the competence rather than the malice. 00:28:47.983 --> 00:28:52.263 Yeah. You know, as Trump likes to say, they're not sending their best. 00:28:53.063 --> 00:28:59.143 Listen, James, Atlantic subscription is expensive. 00:28:59.903 --> 00:29:02.503 What can you say? It's $90 a year. 00:29:04.563 --> 00:29:07.683 You know, it's I mean, 00:29:07.703 --> 00:29:10.303 if they don't know the trick to beating the Atlantic paywall, 00:29:10.303 --> 00:29:14.663 then they really shouldn't be in intelligence jobs we'll talk about that later 00:29:14.663 --> 00:29:20.363 um it's it's a fascinating story i love these kind of things because it you 00:29:20.363 --> 00:29:25.043 really get to see the kind of nuts and bolts of journalism in a way we often 00:29:25.043 --> 00:29:26.443 don't with other stories. 00:29:28.372 --> 00:29:34.152 Yes, yes, absolutely. You know, obviously you and I is complete media nerds love. 00:29:34.332 --> 00:29:35.852 I don't know how much any of this 00:29:35.852 --> 00:29:41.392 stuff feeds into the sort of public consciousness, but it's interesting. 00:29:41.532 --> 00:29:47.672 I would also be loved to know how many people have taken out Atlantic subscriptions in the time since. 00:29:47.852 --> 00:29:52.592 So we didn't get given numbers, but they did put out that it's got them the 00:29:52.592 --> 00:29:57.192 most new subscriptions of any single story in the publication's history. 00:29:57.192 --> 00:30:00.792 Uh which i want numbers 00:30:00.792 --> 00:30:04.312 also there is no substitution for good luck you 00:30:04.312 --> 00:30:08.212 know jeffrey goldberg is an extremely good journalist people don't 00:30:08.212 --> 00:30:13.132 always share all of his politics but he's a very capable editor a very capable 00:30:13.132 --> 00:30:18.832 journalist they've handled it beautifully but there is no substitute for the 00:30:18.832 --> 00:30:21.272 sheer dumb luck of being the person 00:30:21.272 --> 00:30:25.992 who got added in that mistake because Because as has later come out, 00:30:26.652 --> 00:30:30.792 Mike Waltz has quite a lot of journalists in his phone because it turns out 00:30:30.792 --> 00:30:34.032 that he didn't realise to set his Venmo private. 00:30:35.352 --> 00:30:39.712 And so people could see a load of journalists that were his Venmo contacts. 00:30:40.172 --> 00:30:46.252 Also, it's wild that America's banking system is so behind ours that people 00:30:46.252 --> 00:30:47.752 still send money through apps. 00:30:48.112 --> 00:30:54.292 And Venmo is the app they do that on. And by default, his contact link is public. 00:30:54.612 --> 00:30:59.972 And so there were quite a lot of journalists that Mike Waltz could have accidentally added. 00:31:00.212 --> 00:31:04.432 And it's probably to everyone's benefit that he added Jeffrey Goldberg, 00:31:04.472 --> 00:31:09.752 who handled it responsibly and also really made the story land as an absolute bomb. 00:31:11.412 --> 00:31:14.292 Bomb being the uh yes that was not 00:31:14.292 --> 00:31:18.072 intentional i do apologize uh it's fascinating 00:31:18.072 --> 00:31:20.892 it's amazing i mean i have to say some of the best stories i've had were also 00:31:20.892 --> 00:31:24.812 as you put it dumb luck you've got to be in the right place at the right time 00:31:24.812 --> 00:31:29.272 or in this case on the right device at the right time james thank you so much 00:31:29.272 --> 00:31:33.592 uh for joining to unpack all this i knew you'd be the perfect guest for the 00:31:33.592 --> 00:31:37.272 story where else can people keep up with you so people can find me in the new 00:31:37.272 --> 00:31:40.372 european or on Twitter at JamesRBUK, 00:31:40.372 --> 00:31:42.212 but God, that's a test pit now. 00:31:42.472 --> 00:31:44.812 Or on Blue Sky, I'm JamesRBall.com. 00:31:45.532 --> 00:31:49.712 Wonderful. I will make sure that's all in the show notes. As you know, 00:31:49.912 --> 00:31:53.012 I'm at Charlotte A. Henry across social media. 00:31:53.252 --> 00:31:56.412 And you can head over to the edition.net to read more blog posts. 00:31:56.552 --> 00:31:59.372 We're doing some live blogging over there. Thank you, Tickaroo. 00:32:00.372 --> 00:32:02.692 I've got newsletters there. 00:32:03.932 --> 00:32:07.992 Obviously, you can go through the podcast archive as well. So do sign up for 00:32:07.992 --> 00:32:13.132 a mere £5 a month or £50 for the year for the newsletter, for the premium version of the newsletter. 00:32:13.432 --> 00:32:16.492 And if you head over to patreon.com slash house of comments podcasts, 00:32:16.852 --> 00:32:20.452 you can sign up to the premium version of that and you get the newsletter as well. 00:32:20.552 --> 00:32:23.792 And that's a fiver, just over a fiver a month. So it's all very, 00:32:23.872 --> 00:32:26.292 very good value. So I hope you take out one of those. 00:32:26.592 --> 00:32:29.692 Really appreciate you all listening. And I'll see you next week. 00:32:30.320 --> 00:32:39.325 Music.