When Atlantic Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Goldberg revealed he got an invitation to a government chat covering sensitive military actions, reverberations within the Trump administration ran deep. There are still some rumblings.
The chat was made public on March 25. The White House has removed some National Security staff in response. But the man at the heart of the issue, national security adviser Mike Waltz, is still on the job.
According to a report from the Guardian, a mistake, through electronic mishandling of Goldberg's phone number, is how it all developed.
The Guardian reported Goldberg emailed the Trump campaign last October about a pending story. That was transferred to Waltz and ended up being saved under the contact on Waltz's iPhone for another Trump campaign staffer. When that staffer was added to the recent Signal chat, the attached Goldberg number was included. The bottom line being it may not have been a purposeful addition, or invite, to the chat. But it still happened.
As far back as three years ago, organizations like Freedom of the Press Foundation were publishing guides on how to maintain electronic contact lists and mitigate risks. The foundation posted, "Apple's iCloud is designed to sync a particularly long list of data you store in its software products, so you can use it on any of their hardware products you sign into. As they spell out in its terms of service, that means Apple gets a copy of that data too, including your contacts."
Jim Mishler ✉
Jim Mishler, a seasoned reporter, anchor and news director, has decades of experience covering crime, politics and environmental issues.
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