The Sunday Subject: March 30, 2025
Week ten: Hegseth Violates National Security Via Group Chat; Musk discovers a new way to threaten Social Security; Earthquake Hits Myanmar
Secretary of Defense Leaks War Plans On Signal
Pete Hegseth, the Fox News host-turned-Secretary of Defense, who was confirmed by the Republican-led Senate despite serious questions about his lack of experience and past troubles with alcohol, leaked sensitive national security information in a group chat on Signal on Monday. The Atlantic was first to report on the story, as that magazine’s editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, was accidentally invited to a group chat that also included the directors of the CIA and National Intelligence.
Those directors, Hegseth, and convicted felon Donald Trump all made statements insisting the conversation did not involve classified information, and, as Hegseth insisted, “nobody was texting war plans.” This was immediately proven to be a lie by The Atlantic, because, again, their editor-in-chief was part of the group chat. The magazine initially didn’t disclose what was discussed in the chat because, unlike Trump’s national security team, the magazine’s editorial staff is extremely careful about revealing sensitive information that could put American troops in harm’s way.
However, after being accused of lying by the Trump administration, The Atlantic published screenshots from the text, verifying that everyone except The Atlantic was in fact lying, and the chat involved specific battle plans against the Houthi extremist group in Yemen. As the magazine reports: “The U.S. secretary of defense texted a group that included a phone number unknown to him—Goldberg’s cellphone—at 11:44am. This was 31 minutes before the first U.S. warplanes launched, and two hours and one minute before the beginning of a period in which a primary target… was expected to be killed. If this text had been received by someone hostile to American interests… the Houthis would have had time to prepare for what was meant to be a surprise attack… The consequence for American pilots could have been catastrophic.”
As of press time, Hegseth has been widely criticized from many quarters, but has not received any reprimand from his boss, convicted felon Donald Trump, who made the centerpiece of his 2016 presidential campaign a cabinet secretary’s information security practices.
DOGE Plans To Rewrite Social Security Software, Threatening Collapse
Unelected billionaire Elon Musk’s cost-cutting outfit DOGE, which operates without Congressional approval in defiance of the Constitution, is planning on abruptly rewriting the software that runs the Social Security Administration’s records and payment systems. Wired reports that Musk underling Steve Davis wants to abandon COBOL, an early computer programming language created by Grace Hopper in 1959, which still runs the SSA’s software, and migrate the system to more modern software.
In theory, modernizing the system is a good idea. In practice, it has the potential for disaster on multiple fronts. The SSA has remained on COBOL because updating a system that keeps data on every American and manages payments for 65 million Americans is a massive, costly undertaking. Davis and Musk want to make the move within a couple of months. For context, SSA planned to upgrade their systems in 2017 — the projected timeframe was five years, and the project was cancelled when the COVID pandemic hit.
For further context, Musk’s DOGE team is unfamiliar enough with COBOL that the billionaire previously claimed there were Social Security recipients still claiming payments at age 150; his team had in fact misinterpreted the data. Anything other than an incredibly careful software migration done by well-qualified programmers could result in retirees’ pension payments not going out, with no way to notice the error, or worse, a collapse of the entire system. On top of that, many have noted the privacy concerns related to a private citizen with no official government position gaining access to the personal information of every single American.
Devastating Earthquake Strikes Mandalay, Myanmar
An earthquake measuring 7.7 on the Richter scale hit near Myanmar, a city of a million and a half people in Myanmar. More than 1,600 people have died, as buildings and bridges collapsed during the quake. The city is still being hit by aftershocks, and rescue workers are still recovering people from the rubble. The Guardian reports that the country’s first responders are so overwhelmed that most recovery operations are being done by, “small, self-organized resident groups that lack the required equipment.
Under normal circumstances, the United States would be sending aid through relief agency USAID, but that agency’s funding was unconstitutionally eliminated last month by convicted felon Donald Trump.