There’s No Excuse for Signalgate

The Defense Department Inspector General just announced that information shared by Defense Secretary Hegseth in a Signal chat this spring could have indeed put U.S. troops, their mission, and national security in great peril. To recap, in an unforced error, our Defense Secretary, National Security Advisor, and Vice President conducted detailed discussions about an imminent military operation against Houthi targets in Yemen over Signal, a hackable commercial messaging app (that also does not comply with public record laws). These “professionals” accidentally added a journalist to the group chat, which meant the Editor-in-Chief of the Atlantic received real-time intelligence about a pending U.S. military strike, including exactly when bombs would begin falling on Yemeni targets. Had Houthi militants gotten their hands on this information, it would have been enough to help them better defend their positions if not actively shoot down the American pilots. This was a catastrophic breakdown in the most basic protocols governing sensitive information and technology. Nine months later, are we any safer?

As a veteran, I take their cavalier attitude towards national security personally. I got out of the Navy as a Lieutenant Commander after ten years as an aviator, a role that required survival, evasion, resistance, and escape training before ever deploying, in case I should ever get shot down. To think that the Defense Secretary, National Security Advisor, and Vice President could have so carelessly put these pilots in danger betrays the trust troops place in their Chain of Command while putting their lives on the line in the service of this country.

During my service, I held additional roles as the Command Legal Officer and Security Manager. So, when someone accidentally printed the word SECRET on a document that wasn’t actually classified, the issue fell squarely on my desk. There was no leak of any information whatsoever, but the inadvertent mislabeling was enough to trigger a crisis that involved filing reports, conducting an investigation, and giving command-wide training. By contrast, the Administration reduced Signalgate to “an inadvertent number added to the chain" and also a "demonstration of deep and thoughtful policy coordination between senior officials.”

Back in March, I asked my chain of command: “We’d immediately get fired if we had done this, right?”

They said: “We’d go to prison.”

Instead, Hegseth kept his job and is now being scrutinized for authorizing what could range from war crimes to outright murder in the Caribbean Sea. These Signalgate texters were unforgivably reckless with the safety of American troops; out of concern for national security (and out of respect for our servicemembers), shouldn’t they all have been fired —or imprisoned—back in March?

It is inexcusable that such avoidable actions could have resulted in American lives lost. It is also a problem, however, that it took nine months to officially identify this as the colossal cybersecurity blunder it is. As Americans, we deserve leaders who aren’t cavalierly texting military plans over messaging apps, and we deserve leaders who hold them accountable.

Perhaps this incident and the fallout (or lack thereof) are revealing of how illiterate many of our leaders are when it comes to the risks posed by technology. When the median age of a U.S. Senator is almost 65 years old, and our own president admits he has barely used any form of digital communication—email, text, etc.—since 2010, could it be that many of our leaders in the federal government are simply not tech-savvy enough to have made sense of this breach? Congress has yet to pass any meaningful legislation around regulating AI–are our leaders just Luddites?

If we do give them the benefit of the doubt–that if they only had understood the immense risk to national security that using an app like this posed, they would have demanded immediate accountability—then moving forward, we must elect leaders who do understand. From the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) to the Cyber Resilience Act, Europe has implemented robust legislative frameworks to ensure digital security and accountability. Whatever interest has kept American lawmakers from passing similar protections can’t possibly be more compelling than the safety of American lives.

Next election cycle, vote for candidates who know the risks associated with technology and have the integrity to write policy to mitigate those risks, follow protocols already in place, and prosecute those who do not. In the meantime, we need 21st-century policies that can properly respond to these systemic failures of both security and accountability. We must demand that Congress enact mandated communication protocols for all senior Executive Branch officials with legally codified penalties. When senior officials mishandle sensitive information, the consequences should be uniform and automatic, not discretionary, and certainly not decided by political appointees.

How we use technology affects national security. Leaders playing fast and loose with either g2g.

Julie Roland was a Naval Officer for ten years, deploying to both the South China Sea and the Persian Gulf as a helicopter pilot before separating in June 2025 as a Lieutenant Commander. She has a law degree from the University of San Diego, a Master of Laws from Columbia University, and is a member of the Truman National Security Project.