At 2 p.m. on March 15, 2025, the world found out about an incident that occurred a few hours before the United States bombed target locations in Yemen.
Journalist Jeffrey Goldberg, a writer at The Atlantic Magazine was mistakenly added to a Signal group chat between top U.S. officials, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, National Security Adviser Michael Waltz, and Vice President JD Vance.
The messages, now published by The Atlantic, revealed discussions about imminent military strikes on Houthi targets in Yemen, including timelines and strategic details. That included weapon packages, targets, and timing.
The group chat begins to discuss the situation after attacks have been made. They discuss a “success” after a building collapses.
At the Senate Intelligence Committee Hearing, the individuals involved in the conversation were questioned about the “highly sensitive and likely classified information”, which they answered in variations of “I do not recall the conversation”, “I’m not going to get into the specifics”, and “it did not include classified information.” However, the messages shared on Signal were revealed after this hearing where some say it was classified information, based on the information that was discussed.
Alise Pauksena a senior at Wayne Hills High School was asked for their thoughts on this situation, she answered, “It’s hard to imagine that people holding such power can be this irresponsible with such an intense topic. Things like this can affect millions of people and should not be talked about through a group chat.” We also asked a faculty member Mrs.Tobinas for her thoughts, “Obviously, it is a security breach, and we probably shouldn’t be using a messaging app that is not secure for the government.”
Many Americans are angry about this mistake and believe it was a national security risk that should result in consequences for the officials involved. However, others believe that it was just a mistake, many saying “We all make mistakes.”
The fallout is still crumbling and accountability for this incident is currently pending.
