Pentagon Worries About Signal, Not Private Data Selling
The Hill reports, via a Pentagon watchdog, that Fox News' Pete Hegseth endangered troops by using Signal for official communications. The concern? Encrypted data. Yet, the same military-industrial complex that frets over Signal's privacy has no qualms with defense contractors and data brokers quietly accumulating vast troves of personal data on citizens, including service members, often without
explicit consent. (See: 'Data Brokers Targeting Military Personnel' reports by organizations like the EFF or ACLU for specific patterns of exploitation). It appears the 'danger' isn't privacy itself, but privacy outside their immediate control. One might wonder if the Pentagon's alarm would be as pronounced if Hegseth was just casually browsing TikTok, a platform that openly admits to data
harvesting and has been linked to foreign adversaries, rather than using a secure messaging app.