In a streaming series called “Zero Day,” an ex-president, played by Robert De Niro, is drafted by the current president to return to the White House and help guide the country through a computer hacking crisis that has brought the nation to its knees. In order to bring the ex-president up to spe ed, the director of the CIA takes him into a sealed room with clouded windows, to which the audience is not made privy so that we might understand that whatever is being said in that room can only be heard by the people in the room. That’s the way most of us thinks it works. Sensitive information is top secret. Only to discover that President Donald Trump’s top intelligence and defense agencies discussed plans to bomb Houthi rebel targets in Yemen – they’d been disrupting shipping traffic in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden – on an unclassified Signal chat that included the editor of The Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg. The White House wants to downplay the event. They can’t. They were talking about dropping bombs on specific targets at specific times before the men and women flying the attacks were even in the air. We’ve all read our late great friend Vince Flynn enough to know how dangerous that could have been to the pilots. If you need a worthy heir to Flynn, try Jack Carr. There was no soundproof room for the principals, Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, National Security Adviser Michael Waltz and the guy scratching his head at his preposterously unlikely inclusion, Goldberg. Any one of them could have been in the drive-through line at Arby’s. I know guys who got big scoops on the next football coach by hearing a telephone conversation behind a closed door, but Goldberg, journalistically speaking, must have thought he died and went to scoop heaven. Still, Goldberg didn’t publish anything until he gave the White House a chance to comment. The story was not necessarily the bombing. Miraculously, they apparently were not heard by enemies. The story was the way the plans were disseminated. Signal is encrypted, but it’s not a secured room. And even then, Goldberg only published pieces. It was only when the White House denied he could have such information that he printed the texts. As near as can be determined, Goldberg somehow ended up on the chat because Waltz apparently had him on his telephone contacts and inadvertently pressed the wrong button and included him. Or not. They will screw themselves into the ground trying to spin that one. Any way you cut it, it was amateur hour, with Forest Lake’s own, Hegseth, apparently choosing Signal for the confab. Let’s keep it simple. What happened cannot happen again. Let’s say Gabbard was in an Arby’s drive-through line. There are so many signals and so many microwave transmissions and so many electric impulses in the air, up might have popped on the menu board the text “1215et: F-18s launch (1st strike package).” Uh, yeah, you want fries with that? Now throw in the witchery of artificial intelligence and satellites over every corner of Earth and cameras catching every spy’s wink and nod, and nothing is safe for coordinating a bombing strike except for the secure room with the clouded windows. We are not heading into the great unknown, we’re already there. Our own cars might not even be safe for our secrets and our plans due to the manufacturers designing them with computer chips and wiring looms to keep track of us. Pete, put down the latest copy of “Total Tattoo” and wrap your head around this. This is the big leagues. Americans who are opposed to Trump will say the snafu is all the fault of billionaires trying to give themselves tax breaks. Those who support Trump will blame Goldberg. Joe Soucheray can be reached at jsoucheray@pioneerpress.com. Soucheray’s “Garage Logic” podcast can be heard at garagelogic.com. Related Articles Your Money: The 60-year career: How to plan for a longer work life Working Strategies: Navigating part-time jobs at a professional level Ed Lotterman: Attacking Denmark about Greenland is wrong, dumb and damaging Letters: Tim Walz is doing what the party wants Letters: I have Trump Derangement Syndrome and here is the cause ...read more read less