Trump tweeted this image from an American recon satellite whose imaging capabilities were being kept secret. It shows the aftermath of a failed rocket launch attempt at Iran's Imam Khomeini Space Center. Image Credit: PDB? (maybe)
We’ve been going through the list of all the times that tfg shared sensitive and possibly classified intel with people who didn’t have a security clearance. But a recent diary* reminded me that trump once tweeted a copy of a satellite image that he probably took with his cellphone, and while I’ve posted this info in comments, I thought I’d post a diary to remind the community about this.
tfg tweeted this on Aug. 30, 2019 after an Iranian rocket exploded on the launch pad:
According to astronomy site Universe Today, tfg was taunting Iran with a copy of classified info he’d taken with his cellphone and may have breached national security by doing so:
Just when you think things can’t get any more—”unusual”— in the White House, the President has Tweeted an American spy satellite image as part of a juvenile jab at Iranian leadership. After some sleuthing, astronomers were able to figure out which satellite it came from: a (formerly) top-secret satellite called USA 224, an optical reconnaissance satellite.
Trump’s tweet unwittingly revealed some of the capabilities of American satellite imagery. USA 224 has been kept top-secret for national security reasons, so the Intelligence Community is probably not very happy about this. Why reveal your intelligence-gathering capabilities to your adversaries, including Iran itself?
[…] It appears that Trump was briefed with a print of this classified image, and that he took a picture with his phone and tweeted it. You can see the camera flash in the middle of the image. Immediately, people were concerned that he had revealed US surveillance capabilities.
Some people wondered what the big deal was. The image doesn’t seem to reveal much, on the surface of it. But it’s problematic, and here’s why:
Astronomers are smart people. Much smarter and more resourceful than Trump can suspect. One Dutch astronomer named Marco Langbroek got to work on Trump’s satellite image and revealed his findings in tweets of his own:
If people outside the intelligence community could draw inferences from these observations about our satellites’ imaging capabilities, what could intelligence bureaus in hostile countries like Iran, Russia, and China learn?
"When I saw the image, it was so crystal clear and high-resolution that I did not believe it could come from a satellite," says Melissa Hanham, a satellite imagery expert and deputy director of the Open Nuclear Network in Vienna, Austria. But she finds the new analysis persuasive. "Given that the satellite is in position at that moment, it's now very likely that it was [the source of the picture]," she says.
Hanham says she is amazed a satellite can provide such clear imagery. Spy satellites must peer down through Earth's atmosphere, which is a bit like trying to look at objects in the bottom of a swimming pool. They also must snap their pictures while whizzing across the sky. Both effects can blur the fine details in images.
[…] And she says she thinks she's not alone. Others will be trying to use the image to learn more about how USA 224 works. "I imagine adversaries are going to take a look at this image and reverse-engineer it to figure out how the sensor itself works and what kind of post-production techniques they're using," she says.
Fast-forward to the indictment:
The highlighted text reads:
TOP SECRET//SPECIAL HANDLING
Document dated August 30, 2019, concerning White House intelligence briefing related to various foreign countries, with handwritten annotation in black marker.
tfg tweeted the satellite image on Aug. 30. More about the special handling designation:
“Special Handling” notation. Classified information will not be released or disclosed to any foreign national without proper specific authorization. This applies even when the classified material does not bear the special handling notice described below. The special handling notice indicated only that the material has been reviewed and a specific determination made that the information is not releasable to foreign nationals. If it is anticipated that the handling or distribution of a classified document will make it liable to inadvertent disclosure to foreign nationals it will be marked with a separate special handling notation, which will be carried forward to letters of transmittals or other cover documents. The notation reads:
Special Handling Required Not Releasable to Foreign Nationals
Let’s just hope the governments of Iran, Russia, and China have blocked Twitter access, not only by their populace but also by their intelligence agencies. Otherwise, *some foreign nationals* probably saw the image and went straight to work figuring out US intelligence capabilities.
Does the “White House intelligence briefing” mentioned in the indictment mean the President's Daily Briefing (PDB)?
"It is simply a brief compilation of the most important intelligence information and analysis that the IC believes should be shared with the president," [Stephen B. Slick, a former CIA operations officer and member of the National Security Council], now the director of the Intelligence Studies Project at the University of Texas at Austin, said.
"[Intelligence Community] agencies produce hundreds of reports and analytic products each day for customers across the U.S. national security establishment. The PDB is typically the pick of that crop prepared for the 'First Customer,' he said.
Slick said that the PDB is ultimately the responsibility of the director of National Intelligence, but that it is full of CIA information, "which drafts and coordinates most of the articles that run."
Did tfg actually take a copy of an image from the PDB and show it to the entire f’ing world?
One more thing to remember about the documents from Peter Strzok:
DOJ recovered 13 TS documents which weren't charged.
Why? For each of the charged documents, DOJ has received authority from the agency owning the information (para 21 lists CIA, DOD, NSA, NGA, NRO, DOE, and State/INR) to use the material in criminal proceedings.
It's possible the remaining 13 were too sensitive: the risk to sources and methods and/or other damage to national security outweighed allowing their use and possible disclosure at trial.
We must remind (or inform) the public that this happened, and hammer home the point that tfg’s callous disregard for the sensitive nature of intelligence data has already had disastrous consequences for our national security:
Beyond compromising U.S. information, the security breach is significant because of its potentially damaging impact on intelligence liaison relationships and information sharing with other countries. If the documents contained information from joint collection streams, for example, it is possible that the former president has compromised allied governments’ sources and methods. As an example, some of the documents were marked “FVEY,”(or “Five Eyes”), indicating that they were shared with U.S. intelligence partners in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom.
The indictment details at least two instances of “TRUMP’s Disclosures of Classified Information in Private Meetings,” in unsecure locations, in which he knowingly shared classified information with people who did not have security clearances. Did he knowingly or unknowingly share any of this information with individuals who could have been agents of a foreign power, or with others who did so in turn? It is not inconceivable that foreign intelligence agencies – who would go to great lengths to access information of exactly this sort – could have gained access either to the documents themselves (were the boxes in the Mar-a-Lago ballroom, for example, left there during events?), by initiating a relationship with Mar-a-Lago staff who had access to the documents, or others in Trump’s orbit to whom he showed or described the documents.
Since these scenarios are plausible, the Intelligence Community may now be in the unfortunate position of having to assume the compromise of some of this information and needing to mitigate the potential fallout, which could entail dropping crucial programs or sources. (Indeed, the Intelligence Community may have needed to do so as soon as it was discovered that some of these documents were missing, which could explain a willingness to now use them in trial if certain intelligence streams are no longer active.) It is also possible that the Intelligence Community has not yet discovered all the missing classified documents, which poses a risk that some intelligence streams could be compromised without U.S. government knowledge (and be used to conduct denial and deception campaigns, for example).
How anyone could ever consider letting this loose cannon anywhere near the White House is beyond me.
* This diary is brought to you by “The smoking Sharpie?” which reminded me of this incident, and by oscarsmom, who suggested turning my comment into a diary. The tweeting of the satellite image was diaried at the time by annieli here.
