Latest news with #theAtlantic
The Guardian
04-05-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
Australia's home affairs department has let staff use Signal since Covid lockdowns, documents show
The home affairs department began allowing staff to use Signal in response to the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, and even advised employees how to turn on disappearing messages, documents obtained by Guardian Australia reveal. The use of the app by government officials in Australia has come into focus after the global fallout from revelations that top US officials discussed operational details of a plan to strike Yemen in a Signal group chat that accidentally included the Atlantic's editor Jeffrey Goldberg. Signal is known for its privacy and disappearing message features. An American government watchdog group is suing the US officials, arguing that using an app with disappearing messages could put it in breach of legal obligations around record retention. Guardian Australia sought policy documents held by home affairs – the department responsible for national security – on the use of Signal and other encrypted apps by staff, using freedom of information laws. In an April 2020 guide provided to staff as the government grappled with the working-from-home requirement of the Covid lockdowns, the department stated that Signal had been approved for use by staff but said 'official decisions made on this platform must be documented and saved to [the records management system]'. However, the policy document lists one of the benefits of Signal as allowing messages to be sent with an expiry time, 'after which the messages are deleted from the sender and recipient devices'. As 'additional security advice' staff were instructed on how to turn on disappearing messages in Signal. Staff were also instructed not to enable chat backup. A separate policy document for email, instant messaging and social media stated that messaging applications 'are not appropriate for recording or storing records' and advised employees to 'extract, take a screenshot or take note of any official business conducted on a mobile messaging application' for recording. 'Workers are responsible for ensuring that the settings used on devices do not erase records automatically before workers can save the records', it read. Documents outlining which apps were approved for communicating were highly redacted, with the department arguing that releasing the information would adversely affect the operations of the agency. A home affairs spokesperson said records created by the department must be managed in accordance with records policy, and Signal messages 'may be records of the commonwealth, depending on the content of a message'. The spokesperson indicated the records retained could go beyond just official decisions made on Signal. 'Discussion of a decision may be a record if it was created in the course of carrying out the business of the department.' In March, the home affairs secretary, Stephanie Foster, admitted to using disappearing messages in Signal in 'some cases' in her role. 'I use messaging apps – Signal included – for purposes that one might typically use a phone call for,' she said. 'So, to set up a meeting, or to ask if someone's free.' But Foster said she complied with record-keeping requirements. In March, the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) and the National Archives of Australia released an investigation into how agencies were using encrypted apps and what security and record rules were in place for work-related conversations occurring on them. The report found that, of the 22 government agencies that responded to a survey on encrypted app use, 16 permitted its use by staff for work purposes. Of those, just eight had policies on the use of the apps, and five of those addressed security requirements for communicating on the apps. The National Archives said home affairs' advice to staff was consistent with its own guidelines, including allowing disappearing messages. 'The feature of disappearing messages can be used in conjunction with records management policies and guidelines,' a NAA spokesperson said. 'Agencies should retain or destroy records in line with relevant records authorities or the agency's normal administrative practice.' This process allows agencies to destroy 'certain types of low-value and short-term information in the normal course of business', the spokesperson said. A spokesperson for the OAIC said messages should be subject to FoI if those messages supported the business of an agency. 'Agencies should consider the importance of upholding this right to access information in their records management policies.' After the bombshell Atlantic report, it was reported that the US defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, had shared sensitive operational information about strikes on Houthi rebels in Yemen on a private Signal group chat he set up himself to communicate with his wife, brother, personal lawyer and nine associates. It was also reported Hegseth had an unsecured internet connection set up in his Pentagon office so that he could bypass government security protocols and use the Signal messaging app on a personal computer.
Yahoo
11-04-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
Minivans aren't cool. These parents say shut up and drive.
Kelsey isn't a minivan mom ... yet. But boy, would she love to be. 'I. Want. A. Minivan!' the 34-year-old content creator, who asked not to share her last name, declared in a TikTok last year. 'Y'all can keep your Toyota Highlander, Honda Pilots, Yukons, Tahoes. You keep them, babe. Give me those sliding doors. I want that bucket seats and bench in the back.' That's especially true now that Kelsey — who is currently driving a Hyundai Santa Fe because (a) it's paid off, and (b) her husband isn't sold on minivan life just yet — is due to have her third child in May. 'I want a minivan for the convenience,' she says. 'I could go for a cool mom car,' she adds, rattling off some popular SUV models. 'But there are features of the minivan that just stand out.' Those include ample trunk space, a low-to-the-ground design that makes it easy for toddlers to hop in, and bells and whistles like built-in vacuum cleaners and cameras in the back seat. And don't get her started on the sliding doors — a godsend for any parent whose kid has caused a parking lot ding. 'I could tell my 4-year-old over and over to 'be careful opening the door; we are parked close to a car,' and she will swing that thing open with such purpose and certainly hit that car,' Kelsey says. 'Give me a sliding door!' TV personality Maria Menounos is also a minivan fan. 'I don't know why people hate on minivans,' she said in a TikTok video called 'Momming in My Minivan' last April. 'I've got a sunroof, I've got automatic doors ... I've got a nice, comfy captain's chair.' However, all the creature comforts in the world haven't helped minivans ditch their reputation as the Jan Brady to the SUV's Marcia. 'It is the least cool vehicle ever designed, yet the most useful,' the Atlantic's Ian Bogost observed in an article last fall bemoaning 'the death of the minivan.' Indeed, just over 325,000 minivans were sold in 2024; in 2000, it was 1.3 million. But try telling that to the diehard minivan fans (who, yes, are mostly moms) who have not only embraced their family-friendly ride but sing its praises on social media too. Consider 2023's wave of Michael Bublé-soundtracked TikToks in which pregnant women showed off their minivans with the caption: 'A minivan may not be sexy to drive ... but someone thought I was sexy enough to fill the seats.' Or content creators like Bailey Feeney, the mom of three behind Minivan Mom, who poke fun at their supersize vehicles while also showcasing their comfort and convenience as they ferry multiple children in car seats to Target and the playground. (Also notable: the number of followers gushing about their minivans in the comments. 'Van for life ... I won't ever go back until my kids are big,' reads one reaction to a Feeney post.) Brian Moody, executive editor at auto resource guide Kelley Blue Book, says there's a lot for parents to like: 'sliding doors, the easy access to the third row, the proximity to the ground that allows an easy entry for toddlers, the trunk space — and many minivans have some great features like built-in vacuums, cameras in the back seat, etc.' And while minivans have seen a significant drop in sales and models — in the early 2000s, there were more than 10 models to choose from, compared with just five now — there are positive signs. A shift to hybrid minivans is appealing to some drivers, and the new Volkswagen ID. Buzz (aka the 'electric bus') earned a spot on Autotrader's list of 'Best New Cars of 2025.' According to Moody, the 'retro-inspired' electric vehicle 'proves that the minivan is very much having a moment.' One common refrain among the minivan-loving moms on social media: I didn't see this coming. 'Never in my life did I think that I would get a minivan,' content creator Jane Williamson admits in a recent TikTok announcing her family's purchase of a Toyota Sienna. Ultimately, the convenience factor ('all I want is just easy') and testimonials from other minivan moms ('someone even told me it was their greatest possession,' Williamson laughs) won over the Utah mom. Podcaster Kylie Kelce — who just welcomed her fourth child with husband Jason Kelce — was also forced to eat her words when she 'reluctantly' added minivans to her list of things that are 'in' for 2025. Speaking on her Not Gonna Lie podcast in January, Kelce explained why minivans made sense for her growing family, much as it pained her to admit it. 'I don't need a wellness check, although I have told you before that that is what it would take if I ever said I was getting a minivan,' the then pregnant Kelce shared. 'I'm about to have four car seats — four! — in one car.' She added that her family plans to make a 'three-year commitment' to minivan life. 'We're gonna grind it out, and then we're gonna pretend it never happened, OK?' But Mikaela Nelson, a military spouse, mom of three and content creator in North Carolina, is in it for the long haul. She and her husband got their first minivan about eight years ago after having their second baby; they're now on their second, a Honda Odyssey with a 'this isn't a minivan it's a M.I.L.F. mobile' sticker slapped on the back window. It's also got lots of room, a TV to keep the kids entertained, a built-in vacuum cleaner that easily sweeps up their crumbs and two travel potties in the back. 'I just classify myself as an absolute hot mess and my minivan is the same: an absolute hot mess.' And she wouldn't have it any other way. 'I don't ever want anything else,' Nelson tells Yahoo Life. 'I've even said that once the kids are grown, I honestly could not see myself not having a minivan because there's so much space, you can literally do everything with it and in it. It's just so convenient. So I am not counting down the days till I don't need a minivan anymore.' And don't count out the minivan dads. When Chris Kuna and his wife welcomed two sons a year apart — meaning two rear-facing car seats and two strollers stashed in the back — they realized their SUV wasn't cutting it. At first they upgraded to a bigger SUV, a Nissan Armada, but found it too 'bulky,' which made parking — not to mention squeezing out two infant carriers — a hassle. 'That's when we're like, 'Maybe we should just get a minivan,'' Kuna, a transportation expert in Chicago, tells Yahoo Life. 'And whenever we traveled on trips with our kids, we would rent a minivan and we saw that it was just so much easier — [thanks to] the sliding doors and just how low it is to the ground — to pull the car seats out.' Though he was initially opposed to getting a minivan — 'Just like everybody else, you're always, like, in the stage [of thinking], 'Oh, never a minivan, SUVs are just the way to go,'' he says — Kuna was eventually impressed by its practicality. And as a car guy, the Chrysler Pacifica he drives now has plenty to keep him happy: It's a plug-in hybrid, easy to drive, boasts a rear entertainment system, self-parks and has adaptive cruise control. Plus, he points out, an SUV with those same features would cost about double what he paid. He didn't appreciate it, then, when a friend mocked his new ride as they left a social gathering. 'You guys did not buy a minivan,' the woman, who Kuna notes had just purchased a new luxury SUV, repeated in disbelief. 'She was making fun of us in front of everybody who just got out of that restaurant,' he recalls. They are now no longer friends. 'I don't care what people think,' Kuna says. 'From a practical standpoint, if you have two kids, it's just absolutely amazing.'
Yahoo
09-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Opinion - Democrats are praying and hoping for another Watergate
Democrats' intense and continued focus on 'Signalgate' reveals that their hope is to resurrect Watergate. Facing Republican control of the White House, Congress and the Supreme Court, plus their own internal divisions, their better chance lies in pulling down Republicans than in seeking to pull themselves up. And there is no more revered playbook for doing this than what they did to President Richard Nixon half a century ago. The inadvertent inclusion of the Atlantic's editor in the discussion of military strikes on Yemen's Houthis was a blunder and an embarrassment. Still, the strikes were successful, and they continue. Compared with the Biden administration's failures — its Afghanistan withdrawal, rapprochement with Iran, the opening of America's southern border to the world and an overall feckless foreign policy of which only 36 percent of Americans approved — 'Signalgate' pales in comparison. Yet Democrats uttered nary a peep about any of Biden's miscues. They never called for anyone's firing, for four full years. So now, Democrats are reduced to praying for another Watergate, a scandal to match their party's greatest moment in modern political history. In the 1972 election, their party had imploded in a fiasco that makes the 2024 seem mild by comparison. Their nominee, Sen. George McGovern (D-S.D.), had run on what was, up to then, the most leftist platform of any major American political party. When it was discovered that their vice presidential nominee, Sen. Thomas Eagleton (D-Mo.) had received electroshock therapy, McGovern pledged his support, only to pull it days later. McGovern and the Democrats went on to lose in a historic landslide. They lost to Nixon by an astounding 18 million votes — the largest vote margin of all time — and a popular vote loss of 37.5 percent to 60.7 percent. In the Electoral College, they lost 17 to 520, winning only the state of Massachusetts. But they retained congressional majorities and a sympathetic press. And those two institutions worked to connect the dots from an obscure incident at a local hotel to the disgraced resignation, less than two years later, of the president who had nationally humiliated them. The parallels between the Democrats' fate half a century ago and their predicament now are telling. Although their loss in 1972 was bigger, their loss in 2024 was more unexpected and broader. In some ways, last November's defeat was also more ominous. After 1972, Democrats still retained majorities in Congress. After 2024, Democrats are a minority in both the House and the Senate. After 1972, the courts remained far more favorable to Democrats than they are now, after multiple Republican administrations have appointed judges. At that time, the liberal establishment media still had a virtual monopoly of what was news and how it was covered. Half a century later, the media are at their lowest levels of audience, credibility and influence in modern times. Trump is far more aggressive in his use of executive authority than Nixon was. Plus, the executive branch's power has steadily increased over the last half century. And facing this more powerful president, Democrats are increasingly internally fractured. They have neither a discernable message nor a messenger to deliver it. At the same, they are also moving farther left and increasingly out of step with the electorate. The Democrats' internal paradox is that they are becoming liberal, even as liberals are decreasing in political clout. In January 2023, Gallup found that 54 percent of Democrats identify themselves as liberal, a new high. As recently as 2013, only 43 percent had; in 2003, only 32 percent had; and in 1994, only 25 percent had. So in roughly a generation, Democrats' share of liberal support has more than doubled. Yet 2024 exit polling showed liberals comprised only 23 percent of voters, whereas moderates were 42 percent and conservatives 35 percent. In 2020, 24 percent of voters had identified as liberals. In 2016, 26 percent did. Building a majority on America's smallest ideological minority is not a winning strategy. This is also the reason why Democrats have taken stands in support of issues that are strongly supported on the left but not by the rest of the electorate. According to a recent New York Times-Ipsos poll, nearly 80 percent of Americans opposed allowing biological men to compete against women in sports; even 67 percent of Democrats did. Yet in a recent Senate legislation barring this practice, every Democratic senator voting opposed allowing the legislation to advance. On illegal immigration, Democrats were out early against Trump's plans; yet in a RealClearPolitics average of national polling, Biden had only a 33.5 percent approval rating on immigration. Unable to stop Trump, while uniting on legislation that repels voters, and without a clear leader for 2028, Democrats need a deus ex machina to deliver them. No wonder they look so fondly toward the miracle that did the job half a century ago. Expect Democrats to try to exaggerate every administration misstep, to build every fault into a scandal. More than their best past, a Watergate redux is their best hope for the future. J.T. Young is the author of the recent book, 'Unprecedented Assault: How Big Government Unleashed America's Socialist Left,' from RealClear Publishing and has over three decades' experience working in Congress, the Department of Treasury, the Office of Management and Budget, and representing a Fortune 20 company. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
The Hill
09-04-2025
- Politics
- The Hill
Democrats are praying and hoping for another Watergate
Democrats' intense and continued focus on 'Signalgate' reveals that their hope is to resurrect Watergate. Facing Republican control of the White House, Congress and the Supreme Court, plus their own internal divisions, their better chance lies in pulling down Republicans than in seeking to pull themselves up. And there is no more revered playbook for doing this than what they did to President Richard Nixon half a century ago. The inadvertent inclusion of the Atlantic's editor in the discussion of military strikes on Yemen's Houthis was a blunder and an embarrassment. Still, the strikes were successful, and they continue. Compared with the Biden administration's failures — its Afghanistan withdrawal, rapprochement with Iran, the opening of America's southern border to the world and an overall feckless foreign policy of which only 36 percent of Americans approved — 'Signalgate' pales in comparison. Yet Democrats uttered nary a peep about any of Biden's miscues. They never called for anyone's firing, for four full years. So now, Democrats are reduced to praying for another Watergate, a scandal to match their party's greatest moment in modern political history. In the 1972 election, their party had imploded in a fiasco that makes the 2024 seem mild by comparison. Their nominee, Sen. George McGovern (D-S.D.), had run on what was, up to then, the most leftist platform of any major American political party. When it was discovered that their vice presidential nominee, Sen. Thomas Eagleton (D-Mo.) had received electroshock therapy, McGovern pledged his support, only to pull it days later. McGovern and the Democrats went on to lose in a historic landslide. They lost to Nixon by an astounding 18 million votes — the largest vote margin of all time — and a popular vote loss of 37.5 percent to 60.7 percent. In the Electoral College, they lost 17 to 520, winning only the state of Massachusetts. But they retained congressional majorities and a sympathetic press. And those two institutions worked to connect the dots from an obscure incident at a local hotel to the disgraced resignation, less than two years later, of the president who had nationally humiliated them. The parallels between the Democrats' fate half a century ago and their predicament now are telling. Although their loss in 1972 was bigger, their loss in 2024 was more unexpected and broader. In some ways, last November's defeat was also more ominous. After 1972, Democrats still retained majorities in Congress. After 2024, Democrats are a minority in both the House and the Senate. After 1972, the courts remained far more favorable to Democrats than they are now, after multiple Republican administrations have appointed judges. At that time, the liberal establishment media still had a virtual monopoly of what was news and how it was covered. Half a century later, the media are at their lowest levels of audience, credibility and influence in modern times. Trump is far more aggressive in his use of executive authority than Nixon was. Plus, the executive branch's power has steadily increased over the last half century. And facing this more powerful president, Democrats are increasingly internally fractured. They have neither a discernable message nor a messenger to deliver it. At the same, they are also moving farther left and increasingly out of step with the electorate. The Democrats' internal paradox is that they are becoming liberal, even as liberals are decreasing in political clout. In January 2023, Gallup found that 54 percent of Democrats identify themselves as liberal, a new high. As recently as 2013, only 43 percent had; in 2003, only 32 percent had; and in 1994, only 25 percent had. So in roughly a generation, Democrats' share of liberal support has more than doubled. Yet 2024 exit polling showed liberals comprised only 23 percent of voters, whereas moderates were 42 percent and conservatives 35 percent. In 2020, 24 percent of voters had identified as liberals. In 2016, 26 percent did. Building a majority on America's smallest ideological minority is not a winning strategy. This is also the reason why Democrats have taken stands in support of issues that are strongly supported on the left but not by the rest of the electorate. According to a recent New York Times-Ipsos poll, nearly 80 percent of Americans opposed allowing biological men to compete against women in sports; even 67 percent of Democrats did. Yet in a recent Senate legislation barring this practice, every Democratic senator voting opposed allowing the legislation to advance. On illegal immigration, Democrats were out early against Trump's plans; yet in a RealClearPolitics average of national polling, Biden had only a 33.5 percent approval rating on immigration. Unable to stop Trump, while uniting on legislation that repels voters, and without a clear leader for 2028, Democrats need a deus ex machina to deliver them. No wonder they look so fondly toward the miracle that did the job half a century ago. Expect Democrats to try to exaggerate every administration misstep, to build every fault into a scandal. More than their best past, a Watergate redux is their best hope for the future. J.T. Young is the author of the recent book, 'Unprecedented Assault: How Big Government Unleashed America's Socialist Left,' from RealClear Publishing and has over three decades' experience working in Congress, the Department of Treasury, the Office of Management and Budget, and representing a Fortune 20 company.
The Guardian
31-03-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
John Oliver on Signal leak: ‘Deeply unserious people doing deeply stupid things'
John Oliver ripped Donald Trump's White House for the ongoing scandal of Signalgate, in which high-level administration officials used the messaging app for military strikes in Yemen, accidentally including the Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg in the chat. 'The White House tried to do damage control all this week, from playing semantic games of whether they were technically war plans to hinting Goldberg somehow got himself onto the chat, something undercut by literally showing Michael Waltz, the US national security adviser, adding Goldberg in,' the Last Week Tonight host explained on Sunday evening. 'And by the way, all of this was in the run up to airstrikes that are estimated to have killed up to 46 civilians on one day, which should be a scandal in and of itself. 'And it's grotesque to see the glib response in the chat afterward,' he added, noting that one official responded to the news of a collapsed building – and civilian death – with a fist emoji, American flag emoji and fire emoji. 'And look, those clearly aren't the right emojis to send after a bombing because the right emojis are no emojis,' Oliver said. 'This is something of a motif for this administration: deeply unserious people doing deeply stupid things with massively serious consequence,' he added. Oliver encouraged others to 'push back hard' against the administration's behavior, translating the sentiment into 'the language that they seem to prefer' – the middle finger emoji, peach, heart and American flag. Or as Oliver put it: 'Go fuck yourselves, assholes. Love, America.' In his main segment, Oliver looked into the history and use of Taser stun guns by US law enforcement. The weapon is as ubiquitous in cop shows as in real life – they are now carried by an estimated 400,000 American patrol officers. 'Which is obviously great news for the company that makes them,' said Oliver. That would be Axon, which has a market cap of over $40bn. Axon representatives describe the weapon as 'about as non-violent as you can get', which Oliver disputed. 'I'm not sure I would describe getting shocked with 50,000 volts is as non-violent as you can get,' he said. 'It certainly doesn't sound that relaxing. There's a reason people unwind by taking a bath with lit candles or a book instead of with a toaster.' 'The reality of Tasers just isn't that simple,' he explained. There have been multiple instances of people dying after being tased; according to a 2017 investigations, at least 1,000 people died after police used Tasers on them. But the company has worked to obscure that fact by avoiding regulation. The Taser was first invented in the 1970s using gunpowder. When the Smith brothers bought the tech in the early 1990s, they changed the prototype to use compressed nitrogen instead, thus avoiding firearm regulations. By the end of 2003, more than 4,300 police agencies were using Tasers, with plenty of positive news coverage. The company rebranded as Axon in the early 2000s and began selling police bodycams, as well, becoming what Oliver called 'the TMZ of state-sanctioned violence'. Oliver broke down two of the company's main claims: that Tasers are effective and safe. Though Axon says the Taser is effective at subduing a suspect about 90% of the time, some studies found its effectiveness rate as low as 55%, though the company complained that the study did not take into account instances when a suspect was subdued after an officer merely displayed or threatened to use a Taser. 'And at that point, that's not really about their device, is it?' said Oliver. 'You could presumably get that result with a gun, a flamethrower or a magic fucking wand.' 'Also when we talk about Tasers being effective – at what, exactly?' he continued. 'Because it's often a Taser being used instead of a more lethal option like a gun, and more a Taser being used instead of a less lethal option like talking to someone.' That could make the difference between life and death, as hundreds of people have died after being tased by law enforcement. The company has attributed those deaths to a condition called 'excited delirium' unrelated to the weapon. And because Tasers are 'virtually unregulated' by any agency, 'what that means is, you basically have to take the company's word for it,' said Oliver. Even some police officers have decried the company's line that Tasers are safe. After a 16-year-old in Warren, Michigan, died from the use of a Taser, one officer blamed Axon for not accurately marketing the risks: 'You swore that this was a statistically normal thing, that these people were not dying at any more of an unusual rate than they would have absent the Taser, you know?' 'I get why he's upset,' said Oliver. 'Axon told him the Taser was basically harmless, and the truth is it's just not. It's like finding out that a Nerf gun was used to assassinate JFK. I don't care if Nerf says that was a statistical anomaly, I'm not handling it the same way anymore!' As for what to do about Tasers, 'it's complicated,' said Oliver. 'I don't hate that there's at least a theoretical alternative to guns, and I guess I'd much rather police tase people than shoot them, although my ultimate preference would be for them to do neither of those and be much more aware of the actual risks involved.' He encouraged regulatory agencies to track stun gun usage more than we already do, and noted that certain states have banned 'excited delirium' as a permissible cause of death. In sum, 'we shouldn't keep using Tasers like they're magic wands, because they're not,' Oliver concluded, 'or pretending deaths that occur after they're used don't happen, because they do.'
