It's not like he called Comcast and had them run a line on the weekend and they snuck it in there with no one noticing. He told Comms what he needed and they gave security a business justification to set it up in a way that had an acceptable amount of risk. It's all documented and approved.
And no we don't call these a "dirty" line that's something someone made up for the purposes of the article. We call it "unattrib" and it's quite common, serving many useful legitimate purposes.
One thing that I find surprising about the Hegseth case is that most SecDef do not use the computer in their office it all. A couple recent ones still don't even have a computer in there. Normally staff handle 100% of communication and briefing outside of phone calls and video calls. He's clearly still adjusting to the reality of operating within the _confines_ of DoD headquarters.
Also the article's mention of using Wi-fi in the back of his office doesn't make sense to me, there isn't any Wi-fi available in the suite or anywhere nearby.
Back in the day, I was an outside contractor installing a new storage system for the Livermore lab's secure computing facility. (Designing nuclear weapons) I had no security clearance. When I was present there was a rotating blue light, similar to a police car, warning people that an uncleared person was present. When I was in the facility, people would refer to the area being "dirty".
We don’t have a publicly released document, signed approval, or on-record statement confirming whether the line was approved or not. It’s all coming from “sources” which is rumor or conjecture. File a FOIA and report back. Investigative reporting is broken.
Legit can't tell if this is a real comment or someone put the article into an LLM with the prompt "Use technical jargon and an authoritative tone to make a response to this article justifying the SecDef's decision to have an unsecured line installed." I can't find anything online referencing unsecured lines being referred to as "unattrib".
DAA would have had to allow it with some risk acceptance. We don’t know for sure because all we have is an AP article asserting it is true and attributed to “sources”
And no we don't call these a "dirty" line that's something someone made up for the purposes of the article. We call it "unattrib" and it's quite common, serving many useful legitimate purposes.
One thing that I find surprising about the Hegseth case is that most SecDef do not use the computer in their office it all. A couple recent ones still don't even have a computer in there. Normally staff handle 100% of communication and briefing outside of phone calls and video calls. He's clearly still adjusting to the reality of operating within the _confines_ of DoD headquarters.
Also the article's mention of using Wi-fi in the back of his office doesn't make sense to me, there isn't any Wi-fi available in the suite or anywhere nearby.