100-plus spies fired after NSA internal chat board used for kinky sex talk
- Reference: 1740604751
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2025/02/26/nsa_firings_intelink_chats/
- Source link:
After the NSA – the National Security Agency, that is, not the other meaning – confirmed [1]on state media it was "aware of posts that appear to show inappropriate discussions" by intelligence community employees and that "investigations to address this misuse of government systems are ongoing," Trump's Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard announced more than 100 people had since been terminated.
The messaging app in question is the NSA's Intelink, a secure intranet service used by various American military and intelligence teams to share information, including top secret and classified threat intel.
[2]
Federal workers said to have been involved in the NSFW Intelink chatter included personnel at the NSA, the Defense Intelligence Agency, and US Naval Intelligence.
[3]
[4]
"There are over 100 people from across the intelligence community that contributed to and participated in … what is really just an egregious violation of trust," Gabbard [5]told Fox News commentator Jesse Watters Tuesday. "What to speak of, like basic rules and standards around professionalism."
The NSA did not immediately respond to The Register 's inquiries. We will update this story if and when we receive a response.
[6]Trump scrubs all mention of DEI, gender, climate change from federal websites
[7]Trump nukes 60 years of anti-discrimination rules for federal contractors
[8]Trump's DoD CISO pick previously faced security clearance suspension
[9]Incoming deputy boss of Homeland Security says America's top cyber-agency needs to be reined in
Writer and activist Christopher Rufo, working with Hannah Grossman of conservative think-tank the Manhattan Institute, on Monday said they had [10]obtained chat logs from the "NSA's secret transgender sex chatroom" on Intelink and shared samples of the conversations on Elon Musk's X.
"The servers are supposed to be used for government work, but gender activists have hijacked at least two channels — LBTQA and IC_Pride_TWG — to discuss fetishes, kink, and sex, all legitimized as 'DEI,'" Rufo thundered. "These trans employees discuss hair removal, estrogen treatments, and breast implants."
[11]
For the sake of journalistic scrutiny, El Reg pored over the sample logs, and what we've seen appears to be NSFW personal discussion of sex lives and preferences, the kind we reckon would be harmless among friends but would be career-limiting in plenty of professional settings, regardless of sexual orientation or gender. Think polycules, partners, penetration, and so on.
NSA: We unlawfully spied on you for 12 years [12]FLASHBACK
The argument made is that the only reason these staffers were allowed to discuss all this intimate stuff on work systems is because it fell under the DEI umbrella of protection. For now we're going to have to assume non-LGBTQIA workers weren't also having the same sort of naughty conversations on Intelink; if they were, one would hope they would be just as much in the firing line.
That said, Intelink has a [13]history of being at least somewhat [14]problematic . According to federal technology contractor Dan Gilmore, by late 2020, during the first Trump term, "hate speech was running rampant" on the internal communication service's applications.
"I’m not being hyperbolic," he [15]said in 2022. "Racist, homophobic, transphobic, Islamaphobic, and misogynistic speech was being posted in many of our applications ... On top of that, there were many employees at CIA, DIA, NSA, and other IC agencies that openly stated that the January 6th terrorist attack on our Capitol was justified."
Fast forward to 2025, and DEI – diversity, equity, and inclusion – initiatives and gender identity in particular are in the reinstalled Trump administration's cross-hairs.
[16]
During his first few weeks back in office, the President signed a slew of executive orders that [17]ended anti-discrimination rules related to government contractors' hiring, training, and employment practices, and [18]rolled back federal DEI efforts , scrubbing all mention of DEI and gender from federal websites. ®
Get our [19]Tech Resources
[1] https://x.com/NSAGov/status/1894471720687559074
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/bootnotes&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2Z7-dFlT_NBH7OIo9fHuQSQAAAcg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/bootnotes&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Z7-dFlT_NBH7OIo9fHuQSQAAAcg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/bootnotes&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33Z7-dFlT_NBH7OIo9fHuQSQAAAcg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://www.foxnews.com/shows/jesse-watters-primetime
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2025/02/03/trump_admin_scrubs_dei_websites/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2025/01/22/trump_federal_contractor_eo/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2025/02/19/trumps_pentagon_ciso_pick_was/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2025/02/26/dhs_cisa_doge/
[10] https://x.com/realchrisrufo/status/1894064757142937904
[11] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/bootnotes&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Z7-dFlT_NBH7OIo9fHuQSQAAAcg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2014/12/26/nsa_doc_dump_shows_staff_routinely_spying_where_they_shouldnt_for_12_years/
[13] https://www.spytalk.co/p/classified-us-intelligence-chat-rooms
[14] https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/08/16/watchdog-hate-speech-other-derogatory-discussions-littered-intel-message-apps/
[15] https://dangilmore.com/2022/03/10/why-i-left-the-intelligence-community/
[16] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/bootnotes&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33Z7-dFlT_NBH7OIo9fHuQSQAAAcg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[17] https://www.theregister.com/2025/01/22/trump_federal_contractor_eo/
[18] https://www.theregister.com/2025/02/03/trump_admin_scrubs_dei_websites/
[19] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Look who's talking
Gabbard is a walking, talking "egregious violation of trust". You might as well put Putin in automatic Cc on all missives. Or not bother and change encryption to Pig Latin or Leetspeak.
Re: Look who's talking
If she had a little bit more of a clue, ROT13.
She exemplifies the kind of DEI Hire Trump seems to feel should be gotten rid of.
If only
There was some method of long-distance communication, heavily encrypted, easily set up on private (that is, not work-owned) devices which could be used by large numbers of like-minded people in perfect secrecy (as long as the software required didn't touch work systems, including work networks)...
Hmm. I can think of about three possibles without even trying. No, Twitter/X, FarceBook, and What'sEasilySeenByThePRC aren;t among them.
And, if you can live with security by obscurity, USENET still lives (barely) and there are lots of semi-dead newsgroups where quiet conversations may be held while making it difficult to track who said what where and when. Especially now that Google has stopped archiving USENET.
Boy, I'm glad they brought our attention to all that, next thing you'll know they'll have pedo priests and politicians raping their way to the president's office.
Why oh why?
There are plenty of private platforms available for discussing non-work stuff. I don’t understand why anyone would willingly put such …incredibly… private stuff anywhere near a work platform.
If Intelink is supposed to be secure, is anyone investigating who leaked the chat logs?
Many layers
Is this an Onion article?
So, hang on a second...
...the U.S. has a department (or several) dedicated to spycraft, which, if robust documentaries like "James Bond" and "Mission Impossible" are accurate - and clearly they are, just look how long we've relied upon them for truthful information - seduction, sex talk, and actual sex in all their versions and variations are among the most reliable means of gaining access to foreign intrigues, discovering secret plans, exploiting or removing other spies, and acquiring your very own President of the United States in part by marriage to a totally not Russian operative...
...why in the world would they fire their own spies - in volume, and publicly - for chatting within secure, inside channels about varied and possibly kinky sex?
It's so weird!
It's almost like a foreign influence campaign working from within the U.S. government.
HAH! Just kidding. It's definitely about workplace rules and moral fiber.
Clearly.
Of course, this is only the first step
Getting rid of the staff who abused their message system to discuss things related to their own sex lives, worse, their trans- sex lives, is the most important place to start.
And after them will be, hmm,
> "Racist, homophobic, transphobic, Islamaphobic, and misogynistic speech was being posted in many of our applications ... On top of that, there were many employees at CIA, DIA, NSA, and other IC agencies that openly stated that the January 6th terrorist attack on our Capitol was justified."
No, no, those are all fine, they can stay, nothing there that anyone in power would ever think was offensive or a misuse of government systems. After all, boys will be boys, eh.
See NSA
This is why end-end encryption and keeping your private data out of the hands of the government is important