Leak After Leak: Our Country Is Being Run By Toddlers

This may honestly be one of the most insidiously stupid topics we’ve ever written about. The entire conversation should have ended with the first leak by firing everyone involved, but that didn’t happen. Now, not only do we have a second Signal leak, but we also have a larger Google Drive leak that raises the question, “What the fuck is our government doing using Google Drive at all?” This has to be more than an “oopsie” moment.

Okay, let’s dive into this swamp. Because honestly, reading about the way sensitive government information gets casually tossed around lately feels less like news and more like we’ve stumbled into a particularly bleak, badly written episode of a bureaucratic horror show. It’s reaching a point where Franz Kafka himself might look at the situation and say, “Damn, maybe I was too subtle.” This isn’t just about isolated screw-ups anymore; it’s becoming a pattern of recklessness, incompetence, and a staggering lack of accountability that feels fundamentally destabilizing, threatening security from the battlefield right down to your own damn street. And the most Kafkaesque part? The apparent shrug from those in charge.

Maybe you haven’t read Kafka. Doesn’t matter. You know the feeling. It’s when you’re trapped in a system that makes no sense, where the rules are opaque or arbitrarily applied, where accountability vanishes into thin air, and where absurdity is treated as standard operating procedure. It’s the gnawing sense that incompetence and indifference can be just as destructive as outright malice. And right now, observing the handling of sensitive data by people who should know better, it feels like we’re all unwilling participants in their bureaucratic nightmare.

Consider Exhibit A: The General Services Administration – the government’s landlord and tech support, basically – somehow managing to share a Google Drive folder containing potentially sensitive White House floor plans (East Wing and West Wing), details about a proposed blast door for the visitor center, and even vendor bank account information with its entire workforce of over 11,000 people. Not just view access, mind you, but edit access on some files. This wasn’t a one-off oopsie; the records show this started under Biden and continued under the current Punk administration, lasting for years in some cases, only discovered during a routine audit. The response? An internal investigation attempts to contact the employees responsible (who apparently didn’t answer), and assurances that, well, internal controls aren’t perfect, but they try. Comforting, isn’t it? Blueprints potentially detailing security layouts for the most protected residence on Earth, floating around a massive internal network for years because someone botched the Google Drive sharing settings. Kafka would weep.

Then we have Exhibit B: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, a man entrusted with the nation’s military secrets and the lives of its service members. First, as reported last month, he and other top officials, including the Vice President, discuss details of upcoming airstrikes in Yemen on Signal – an encrypted app, sure, but unclassified, and they accidentally include the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic. A colossal fuck-up by any measure. You’d think lessons would be learned, protocols tightened, heads perhaps rolling. Think again.

Mere weeks later, the New York Times reports Hegseth did it again. Sharing sensitive operational details about the same bombing campaign via Signal, this time in a group chat that included his wife (not a DOD employee), his brother (a DHS employee moonlighting at the Pentagon), and his personal lawyer. Let that sink in. Details that former defense officials say would normally be restricted to highly compartmented, codeword-protected channels, texted out like weekend plans to family and friends. The official response from Hegseth’s spokesman? Dismissal. It’s “old news,” blame the “Trump-hating media,” rely on “disgruntled former employees,” and insist no classified info was shared (a classic non-denial denial, as even his former spokesman pointed out, that ignores the sensitivity of operational details, classified or not). An Inspector General review is supposedly underway, requested by Senators from both parties, but does anyone seriously expect meaningful consequences for the man at the top? Based on current form, that investigation will likely disappear into the same bureaucratic fog as common sense.

This is where the Kafkaesque truly bites. It’s not just the errors themselves, however egregious. It’s the system’s reaction-or lack thereof. It’s the normalization of potentially catastrophic carelessness. It’s the way accountability seems to evaporate the higher up the chain you go. It’s the creation of an environment where sharing White House blueprints with thousands or texting war plans to your spouse is treated not as a fireable offense demanding immediate, severe repercussions, but as a PR problem to be managed, spun, or ignored. It warps reality, making citizens feel powerless against a system that seems both incompetent and untouchable.

And let’s be brutally clear about the danger this represents, rippling outwards:

• On the Military Front: The Hegseth example is terrifyingly obvious. Sharing operational details, even unclassified ones, about timing or targets gives adversaries critical intelligence, directly endangering troops carrying out the mission. It’s a betrayal of the highest order, potentially costing lives.
• On National Security: Those White House blueprints? Even if technically “Controlled Unclassified Information,” widespread internal access vastly increases the risk of leaks to foreign intelligence or terrorist groups seeking vulnerabilities. Blast door designs? Not exactly something you want posted on the internal GSA bulletin board.
• On the Personal/Economic Front: The GSA leak included vendor bank details. While maybe less dramatic than war plans, it shows how basic data hygiene failures can expose ordinary citizens and businesses interacting with the government to financial harm or identity theft.
• On the Civic Trust Front: This might be the most insidious danger. How are average people supposed to trust any government handling of sensitive data – our tax records, our health information, our social security details – when the people at the very top demonstrate such casual disregard for basic security protocols involving information far more critical? It breeds a corrosive cynicism, a feeling that the entire system is run by either fools or unaccountable elites who don’t face the same rules as the rest of us. This is the Kafkaesque condition – feeling trapped under a system you cannot trust, understand, or hold accountable.

Which brings us to the accountability vacuum. Where are the consequences? We see reports of Hegseth’s underlings being fired or pushed out, accused of leaking about the original leaks, while Hegseth himself remains, defended by spokespeople attacking the media. We see GSA employees who improperly shared highly sensitive files for years apparently facing little more than having their share settings corrected after the fact. This isn’t just bad management; it’s a flashing red light indicating that loyalty to the administration, or perhaps just occupying a high enough position, provides immunity from consequences that would likely end the career of any lower-ranking employee or service member instantly.

How are we supposed to function as a society when we can’t trust the basic competence, let alone the integrity, of those entrusted with immense power and responsibility, especially when they keep making the same damn mistakes? This pattern of sloppiness, coupled with a near-total absence of meaningful repercussions for those at the top, isn’t just embarrassing or inefficient. It’s deeply dangerous. It fosters that Kafkaesque sense of unreality and powerlessness, leaving citizens adrift in a system where the guardians seem to have misplaced the keys and forgotten why the locks mattered in the first place. We need to demand better, demand real accountability that goes beyond toothless investigations, before this bureaucratic nightmare spills over into irreversible real-world tragedy.

Whose fault is it if those White House floor plans result in the President being shot? Hmmm?