I’m sure this is true. I wish there was a way to communicate it better, though. People have been sounding the alarm for so long that stories like this fall flat with most people. I don’t have a solution, I’m just lamenting that most people will just scroll past because we’ve been hearing dire warnings like this for decades.
If I had to guess, the reason for the lack of a phone requirement is that, if the army required everyone to have phones, the army would need to pay for them, too. I’m sure the army loves spending money on things like that.