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Trumps apparent security faux-pas-palooza triggers call for House investigation
ARS TechnicaRepresentative Ted Lieu, a congressman from Los Angeles County, California, led fourteen other House Democrats on Friday in urging the House Government Oversight Committee to investigate "troubling reports" of President Donald Trump's apparently poor security practices and the potential danger to national security posed by them—including his continued use of an unsecured Android device to post to Twitter, discussion of sensitive information (including nuclear strategy) in the restaurant at his Mar-A-Lago resort, and leaving classified material unlocked while visitors were in the Oval Office.
In a letter to Oversight Committee chairman Jason Chaffetz and ranking Democratic member Elijah Cummings, the fifteen representatives wrote:
Referring to the complex problem of cybersecurity, President Trump recently said in an interview, "I’m not sure you have the kind of security that you need." We fully agree—which is why we are writing to request that the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hold a hearing into troubling reports that the President is jeopardizing national security by egregiously failing to implement commonsense security measures across the board, from using an insecure, consumer-grade Android smartphone to discussing nuclear strategy openly in a dining room at his Mar-a-Lago Club in Florida. Cybersecurity experts universally agree that an ordinary Android smartphone, which the President is reportedly using despite repeated warnings from the Secret Service, can be easily hacked.
Lieu and the other signatories of the letter expressed concern that Trump's Android device, "most likely the Samsung Galaxy S3," is particularly vulnerable to attack, and that someone could alter the information the President viewed on it—which could "have a huge impact on his beliefs and actions." They also feared that someone could gain control of his Twitter account, "causing disastrous consequences for global stability," or use it as a listening device to pick up sensitive conversations.
Also cited by the letter were photos from a recent White House visit by Intel CEO Brian Krzanich that showed a key still in the lock of a bag for classified material on Trump's desk. The photo was called out by Senator Martin Heinrich of New Mexico in this Twitter post:
Link to tweet
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