Trumps Mar-a-Lago is heaven for spies

[kpete]

Link to tweet

Trump’s Mar-a-Lago is heaven — for spies
The president’s semi-public Florida retreat doesn’t follow the same strict background check protocol as the White House, creating an espionage risk.


While Trump’s private club in South Florida has been transformed into a fortress of armed guards, military-grade radar, bomb sniffing dogs and metal-detection checkpoints, there are still notable vulnerabilities, namely the stream of guests who can enter the property without a background check.

And security experts warn that the commander in chief’s frequent visits — four since he took office in January — afford an unprecedented opportunity for eavesdropping and building dossiers on the president’s routines and habits, as well as those of the inner circle around him. They add that with each repeat visit, the security risk escalates.

“The president is the biggest, richest intelligence target in the world, and there is almost no limit to the energy and money an adversary will spend to get at him,” said David Kris, a former Obama-era assistant attorney general for national security.

Former Secret Service agents said the setup at Mar-a-Lago and the president’s other regular clubs presents challenges that their agency wasn’t built to deal with. The Service’s main job is to protect the president from physical threats and monitoring for wiretaps and other listening devices — but not from the kinds of counterespionage challenges presented by the president’s choice to eat, sleep and work at a club accessible to anyone who can get a member to invite them in.


http://www.politico.com/story/2017/03/trump-mar-lago-security-risk-espionage-235950

[triron]

1. Didn't a Russian (Rybolelev?) recently fly into the airport there?

[JI7]

2. it's not like Trump has any loyalty to the US . his loyalty is to himself and whatever benefits

him personally.

[Solly Mack]

3. Well, yeah.

Trump enjoys parading about his importance in front of the club members.

He doesn't give much thought to anything else while his ego is feeling the glow.

But if he wants to open himself up to the personal dangers that can come from security breaches, who am I to get in his way?