Discussion: WH Enacts New Phone Policy For Situation Room In Response To Omarosa Tapes

Sources say exemptions to the new policy were immediately granted to John Barron, David Dennison, Devin Nunes, Sean Hannity, Alex Jones and Sergey Kislyak.

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Even better way to leakproof the White House. Fire all of the staff. Leave the Mad King there by himself to rant at the walls. Just take the Football away too. And his phone charger.

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Barn door, Horse
What a bunch of rank amateurs .

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They cant even keep things secure inside the White House… how are we simple Americans supposed to feel safe with this Badministration??

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and the obvious
Until now it was never an issue, as the properly vetted staff had trust and respect of the president

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But don’t take away his binky or you’ll never hear the end of it.

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The people trusted with the most dire secret operations of our nation aren’t trusted with their cell phones any more than your average 7th grader is in English class.

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It’s arguably not really Omarosa’s fault that the security breach, which originates with POTUS himself, worked its way all the way down to her and beneath. She clearly either had no business in the Situation Room to begin with, or the place gets a one-star on Trip Advisor, for inviolable inner sanctums.

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Trump’s vision of “properly vetted staff”:

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“…the latest change involves the proximity of cellphones to the Situation Room.”

Ummm … maybe the hope is that staffers will forget all the batshit crazy they heard in the Situation Room by the time the get back to their desks? OK Dotard, you go ahead and hope in one hand and spit in the other. See which one gets filled up first.

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Security against the Russians and other national enemies is ignored. It’s fellow Americans they can’t trust. There’s a disturbing truth lurking in there somewhere.

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Trump: Going forward, only KGB is allowed to record all the activity that happens in WH. Others can expect libel lawsuits.

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I am reminded of Rumsfeld’s response to the torture pics from Abu Ghraib. His first action was to ban digital cameras from the site. Only then did he start looking for scapegoats.

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The Trump Administration – closing barn doors after horse departures since 2016.

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If anyone wants to record meetings inside the WH, there are myriad means besides cell phones to do so. Digital recorders are cheap, and many of them are smaller than cell phones. Unless they start wanding and/or strip searching everyone who enters the Situation Room, people will get around these rules if they really want to do so.

As has already been noted, the WH’s problem is not the technology, it’s the people. Hire shady people, get shady results. Fire shady people, have shady results broadcast to the entire world.

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So how is this anything but security theater and a deterrent to the use of the situation room for its lawfully intended purpose? I guess the idea is something like making it harder for people to claim they just accidentally didn’t put their phone in the locker at the door. Or maybe it’s to stop recordings from a distance when the door is open. Or to prevent transmissions from bluetooth headsets/mics when the door is open. (Because once the door is closed signals should not be leaking)

But if you’re having conversations in the situation room with the door open, there’s no fscking point having them in the situation room, which is supposed to be secure. And if you actually do need the situation room for, say, some kind of time-critical crisis, you really don’t want to be collecting people from all over the building just so you can tell them to go back to their desks or to the entrance door to drop off their phones.

(Oh, and while we’re at it, if someone leaves their issue phone at their desk, what’s to stop other people from reading everything on it.)

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Omarosa’s tapes have been rather mundane up to now. I haven’t heard one of Donnie unhinged screaming and carrying on or suggesting an action that would start a major war, but this one is different. This one has our president wandering into a serious discussion and blathering on with off the wall, ignorant comments, throwing in a very bad “joke,” and then wandering off. The things he contributes about how the action in Africa came about sound like the meanderings of a 9 year old playing with his toy soldiers just making things up with his limited understanding of the situation. I can just see the principals in that discussion waiting for his departure so they can get back to business. This is our president! Any number of people have described episodes of this sort, but this is the first time we’ve “been there” listening 1st hand.

Any number of secure locations associated with national security have strict rules on where phones go, and that’s a good thing, but in this case I say Omarosa has finally played the part of the whistle blower vs the nasty, disgruntled employee.

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Ding! Ding! Ding!

I think we have a winner.

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And that, boys and girls, is why we can’t have nice things.

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