It’s far from that simple. The Supreme Court hasn’t even gotten to a majority position on government searches of employee stuff.
2 Likes
This got my attention. I won’t give any analogies
3 Likes
The text they provided reads “Oh, dear. This is quite the pickle. I hope no one gets hurt.”
7 Likes
Yeah, but no. Their story lines up with exactly none of my experience with government IT, even the low-bid stuff. We’re not talking about those “Cyber Ninja” idiots from the Arizona election fraudit here.
From a quick browse of their website, it sure looks like their IT is in-house, not contracted.
I would be astonished, incredulous, to discover that USSS IT systems did not have a change-management process, with copious documentation and paper trails, certainly for something on the level of “we’re migrating our MDM”.
“A service dog ate the backup tapes” would actually be more credible than this bullshit.
Addendum: Furthermore, everyone involved in the planning process and the actual migration would have known that they are required to preserve official records. This did not come as a surprise. It’s part of their goddam job.
24 Likes
I wouldn’t expect Secret Service to be handing over their VMs and texts to Apple.
When they gave Fat Donnie a secure cell phone, it had all kinds of features and apps and such deleted. I would expect something similar with SS’s duty phones.
7 Likes
I wonder if the committee has subpoenaed recordings of their operational radio channels?!? Whenever you see these folks, they are wearing earpieces.
They might be smart enough to keep that to operational stuff. Even then, stuff like the possibility of taking Trump to the Capitol and taking Pence to Siberia would have been discussed. Unlike the stuff they were likely texting each other, where they are a lot more likely to let their RWNJ freak flags fly. Remember Page and Strzok? These may have been company phones, but I think many people have come to just accept texting as equivalent to whispeing in the ear of somebody next to you in a meeting…
1 Like
Hurry up and subpoena their personal phones before anything happens to them.
3 Likes
Did the accompanying cover letter say “P.S. Go fuck yourself----Trump 2024!”?
Time for a contempt referral to the DOJ.
2 Likes
Biden changed out some of his detail which is not abnormal, but it sounds as if some were moved due to concerns about being politically aligned with Trump.
11 Likes
It’s not something we can or should try to “control”, but it’s abundantly clear that federal law enforcement from CBP to USSS and including the FBI is chock-full of RWNJ authoritarians. It has to be factored in at times like this.
6 Likes
This baloney needs its own congressional committee to investigate it. I’m just afraid we won’t like where it ends because the more we dig the deeper it seems to go.
6 Likes
Did he use it?!? Bet it didn’t have Twitter on it…
1 Like
On your point about the individual agents’ right, while of course I don’t know the ins and outs of whatever agreements and notices they signed usually when I get a company phone or email account I explicitly agree that the company/agency has access to everything I do on it (sometimes even monitor my communications), it is not my personal property, and I should not conduct personal affairs on it. Sure seems like no expectation of privacy.
4 Likes
I am also betting, while not really cause I know, because of the nature of their jobs they had to have signed waivers in regard to at least some if not most of the rights a regular Government employee let alone an ordinary citizen would have.
In short a Secret Service Agent assigned to guard the President or VP would not have many of the rights or expectations of privacy provided to ordinary citizens.
5 Likes
Please note the difference between an expectation of privacy as to your employer and an expectation of privacy as to an investigative search by the government.
As noted above, not even SCOTUS has managed to figure this out.
3 Likes
They gave him a secure phone, sure, but from what I recall they also found it difficult (or impossible) to get him to stop using his personally-owned device as well.
I remember hearing about all the back-and-forth when Obama came in, the first POTUS to really want to use a mobile device on the job. He had to give up his beloved Blackberry, of course. He still wanted to do things like receive the PDB electronically. The way I heard it, eventually the NSA provided a specially-prepared iPad, even to the extent of physically cutting the leads to the built-in antennas.
But that was back in the days when we just kind of took it for granted that the President would follow the rules regarding national security.
14 Likes
It works when the requirement is to have a data retention plan, with no requirement that the plan be a good one.
2 Likes
One of the ways in which trump wasn’t 100% terrible, frankly.
If the gov’t IT admins had their way, for security purposes, everyone would be using abacuses.
Can’t actually be mad that he brought them kicking and screaming and whining nearly into the 21st century and having to deal with tech, not just shut it off like they prefer to do.
3 Likes
I haven’t gone to Westlaw, but I suspect there may be a distinction based upon electronic communications, particularly if you signed a notice/agreement that everything you do on that phone is monitored, that of the agency, public record, or something like any of those. Well, I know I’m going to spend my afternoon in the bowels of Westlaw.
3 Likes
That! 
1 Like