Trump's War On Proper Lighting Now Compromising National Security
- Charlie Biscotto
- Feb 13, 2017
- 2 min read
It all started innocently enough. A dimly lit staff meeting here, a stumble over a chair trying to escape a room with functioning yet unused lightbulbs there. We all needed a laugh in those early weeks of the Trump administration, and we got it. But now that we're a well-seasoned three weeks in, Trump decided to up his war on proper lighting by compromising national security, using (possibly unsecured) cellphones to light documents while discussing a North Korean missile test, all while Mar-a-Lago members photographed the action and posted about it on social media.
This should go without saying, but I guess some things need to be more explicit in the Age of Trump: IF THE PUBLIC SPACE YOU ARE IN IS NOT BRIGHT ENOUGH FOR YOU TO REVIEW SENSITIVE DOCUMENTS, IT IS A BAD PLACE TO REVIEW SENSITIVE DOCUMENTS. Also, PUBLIC SPACES ARE BAD PLACES TO REVIEW SENSITIVE DOCUMENTS FULL STOP. I speculated a few days ago that the 100% increase in rates at the Mar-a-Lago were a way to buy access to the president, but not even I imagined that it would come with classified briefing-level access. I can see the commercials now:
Whether you're a corrupt crony capitalist or an incognito foreign agent, the beautiful Mar-a-Lago (a.k.a. The Winter White House) is now your one-stop shop for graft and covert intelligence.
When even I am surprised by something Trump does, I at least have to give him credit for stretching my imagination.
What's less surprising is the blatant hypocrisy behind all of this. Trump rallied his base with chants of "Lock Her Up" at the summer Republican convention, alleging that Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server was illegal despite FBI Director James Comey's assertion that "no reasonable prosecutor" would bring a case. Then he announced in December that, with the election over, "we don't care" about locking her up. Or perhaps what he meant was that we don't care about cybersecurity at all, as he has continued using unsecured devices and public locations to handle highly sensitive information.
Perhaps this is a moot point. There may be no reason to worry about safeguarding our information, as many of our intelligence officials and foreign spies assume it's being sent to the Kremlin already. In any event, if you voted for Donald Trump because you worried about Hillary's judgment in handling classified information, I hope you're crying yourself to sleep.
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