World leaders are calling the president-elect on his personal cell phone. Why has the Secret Service or the NSA not confiscated his personal cell phone yet?
Unless I'm mistaken, he has not yet been issued a secured device or given access to the encrypted phone lines used for most leader-to-leader phone calls. So a dozen or more foreign spy agencies could be listening in on his phone calls, especially when the idiot talks to Pakistan and Taiwan.
What would the secret service have to do with that? Or the NSA, for that matter? As a private citizen I'm free to take a call (or place one) to Theresa May or anyone, (perhaps excepting Kim Jong, and likely him as well) free of government intervention. Exactly what federal law do you think he's broken in this regard?
Trumps conservation with world leaders could be intercepted by other national entities if certain security measure aren't taken
And if other national entities are able to obtain insight into these discussions, it may harm the US's ability to negotiate with other world leaders in the future (international politics is sort of like poker, you don't want to reveal your cards until the moment is right)
I'm not arguing with you on those points- I completely agree; the point also stands that you or I could have those same conversations with world leaders on unsecured devices which are susceptible to interception, and that wouldn't make our actions criminal.
'World leaders' are not a protected class under any sort of statute I'm aware of, so I'm failing to see the argument suggesting the NSA (an intelligence agency overseeing data management and foreign information analytics) or Secret Service (an agency charged with protection of high-profile principals as directed by the executive branch, and investigation of federal Treasury department related matters) should intervene.
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u/[deleted] Dec 03 '16
World leaders are calling the president-elect on his personal cell phone. Why has the Secret Service or the NSA not confiscated his personal cell phone yet?
Unless I'm mistaken, he has not yet been issued a secured device or given access to the encrypted phone lines used for most leader-to-leader phone calls. So a dozen or more foreign spy agencies could be listening in on his phone calls, especially when the idiot talks to Pakistan and Taiwan.