Today, a Brooklyn-based Secret Service agent learned what those of us without security clearance have known for years: Don’t leave a laptop in your car if you don’t want it to be stolen.
Image: AP
Law enforcement sources told both ABC and The New York Daily News today that a laptop containing private information — including the floor plans for Trump Tower and information on the criminal investigation against Hilary Clinton’s use of a private email server — was stolen from a Secret Service agent’s car.
This is how the Daily News described the crime:
The thief stepped out of a car, possibly an Uber, on a street in Bath Beach and stole the laptop from the agent’s vehicle, which was parked in the driveway of her home.
He was then seen on video walking away from the scene with a backpack.
The agent reported the laptop contained floor plans for Trump Tower, evacuation protocols and information regarding the investigation of Hillary Clinton’s private email server.
The agent also told investigators that while nothing about the White House or foreign leaders is stored on the laptop, the information on there could compromise national security.
Despite reports that the Secret Service is privately “FREAKING” and “scrambling like mad“, however, the agency is totally not panicking over this. Like, not at all.
In addition to telling ABC that the laptop can be “wiped remotely”, the agency assured the public in a statement that “Secret Service issued laptops contain multiple layers of security including full disk encryption and are not permitted to contain classified information”.
I’m trying to reconcile how not having classified information on a laptop and “having information that could compromise national security” can exist in the same timeline, but the Secret Service says it’s no big deal, it’s all fine. Everything is just fine.