The White House May Have Permitted A Security Breach When It Let The Russian Government Take Photographs

Former American intel­li­gence offi­cials are crit­i­ciz­ing TASS’s abil­i­ty to enter the White House as a poten­tial­ly major secu­ri­ty breach, accord­ing to a report by The Washington Post. Surveillance equip­ment like lis­ten­ing devices can be con­cealed in elec­tron­ic equip­ment like cam­eras, accord­ing to these experts, and it was irre­spon­si­ble at best for the White House to allow a for­eign gov­ern­ment with a his­to­ry of spy­ing like Russia to enter a sen­si­tive gov­ern­ment build­ing with them.

While a senior admin­is­tra­tion offi­cial has defend­ed the deci­sion to allow the pho­tog­ra­ph­er in, claim­ing that he “had to go through the same screen­ing as a mem­ber of the U.S. press going through the main gate to the [White House] brief­ing room,” intel­li­gence experts say that sophis­ti­cat­ed sur­veil­lance equip­ment could have passed through such a screen­ing unde­tect­ed. Read more here: http://​www​.salon​.com/​2​0​1​7​/​0​5​/​1​1​/​t​h​e​-​w​h​i​t​e​-​h​o​u​s​e​-​m​a​y​-​h​a​v​e​-​p​e​r​m​i​t​t​e​d​-​a​-​s​e​c​u​r​i​t​y​-​b​r​e​a​c​h​-​w​h​e​n​-​i​t​-​l​e​t​-​t​h​e​-​r​u​s​s​i​a​n​-​g​o​v​e​r​n​m​e​n​t​-​t​a​k​e​-​p​h​o​t​o​g​r​a​p​hs/