Remember when Republicans shut down the Dade County recount in 2000? Congressional GOP extremists burst into the SCIF today where a DoD official was testifying and refused to leave:
- The facilities are carefully designed and controlled to ensure that electronic signals, surveillance methods, or other listening devices do not compromise the information discussed in these rooms. I will not, for obvious reasons, go into details.
- Bringing electronic devices into a SCIF, and this SCIF in particular is *very* problematic, especially when done by members of Congress. Because Members of Congress (and their electronic devices) are high-value targets for compromise by foreign intelligence services.
- Members of Congress have access to a wide range of sensitive information, including, in the case of these members, conversations with the President of the United States. They travel internationally, receive emails from the public, and meet with foreign dignitaries.
- As politicians, they’re also highly sensitive to revelations of derogatory information, which means that foreign adversaries are very interested in collecting same.
- They also tend to be lax in their security protocols. This means they may not know they have been compromised. For example, their phones can be turned into listening devices without their knowledge.
- This is why outside HPSCI there is a security guard and a series of cabinets for people to leave (and lock) their electronic devices while they are inside the room. Failure to follow this protocol can violate the security of the entire SCIF.
- After an incident like this happens, countermeasures have to be taken to ensure the SCIF is not compromised. It is a time-consuming, technical process, which again, I will not discuss.
