Opinion | Foreign Spies to Team Trump:
If you’re running the security directorate of a hostile nation, savor this moment.It’s never been easier to steal secrets from the United States government.
Can you even call it stealing when it’s this simple? The Trump administration has unlocked the vault doors, fired half of the security guards and asked the rest to roll pennies.Walk right in.
Take what you want.This is the golden age.In its first two months, the Trump administration has made move after move that exposes the government to penetration by foreign intelligence services.
It’s not just the group chat about forthcoming military strikes that The Atlantic revealed on Monday — although that was, to be clear, as audacious and ridiculous a security breach as there has been in decades.The administration short-circuited the process for conducting background checks on top officials, turned tens of thousands of people with access to government secrets into disgruntled ex-employees and announced it was lowering its guard against covert foreign influence operations.
It installed one of Elon Musk’s satellite internet terminals on the roof of the White House, seemingly to bypass security controls, and gave access to some of the government’s more sensitive systems to a teenager with a history of aiding a cybercrime ring, who goes by the nickname Big Balls.In his first term, President Trump caused an uproar by revealing intelligence to the Russian ambassador that was routinely withheld from America’s actual allies.This is something different: the erosion of America’s ability to keep any secrets at all.
The second Trump administration is treating security like just another stale Washington convention, an annoying impediment to its ambitions to move fast, break the bureaucratic state and replace it with an all-powerful executive.The bros in tech and finance don’t have to deal with these creaky, fussy restraints.
Why should the White House?Major adversaries pray for this level of chaos, confusi...