Last October, when in Washington DC to attend the Defending the Dream Summit, I went into the Cannon House Office Building to meet with a few representatives.
The security into the building is not tight at all, considering that members of Congress are more easily accessible than in the actual Capitol building and can be seen by people passing through in the hallway. I made my way up to the third floor or so, where I saw a huge suite of very nicely appointed rooms with huge windows which said “COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY” in large letters. You can tell that the rooms were specifically designed to impress people.
If anything in this country would be secure, it would be the offices and meeting rooms of the Committee on Homeland Security, right? My bubble was burst when I saw the door to the meeting rooms was open, and laptops were strewn around the very large conference table, plugged in and everything. And open. Presumably with important Committee on Homeland Security information on them.
In other words, these laptops were just there, waiting for anyone who would have wanted to waltz in the door and grab them. The fact that this country’s “Committee on Homeland Security” can’t secure its own laptops after a meeting– and can’t even secure them behind a closed door, let alone a locked door– shows you what kind of hands our country’s security is in.
Sometimes I think that a Department of Homeland Security isn’t a bad idea. Then I think of those laptops and that open door.
Tags: Department of Homeland Security, Committee on Homeland Security, homeland security, security, Cannon House Office Building, government laptop security
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