National security experts and even some Republican lawmakers are worried that if President-elect Trump maintains his current Twitter account and tweeting habits, he could endanger himself and the country.
“It’s not a good idea for the president to operate,” as Trump now does, said retired Rear Admiral Jamie Barnett, a cyber and homeland security expert in Venable LLP’s Washington office.
The White House and President Obama himself have Twitter accounts that are just as vulnerable to hacking as the accounts of ordinary citizens. However, if Trump insists on posting from a phone or other mobile device to his current account after he becomes president Jan. 20, experts say his account will be far less secure than those official ones.
If he carries a personal smartphone around with him—presumably so he can tweet at will as he now does—it could be easily hacked.
NBC reported Trump does intend to keep his current account instead of switching to the relatively new White House handle and account for the president, @potus.
Smartphones give away a person’s location, “which is information we don’t want anyone to know,” Barnett said, pointing out the elaborate precautions the Secret Service takes to keep a president’s non-public whereabouts and movements under wraps.
“Malware can be introduced onto a person’s phone from afar, which can be used to turn a phone’s location services back on,” he said. “Sometimes they can turn on the microphone and hot mike you. Just having the phone in your hand is a concern,” Barnett said, noting the headache President Obama caused the Secret Service when he took office and wanted to keep his Blackberry.
Ultimately the Secret Service let him have it for personal use within the White House. No doubt the Secret Service and other security agencies are grappling with how to keep Trump’s devices and Twitter secure if he proves less compliant than Obama.
Neither the Secret Service nor the Homeland Security Department responded to requests for comment for this story.
“Just like President Obama and everyone before him had to alter their personal activities and behavior based on taking the role of commander-in-chief of our country, I would hope that, similarly, Donald Trump would adjust his personal habits and behavior based on that,” said Rep. John Ratcliffe, R-Texas.
“They can introduce additional security measures that are available to you and me but there’s nothing special for presidents or government officials,” Barnett said.
“If he continues to shoot the policy decisions from the hip and uses Twitter to publish them, it definitely will increase the importance of his account and its security,” said Pasi Eronen, a cyber expert who leads the Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ Russia project.
Trump should still be able to tweet, but “I would hope that now that he is surrounding himself with some of the best national security and intelligence advisors that he’s never had access to before, that he’ll heed their advice with respect to what is the best protocol for his behavior in that space,” continued Ratcliffe, a former U.S. attorney.
Barnett, who previously oversaw the Federal Communications Commission’s public and homeland security operations, added: “The other concern is that his Twitter account could be hacked and spoof what he is doing” or hackers could post dangerous information.
Trump’s account has been hacked before. In 2013 pranksters accessed Trump’s account and posted lyrics from rapper Lil’ Wayne.
“My Twitter has been seriously hacked—and we are looking for the perpetrators,” Trump tweeted then.
“There is a way for him to use a Twitter account that is secure, but I think really the kids outta take the keys away from Dad,” said California’s Rep. Adam Schiff, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee.
“I think any time there is an official utterance by a president it needs to be measured and viewed through that lens,” said Rep. Bill Huizenga, R-Mich., about Trump’s penchant for using Twitter to make flip remarks or drop bombshells.
Twitter’s vulnerability to hacking is unlikely “to change the fact that Donald Trump is the tweeter-in-chief—that’s his M.O., it’s how he expresses himself,” Huizenga said. So the Secret Service or other national security experts are going to have to find a way to make it safe, he said.
Although any account can be hacked, Eronen said Trump’s unfiltered and often bombastic style puts national security at risk because people will have a harder time realizing the 140 characters they are reading weren’t written by him.
Trump’s real tweets have moved markets, alienated allies and provoked China, among other things. Imagine what fake ones written by an imposter could do?
“His rather colorful way of expressing himself would give more expressional latitude and believability to those controlling his account and wishing to push the envelope,” Eronen said.
Others are far more worried about his real tweets than potentially bogus ones.
“In his Tweets of 140 characters or less, President-elect Donald Trump is undermining our national security by creating a schism between himself and our dedicated intelligence community,” Rep. Stephen Lynch, D-Mass., recently wrote in the Boston Globe.
“This is good news for our adversaries, but it, unfortunately, makes Americans and our allies less safe,” added Lynch, who is the ranking member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee’s National Security Subcommittee.
California’s Eric Swalwell, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence panel’s CIA subcommittee, said he is less worried about Trump’s Twitter account being hacked than he is about the real estate mogul’s use of it to contradict the nation’s 17 intelligence agencies.
“I’m more concerned that he has a couple times now put out information that the intelligence community has had to disavow,” Swalwell said.
“He’s going to have one day rely on the intelligence community to take action” and then what? Swalwell asked.
House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., said during a CNN town hall Thursday night that Trump is unlikely to give up the direct communication with Americans Twitter affords him but admitted he doesn’t know what to expect.
“How it affects domestic policy and foreign policy, I don’t know,” he answered one questioner. “We’re going to find out because we’re in uncharted territory.”
The Trump campaign did not respond to comment for this story.
