By Bryan Gingras, CNN via WWLP .com
The U.S. Secret Service is tasked with protecting the President and Vice President of the United States, but a series of incidents is proving an embarrassment to the service.
A stolen laptop, potentially compromising the security at Trump Tower in New York, is the latest setback for the Secret Service.
A senior law enforcement source confirms an agent’s computer was stolen out of her car in New York City Thursday. On it, floor plans and evacuation protocols for Trump Tower.
Sources said the laptop was highly encrypted, but it can’t be traced or erased remotely. A spokesman for the department says there was no classified information on the computer.
(The Secret Service is again under scrutiny after several security breaches. Courtesy of CNN and YouTube)
Jonathan Wackrow, a former Secret Service Agent, put it bluntly when he said, “they’ve had bad week.”
Two agents are also the subject of an internal investigation after being accused of photographing the president’s grandson.
The entire Trump family and their children receive protection, and sources say the agents took pictures of Donald Trump Jr’s son, as he was sleeping, while being driven around New York City.
(Two Secret Service agents are facing an internal probe after allegedly taking selfies with the president’s sleeping grandson, Donald Trump III. Courtesy of Inside Edition and YouTube)
This came after learning the new details about a security breach at the white house, where an intruder spent at least 15 minutes, evading security on white house grounds, while inching closer to the president.
According to a Secret Service source, 26 year old Jonathan Tran scaled a treasury department fence last Friday and set off several alarms, but still managed to sneak past a Secret Service security post before being caught in the inner portion of the white house grounds.
A criminal complaint shows he was carrying two cans of mace and was walking close to the exterior wall of the white house while the president was home.
President Donald Trump praised the Secret Service response when he said, “The service did a fantastic job. It was a troubled person, very sad.”
(Sources say that an intruder was arrested on White House grounds during a time when President Trump was in the residence. Courtesy of CNN and YouTube)
But Wackrow said the breach is disturbing, “He was able to beat the physical security measures of the white house, the technological security measures and the human capital, the human guards, that’s very alarming”
Now, a house oversight committee wants the breach investigated, writing, “If true, these allegations raise questions about whether the agency’s security protocols are adequate.”
Wackrow said, “All of these are embarrassments to the USSS.”
“Compounding that problem is there is no director of the USSS, Joe Clancy has retired and there is no acting director, so the onus is on DHS.”
In 2014, the Secret Service was the subject of a house oversight committee investigation. Among the recommendations, the fence around the white house be higher.
Original post http://wwlp.com/2017/03/18/a-week-full-of-mistakes-for-u-s-secret-service/
