Lock him up: Donald Trump is still tweeting from an unsecured Android phone
During the course of his campaign, Donald Trump consistently tried to make a big deal out of accusing Hillary Clinton of not using the proper care when it came to her use of electronic communications while she was Secretary of State, even though she was fully cleared by the FBI (twice) over the matter. But now that Trump is in the White House, it turns out he’s the one who’s refusing to follow the rules when it comes to secured communications — and even his staff has been warning him to knock it off.
Before he took office, it was relatively easy to establish a pattern when it comes to Donald Trump’s internet usage via his tweets. Mobile Twitter apps like TweetBot will tell you which tweets were posted by what kind of device. The childish, poorly written, angry Trump tweets have always come from an Android device. The professional, generic sounding tweets posted to Trump’s account have always come from an iPhone or from a computer web browser. that pattern has continued since he’s taken office — and that’s a problem, because the New York Times is now reporting that Trump’s Android phone is unsecured.
TweetBot reveals that while none of the @POTUS tweets to date have come from Trump’s Android device, the majority of tweets on his @realdonaldtrump account have indeed been from his Android device. That means he’s tweeting from a device which has not been cleared for secure communication. If he’s tweeting from that particular Android mobile device, he’s almost certainly also using it for other forms of communication. For instance, is he using it for email? Is he making phone calls on it? Which rogue elements might be monitoring his communications?
These questions matter, particularly at a time when hackers from Russia and elsewhere are actively attempting to digitally compromise the United States. His deranged tweeting is bad enough. He accused Hillary of breaking the law by using unsecured communications. Based on his own continued use of an unsecured phone, Donald Trump just doesn’t seem to care.
Bill Palmer is the publisher of the political news outlet Palmer Report