How could we be so stupid? From the Washington Examiner:
Senators warn: FBI, other agencies work in buildings owned by China
Federal officials are putting sensitive materials in foreign-owned buildings, making them vulnerable to cyberattack and espionage, senators warned Friday.
Their alarm bells were set off by a report that said the General Services Administration has been placing FBI agents and other "high-security" government officials in buildings owned by foreign entities in China and other countries. The GSA didn't tell the tenants, according to the government report, so the officials aren't taking addition security precautions.
"Yet, in some cases the space is used for classified operations and to store sensitive data," Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., and Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., wrote in a Thursday letter to acting GSA Administrator Timothy Horne. "Given the highly sensitive information that is often stored at high-security leased sites, we are concerned with the lack of policies and procedures concerning the ownership of these sites."
And it gets better - the buildings are owned by shell companies and this is the result:
Although the buildings are leased formally from companies based in foreign countries, GSA can't be sure that those private companies are the true owners of the buildings. "GSA lacks complete information regarding foreign-owned leased space including beneficial owner information (which GAO defined as the person who ultimately owns and controls a company)," the senators noted.
The buildings are built to the specifications of the owner - it would be trivial to put data sniffers in the areas designed for server rooms. Cameras hidden in conference rooms. This is just unreal - talk about egregious malfeasance on the part of the GSA - they should be the target of President Trump's ire for year two.
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