You take a man’s BlackBerry, you take his life:
(A) Mexican press attach?© was caught on camera by Secret Service pocketing several White House BlackBerries during a recent meeting in New Orleans, FOX News has learned…
Rafael Quintero Curiel, served as the lead press advance person for the Mexican Delegation and was responsible for handling logistics and guiding the Mexican media around at the conference. He took six or seven of the handheld devices from a table outside a special room in the hotel where the Mexican delegation was meeting with President Bush earlier this week…
American officials discovered their missing belongings when they were leaving the session…
Sources said Quintero Curiel made it all the way to the airport before Secret Service officers caught up with him. He initially denied taking the devices, but after agents showed him (a recording capturing his actions), Quintero Curiel said it was purely accidental, gave them back, claimed diplomatic immunity and left New Orleans with the Mexican delegation.
You can accidentally pick up some one else’s B-Berry, but when you’ve taken your second or third it’s harder to beg the honest error. Sounds like an embarrassingly ham-fisted attempt at espionage, to me. Either that, or the Mexican government has really got to start paying its civil servants better.
Crack-berry OPSEC…laughable…wonder how often they lose those things and I’m sure they do.
Lost or stolen – either way it’s pretty easy to send a kill signal to it, erasing all stored information and rendering the thing useless without reprogramming it from scratch.
Yes, I support several executives and yes – they do lose them or drop them or run over them with their cars or the wheel of a chair. All. The. Time. Doesn’tbothermeatall – why do you ask?
That said, my first thought too was about getting at the contact lists on the Blackberry of 6 or 7 gov’t. officials.
“Just doing the jobs Americans won’t do….’
Build the damn wall NOW.
This guy is a double dose of undesirable- a politician AND a “journalist.”
As a Blackberry admin at a Govt. agency, I can tell you they wouldn’t have gotten anything from one of ours. They are locked down so well, we frequently have to rebuild them because the user accidently “kills” it, by forgetting his/her password. That said, what in the hell were people doing just leaving them on a table? If there was a need to remove them from their persons for security purposes, why weren’t they checked into some kind of secure storage. i.e. a Secret Service guy logging the users name, BB serial number and locking them in a box that he maintained control over. seeesh! Even we here in the middle of nowhere could get that part right!
John, how will building a wall prevent the theft of blackberries at government functions? I think 74 has it right, heck, my 8 year old could do the job he suggested.
Who knows, maybe they were required to leave them outside the meeting room. It can be hard to carryon an effective meeting nowdays what with everyone thumbtyping, taking care of action items, checking mail, surfing, and passing notes across the table via Crackberry.
I have one supplier that I insist turn off Crackberries during meetings. They’d be distracted 75% of the time.
It’s hard to practice the fine art of supplier entrapment when they’re colluding with each other across the table in the middle of an investigation. “Psst, don’t answer that.” Psst, say this, say that.” “Psst, watch out I’ve seen him go down this path before he’s going for the kill.”
Used to be at meetings at Airpac-if your cell phone or blackberry went off, it was 50 bucks for Navy Relief.
Man..we haven’t learned a damn thing since I’ve been in IT and/or involved in any MIL OPSEC…if you enter data into a device it can most often be recovered regardless of hype. Capabilities only depend on the folks you deal with. Kinda like written docs in a Secret No-Forn facility with indigenous cleaning folks entering every day. Assume they get it if you write it down and leave it @work. To assume otherwise is betting with other folks’ “money”. And yet we continue to do so.
If you only knew… for example, take a look at the salaries a congressman does in the US and in Mexico…
A MEXICAN ONE EARNS MORE THAN THE AMERICAN…
It sucks…. I know… that guy was only stealing because he’s a sick mofo, not because he was in need…
Tom G. You’re right. With enough effort, you can crack just about any system. However, in the case of my users, that would be a great deal of effort for little or no return. The most you would get is perhaps a very small amount of PII (personally identifiable information) but it would be more cost effective to pay $4.95 and get 10,000 times more info from the DMV. Whitehouse dudes, thats a different case, which is why they should be under guard at all times as I suggested.
What a dummy! LOL!
Hi, first of all, I’m Mexican and I feel so embarrassed of cause of the stupidity and dishonesty of this guy. I cannot explain how a person, regardless of its position and academic formation could just think of steal from diplomatic officers in the way and circumstances this dumb rat did. How could he ever had to steal!!
I’m sure that the Secret Service should had done a better job of prevention, due that in my opinion, those Blackberry’s could have valuable-useful information, from personal to State related.
Second, this guy, which I assure you will NEVER be forgotten in his life (Mexican society is very hard on those guys) doesn’t have diplomatic I’mmunity!!. The fact of working in a government position and being outside a country does not give someone Immunity. The US government should have granted an order-injunction at that moment to avoid this guy return to Mexico, cause if this unfortunate guy had the balls to that, what else could he do? spy for terrorist?.
I mean, im not crucifying my Mexican national, but its very very innocent of stupid to say it was an accident, but maybe a bit more stupid letting him go!!.
We are sorry for this guy,.. but, he didn’t had diplomatic immunity this man only did logistics.. (as order the agenda and events)… more sorry for US officers that let him escape (despite political effects)..by that dumb excuse..
What a shame my God!!
Oh, and John, the wall is not going to avoid crime… (bad news) the only thing that can stop illegal immigration is good, fair and true political agreements between these countries, and of course, the Mexican conditions should be at least improved to stop thinking in going to the US..
This has nothing to do with nationality, or ilegal status, has to do with personal values. Was an INNOCENT ACCIDENT?… hummm..I mean of course not but, he did that for the information?.. that is the point!
My guess is that (as said above) this was a hamfisted attempt at espionage… or possibly blackmail. The real question is; for whom?
Was it for the Mexican Government, or for some media organization? Was this guy taking these blackberrys in the hopes of getting some information that could be used in a scoop? Or was he taking them in the hopes of getting some sort of information that the Mexican government could ise against the US?
Either way, even though I agree that we should build “the wall”, this particular incident doesn’t speak either for or against that. This could have happened even if “the wall” was there. This was a Mexican Government official here in an official capacity… not an illegal immigrant.
I do wonder why, if these blackberrys had information that needed to be kept secure, more wasn’t done to keep them secure. Either keep them on your person, or put them in a lock box or safe. Surely the secret service can provide that sort of thing for whitehouse staffers.
Jim C
Folks:
I’m Mexican and I have to admit that this act represent what is common in most of the government and politic Mexican guys :
To be dishonest and to use a public position for their own benefit.
I don’t know if the intention was to stole the devices or stole the information, and I don’t know if he received an order or acted on his own criteria, in any case the target was to stole something.
In the name of Mexican people I’m really ashamed for this act, please do not think all the Mexican people act in this way…unfortunately our government staff and our politics are the worst group of people that represents our country.
Don’t worry, Carlos – most of us on this site are Americans. We’re used to our politicians and government servants embarrassing us
Can I use that in my rotating quote display?
Carlos,
We understand completely. Our politicians have been known to be corrupt from time to time as well.
Jim C
Eso pasa en otro pais,donde se supone se tienen que portar bien,imaginen de lo que son capaces con los pobres mexicanos que gobiernan;Los Mexicanos solo son menos corruptos que los ugandeses,yo soy Mexicano, pero lo juro que lo siento.