The New York Times on Friday released an interactive article tracking the movements of President Donald Trump and other prominent people in the White House, the Pentagon, and on Capitol Hill.
On Thursday, the Times launched its new series highlighting constant smartphone tracking, “One Nation, Tracked.” On Friday, the newspaper released a map showing Trump’s movements throughout one day during a trip to Florida where he met with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, which was compiled using location pings obtained in a dataset of 12 million people’s phones. One of these phones belongs to a Secret Service agent who works in Trump’s entourage, according to the Times.
The Secret Service declined to comment to the Times on its data or the agency’s policies.
An unidentified senior Defense Department official told the newspaper, “We want our people to understand: They should make no assumptions about anonymity. You are not anonymous on this planet at this point in our existence. Everyone is trackable, traceable, discoverable to some degree.”
The Times also used this dataset to track the movement of multiple senior officials and members of security staff working in the White House, the Pentagon, and in a nuclear power station in Florida. Even at CIA headquarters, where personal phones are not allowed inside, the Times found thousands of location pings from phones in the parking lots surrounding the building.
“This is terrifying,” Senator Josh Hawley, R-Mo., told the Times. “It is terrifying not just because of the major national security implications, what Beijing could get ahold of. But it also raises personal privacy concerns for individuals and families. These companies are tracking our kids.”
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