Donald Trump’s presidential campaign was informed this week that Chinese hackers may have gained access to phones used by the former president and his running mate JD Vance.
According to The New York Times, Chinese hackers are believed to have gained access to data from phones used by the Republican candidates. However, investigators are still trying to determine what data was stolen or examined by the hackers following the telecom system breach.
Yeah, that’s true – that’s a risk. You’d have to structure the system in such a way to minimize that. But…you gotta also remember that the existing government also has access to a lot of things like wiretapping capabilities and such; this isn’t our first rodeo with potential for an incumbent to try to abuse government powers.
I can think of legal and oversight structures that can help mitigate risk of an incumbent trying to abuse the US government being responsible for providing that sort of service…but it’s hard to do much about state-level foreign intelligence services otherwise.