Mexican press member caught stealing BlackBerrys belonging to White House staffers
Yeah, the title pretty much sums it all up. A Mexican press attache was caught on camera placing several BlackBerry devices into his pocket during a press event in New Orleans. Due to heightened security, all officials were required to place their cell phones on a table before entering the meeting room. While the meeting was underway, Rafael Quintero Curiel, who was serving as Mexico’s lead press advance, slipped outside and began pocketing the handsets. Whoops. When the meeting was over, several attendees noticed that their ‘Berrys had gone missing, and alerted the secret service. Curiel had already began driving to the airport when the Secret Service ordered him back to the press area. When confronted with the tapes, Curiel "said it was purely accidental, gave them back, claimed diplomatic immunity and left New Orleans with the Mexican delegation." Uh, ‘kay? No word on whether the US plans to pursue legal action. On another note, why exactly are White House staffers placing their BlackBerrys unattended in an easily accessed area as a matter of "common practice"?
Thanks, Matt!
damn mexicans always tryna steal out shit its bad enough they sneak under the fences at the border now they try to steal government secrets its ok though because they will be too lazy to do anything with the secretz
The stupid and unfortunate actions of one corrupt Mexican official does not allow You to make broad generalizations about an entire country. The ignorance you put on display with your stereotypical and racist comments are precisely what fuels hate mongering in America.
Enrique who is no doubt a Latino who is tired of being picked on because he looks mexican, has taken taken that negative energy and become just another ignorant racist. As a latino, Im very disturbed by these comments.
@ Enrique
Seriously, the negative and racist comments are totally not necessary dude.
anybody that didn’t find Enrique funny is to up tight. the sad thing is what he said for the most part is true. besides didn’t bush make Mexico part of the U.S.A. along with Canada with the North American Union
This is why comments should be moderated.
It was clinton with the NAFTA signing.
But this is sad.. when the ‘lead press advance’ from Mexico is even a thief.. what does that say about the country?!?
“Claimed diplomatic immunity” .. uh, where’s the Patriot Act when you need it?
umm y does this random reporter have diplomatic immunity to begin with? i thought only ambassadors and heads of state got that priveledge….
“But this is sad.. when the ‘lead press advance’ from Mexico is even a thief.. what does that say about the country?!?”
What does it say about Americans that George Bush is president? Nothing. Generalizations are bad mmmkay?
Normally, one is prohibited from bring electronic devices to secure meetings, however normally there is a secure location (i.e. locker) to store such devices. In this case, I’m guessing the building was a limited access building, so they didn’t worry about leaving things on the desk outside the meeting room.
As a side note, I’m wondering if the diplomatic immunity claim is misquoted; only the highest levels of diplomats are granted immunity to arrest. See here at the state department: http://www.state.gov/m/ds/immunities/c9127.htm
Its not un-common for government meetings to ban cellphones. Most people are smart enough to leave them in their cars.
I for one keep my phone pin-locked for the exact reason of having to leave it at the door so often. I also encrypt any sensitive data.
Several company’s also have a “nuke” program that can respond to a special SMS and delete and disable the device.
I can see taking one crackberry being accidental, but how can several be accidental.
Vote for Pedro.
Ok so I can’t really speak out against the govt without fearing black choppers comming to my house and had I stolen these blackberrys that I helped to pay for they would waterboard my ass and yet this fool can just say yeah I did it suck a fat one and walk away….god this country is…as a certain writer once said…”MOTOFUKD”
Just teasing!
But seriously, that’s lame as hell and yeah, the racist comments are wrong dude
What’s our country’s policy? Nuke ‘em before they fight? wonder what’s gonna happen next…
Man, I was waiting for those damn BB, thats the last time I hire Jesus for anything.
stupid guy didn’t realize that a quick call to their BES admin and all the missing devices could be wiped clean in seconds!
saw it on fox new he wasn’r a press attche he was logistics for the mexican .gov delagation thats how he claimed diplomatc unity
he could be brought up on espienage chrges though not smart at all
speedy Gonzalez!!!
Why did they not have RIM’s bluetooth smartcard reader installed? That would allow them to encrypt their emails and when their blackberries move out of range of the bluetooth smartcard reader, they automatically lock.
Who’s heading the IT security of the whitehouse? They really should be encrypting their emails due to the fact they travel from the wireless carriers to RIM’s operations center/network in Canada, a foreign country.
who said their data wasn’t encrypted or that they didn’t have a datawipe ready to go, it just said that they stuff was stolen, not that data was accessed
Nobody notice the spam links in the rss feed?
A pet peeve of mine…Note the Fox News story uses the incorrect plural, BlackBerries rather than then the proper BlackBerrys. I know its nitpicking but…it always bugs me.
are you an editor of a book comapny or a a media ornization if not plasestop aspiring to be a grammar nazi. it irks an sresses you for no reason you have no sway over fox news you can alway email them.
So, in the RSS for this story there’s a ridiculous amount of linkspam under the story…
“A pet peeve of mine…Note the Fox News story uses the incorrect plural, BlackBerries rather than then the proper BlackBerrys.”
Bloomberg ran it as Mexican steels White House Blackberries, and I’m such a dolt that I envisioned a guy arrested on the White House lawn picking berries.
Oh man, I need a vacation.
DoD uses a lock and erase feature as well, so without the unlock pin, the blackberry is a shiny paperweight. Back in the day if we had a Classified Message incident on someones blackberry, we had to sanitize it by way of sledgehammer