"TOILSEC"? Really?

[The_Hamster_King]

A guy at work claims that the White House has a security detail called “TOILSEC” that is responsible for collecting all of the President’s waste whenever he travels so that it doesn’t fall into enemy hands and reveal classified information about his health.

This sounds like bullshit to me, but there are linksout there claiming that it’s true.

What’s the Straight Dope?

[Derleth]

I find it endlessly appropriate that Paul Krassner, ever The Realist, wrote the same thing about Bush. However, as all the cites I can find point to such luminaries as Jeff Rense and the guy who claimed President Johnson got busy with the hole in JFK’s neck (Krassner), I’m not giving this a whole lot of credence.

[yearofglad]

I have no idea, but did you look at the main page at rense.com?

That should give you some idea of the validity of the reporting there.

[The_Hamster_King]

@yearofglad

That should give you some idea of the validity of the reporting there.

As I said, I’m largely convinced that it’s bullshit. But as long as my colleague can google some marginal cites, he’s convinced. I was hoping for some better debunking evidence.

[Jackmannii]

@The_Hamster_King

As I said, I’m largely convinced that it’s bullshit. But as long as my colleague can google some marginal cites, he’s convinced. I was hoping for some better debunking evidence.

When the wrong people began asking questions, the evidence was quickly flushed into a giant porcelain receptacle buried beneath Camp David. So no one can prove it isn’t so, as with the special detail that collects Obama’s toenail clippings* so that enemies can’t perform juju with them.

*TOCSE - The Obama Clippings Special Enterprise.

[Fubaya]

The only source seems to be Wayne Madsen who seems to be pretty kooky. He thinks the U.S. and Israeli government were responsible for 9-11, the Mossad runs the media, congress, hollywood and the White House, Obama has a Kenyan birth certificate and is gay, among other things. That may not help your friend. If you show him what a kook he is, he may start believing all those things too.

Wayne Madsen - Wikipedia

In 2002 he suggested to The Guardian newspaper that the United States Navy had aided in an attempted overthrow of Venezuelan president, Hugo Chavez.[37]

In 2003 he said that he had uncovered information in a classified congressional report that he claimed contained information linking the September 11 attacks to the government of Saudi Arabia and the Bush administration through financial transactions with the hijackers. The Saudi Foreign Minister demanded the report be declassified so it could respond, however, the Bush administration refused, claiming that to do so would compromise intelligence sources and methods.[38] Later, in an interview for the Veterans Today website in 2010, he claimed that Mossad had been involved.[39] Madsen has asserted in The Palestine Telegraph that hundreds of Iraqi scientists who had been assassinated or died in accidents after the invasion in 2003 were actually murdered by Mossad hit teams operating in Iraq.[40] In 2005, he wrote that an unidentified former CIA agent claimed that the USS Cole was actually hit by a Popeye cruise missile launched from an Israeli Dolphin-class submarine.[41]

On May 17, 2005, Madsen testified regarding American policy in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) before a Subcommittee on International Operations and Human Rights hearing on the situation in the DRC. According to the news magazine New African, Madsens testimony “was so revealing that the mainstream Western media…have refused to print it.”[42]

In 2005 he said that the pro-Israel lobby, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, had pressured American politicians to stay away from protests against the Iraq War.[43]

He has asserted that members of AIPAC and Israel’s Mossad dominate CNN’s management and urges his readers to boycott CNN and its advertisers until they are fired. He has begun a project to oppose Israel as a threat to world peace.[44] Madsen has stated in an interview that “the Israeli lobby owns the Congress, media, Hollywood, Wall Street, both political parties and the White House”.[45][46]

In a 2008 ArabNews article, Madsen is quoted as suggesting that the criminal prosecution of New York State governor Eliot Spitzer was partly due to the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad.[47]

On June 9, 2008 he reported that unnamed “GOP dirty tricks operatives” had found a Kenyan birth certificate registering the birth of Barack Obama, Jr. on August 4, 1961. “However, the registration is a common practice in African countries whose citizens abroad have families with foreign nationals.”[48] This birth certificate was a cornerstone of the “Kenyan Born” subset of the birther conspiracy theories, and Madsen’s article was cited in a Washington state petition challenging Obama’s eligibility to serve.[49] Madsen has also claimed that Obama is gay.[50]

On April 25, 2009, Madsen reported that some unidentified UN World Health Organization officials and scientists believed the 2009 new H1N1 strain of swine flu virus appeared to be the product of U.S. military sponsored gene splicing, as opposed to natural processes.[51][52] While it can not be ruled out that the virus was created in a research laboratory or vaccine factory, the most plausible explanation is that the virus is the result of modern farming techniques. New Scientist magazine cited the example of a H1N2 influenza pandemic in the 1990s that only affected pigs in the United Kingdom. This subtype of the H1N2 was also a reassortment (mix) of swine, human and avian strains.[53]

In July 2009, Madsen released a report saying there was a “Q Group” within the National Security Agency tasked with plugging leaks of classified information and the monitoring and suppression of journalists who report on the NSA. He noted that with the approaching 10th anniversary of 9/11, the group have “made plans to stop any new revelations that would point to high-level U.S. and Israeli government involvement in the 9/11 attacks” that included the use of Wikileaks to identify potential “leakers”.[54][verification needed][unreliable source?][dead link]

In 2010, Madsen reported in the Pakistan Daily that unnamed sources suggested that the company formerly known as Blackwater, had been conducting false-flag operations in Pakistan that were blamed on the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan.[55]

In June 2012 Madsen self-published his sixth book. The book states it is an expose of Barack Obama’s rise in American politics and the CIA’s role in his attaining the Presidency.

[Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker]

Just a few comments on rense.com from a while back. I have a facebook friend who occasionally posts some of his/her work.

[Tim_T-Bonham.net]

@The_Hamster_King

doesn’t fall into enemy hands and reveal classified information about his health.

I’m trying to think what information about his health could be learned by examining feces? Also, what Presidential health info is classified?

[grude]

@t-bonham@scc.net

I’m trying to think what information about his health could be learned by examining feces? Also, what Presidential health info is classified?

We now know without a doubt that he eats CORN!

[aNewLeaf]

Lots and lots and lots of things you can tell from poop. Every poop tells a story, and it tells the whole story, start to finish.

Lots of medications will show up in waste. Blood indicates various problems. Cancer could be detected.
Whether any of that could have geopolitical implications, I dunno. Maybe.

[Amateur_Barbarian]

I believe the US built a special bathroom and plumbing system intended to capture some of Krushchev’s waste for such analysis. He foiled things by having his security detail use it instead.

[Loach]

Now that’s what I call a shit detail. Amiright?

[HMS_Irruncible]

In a word, DNA as weapon and as a source of information (or misinformation). As reported in The Atlantic Monthly, November 2012

According to Ronald Kessler, the author of the 2009 book In the President’s Secret Service, Navy stewards gather bedsheets, drinking glasses, and other objects the president has touched—they are later sanitized or destroyed—in an effort to keep would‑be malefactors from obtaining his genetic material. (The Secret Service would neither confirm nor deny this practice, nor would it comment on any other aspect of this article.) And according to a 2010 release of secret cables by WikiLeaks, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton directed our embassies to surreptitiously collect DNA samples from foreign heads of state and senior United Nations officials. Clearly, the U.S. sees strategic advantage in knowing the specific biology of world leaders; it would be surprising if other nations didn’t feel the same.

We don’t know that the Secret Service is doing such DNA sweeps, but if they were, then it would make no logical sense to exclude feces while sweeping for hair, dander, fingernails, etc.

As to why anyone would want the President’s DNA, the article describes a near-future scenario where a customized virus could fatally target an individual DNA signature, while in others it just produce the sort of flu-like sympoms that would help it to spread (sneezing, etc).

And here, from the same article, are some other interesting scenarios for exploiting presidential DNA:

Presidential DNA could be used in a variety of politically sensitive ways, perhaps to fabricate evidence of an affair, fuel speculation about birthplace and heritage, or identify genetic markers for diseases that could cast doubt on leadership ability and mental acuity. How much would it take to unseat a president? The first signs of Ronald Reagan’s Alzheimer’s may have emerged during his second term. Some doctors today feel the disease was then either latent or too mild to affect his ability to govern. But if information about his condition had been genetically confirmed and made public, would the American people have demanded his resignation? Could Congress have been forced to impeach him?

For the Secret Service, these new vulnerabilities conjure attack scenarios worthy of a Hollywood thriller. Advances in stem-cell research make any living cell transformable into many other cell types, including neurons or heart cells or even in vitro–derived (IVD) “sperm.” Any live cells recovered from a dirty glass or a crumpled napkin could, in theory, be used to manufacture synthetic sperm cells. And so, out of the blue, a president could be confronted by a “former lover” coming forward with DNA evidence of a sexual encounter, like a semen stain on a dress. Sophisticated testing could distinguish an IVD fake sperm from the real thing—they would not be identical—but the results might never be convincing to the lay public. IVD sperm may also someday prove capable of fertilizing eggs, allowing for “love children” to be born using standard in vitro fertilization.

[brazil84]

@HMS_Irruncible

We don’t know that the Secret Service is doing such DNA sweeps, but if they were, then it would make no logical sense to exclude feces while sweeping for hair, dander, fingernails, etc.

I agree. Anyway, it’s difficult to predict just how easy it will be to cause problems for a person using his DNA in a few years. So it’s reasonable to assume that the Secret Service is taking steps now to protect the President’s DNA.

Is there a unit which is officially called “TOILSEC”? It doesn’t sound very believable but based on my experience with organizations, I would guess it’s pretty likely that (1) the junior guys in the Secret Service get assigned to the “shit work.”; and (2) people informally refer to it as “TOILSEC” for laughs.