How can Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin do his job in the hospital? Turn it into a top-secret hub

WASHINGTON − The back of a C-17 cargo plane. The middle of Narragansett Bay. And who could forget Mar-a-Lago?

All have been turned into makeshift sites for top-secret government briefings and classified phone calls.

So, as his mysterious illness continues, can Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin do the sensitive parts of his Pentagon job from Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Washington?

Pentagon officials and national security experts say yes. The nation's top civilian military official can work from anywhere these days, including a hospital bed or even the ICU where Austin spent a few days last week while being treated for complications from an elective surgery.

There are numerous provisions in place to ensure that Cabinet-level officials, especially ones such as Austin, dealing with potential global flashpoints, are always kept in the loop, those experts say. One is highly advanced and secure mobile phones.

But protecting the communications of someone like Austin also relies on the use of T-SCIFs, or temporary versions of Sensitive Compartmented Information Facilities that their support staff carry with them wherever the boss goes.

T-SCIFs vary widely in size and sophistication, but use the latest secure communications technology developed by the U.S. government to protect sensitive discussions and actions from the prying eyes of foreign governments, according to physical and technical security standards laid out by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

Technically, a SCIF is any enclosure designed and constructed to prevent outside access to the information being discussed in them, according to one 209-page Intelligence Community Directive 705 from 2020, which lays out all of the technical specifications.

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One of the key requirements of a SCIF, including a temporary or portable one, is that it can foil electronic surveillance and prevent data leakage in any form. That’s usually done in two ways – by active methods such as jamming signals, and passive methods like creating a tightly sealed metal shield known as a Faraday cage to prevent electronic transmissions from coming in.

T-SCIFs 'in all sorts of weird places'

Some Pentagon officials nicknamed versions of the temporary SCIFs “the Silver Bullet” because they resembled a scaled-down version of an aluminum Airstream RV vehicle, said retired Army Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman.

Vindman said he became familiar with all manner of T-SCIFs while at U.S. embassies in Kyiv and Moscow, later on the Joint Chiefs staff at the Pentagon and then at the White House National Security Council from 2018 to 2020 in the Donald Trump administration.

Vindman said he couldn’t discuss what the temporary SCIFs look like and how they operate because some details likely are classified. But he said some larger versions are more prefabricated “and can go in the back of a C-17 cargo plane” while more portable versions can be set up in a hotel room or an even more transitory setting.

“I've seen it happen in all sorts of weird places,” Vindman said. “So it wouldn't be overly taxing to kind of just set that up” at Walter Reed for Austin.

Despite their top-secret nature, the U.S. government and even the private sector have lots of details about how such temporary SCIFs should be constructed and the protocols for using them. They are also used by the U.S. military around the world, including in combat zones, “for a limited time where physical security construction standards associated with permanent facilities are not possible,” according to a Student Guide developed by the Center for Development of Security Excellence.

No SCIF at the Walter Reed ICU?

A senior Defense Department official told USA TODAY that there is not a provision for a SCIF in the ICU at Walter Reed, where Austin was taken on Jan. 1 after reporting sharp pains from an earlier elective surgery. But as secretary of defense, he had a secure phone that was available to him there, the official said.

Austin passed authority to Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks last week without telling her that he'd been hospitalized with a serious medical condition, USA TODAY reported Sunday, citing senior administration officials.

On Jan. 2, the day after Austin was admitted to the hospital, he transferred authorities that required “constant secure communications capabilities” to Hicks as his second-in-command, Air Force Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder, the Pentagon press secretary, said in a statement on Sunday.

More: Defense Secretary Austin's deputy was unaware of his hospitalization when he passed authority to her

Hicks, who was on vacation in Puerto Rico, “keeps a complete suite of communications and capable staff with her at all times, regardless of geographic location,” Ryder said, and she took up Austin's duties from the U.S. territory.

That suite of communications would definitely have included a temporary SCIF, allowing Hicks to do all aspects of her job while in Puerto Rico, according to Vindman and Larry Pfeiffer, the director of the White House Situation Room during the Obama administration.

The SitRoom, as it’s commonly known, is the President’s round-the-clock operations and intelligence center. Pfeiffer described it as sophisticated network that is unmatched by the technology used by any other country. It provides timely intelligence, information, and other support to the president, vice-president, senior White House staff and National Security Council members, he said, while also tracking the whereabouts of all key officials in real time.

While there, Pfeiffer brought the SitRoom into the digital age, initiating its monitoring of cyber-related activity and expanding the president’s national security secure communications and information technology infrastructure to better support senior leaders during times of greatest emergency.

“Whether they are staying in a hotel or traveling around the world or even on an airplane, there was always a travel (SCIF) package that would allow us to connect to them wherever they were as securely as possible,” said Pfeiffer.

A secure video call "in the middle of Narragansett Bay"

Once, when an emergency principals meeting was called for Cabinet-level members, Pfeiffer had to loop in then-Secretary of State John Kerry, who was on his large sailing schooner somewhere out in the middle of Narragansett Bay.

“But he had his travel package with him, so we were able to get him on secure video,” Pfeiffer said. “So, we had this Brady Bunch-like screen in the SitRoom and most of the people were in some horrible, dimly lit looking SCIF and there’s Secretary Kerry with his hair blowing in the breeze as he's sailing across the bay.”

Austin isn’t the first person to require mobile comms capabilities while at Walter Reed. Then-President Donald Trump spent time there during a Covid outbreak in October 2020.

“I haven’t been to Walter Reed in a long time, but I'm guessing that when a VIP (such as Austin) goes to the emergency room, there's probably some secure sequestered area or space where they can put him, and they’re going to have security people who are going to keep others away from him” so he can do his work uninterrupted, Pfeiffer said.

Austin remained Monday at Walter Reed and is recovering from his still-undisclosed illness. He “continues to experience discomfort but his prognosis is good,” the Pentagon's Ryder said. It’s not clear when he will be discharged.

Contributing: Tom Vanden Brook

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: How can Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin do his job while in the hospital?