Patrick Kennedy, State’s Undersecretary for Management was interviewed in The Federal Drive with Tom Temin and Emily Kopp and featured in Federal News Radio report on State to offer guidance to Secret Service overseas.  Some quotable quotes:

“State Department employees represent the United States abroad 24 hours a day […]. We advocate and represent for U.S. ideals and values, so we’re very clear no one should be involved in what we term as ‘notoriously disgraceful conduct.”

“Sex trafficking is just something that’s abhorrent to American values, and so our personnel, employees and chief of mission personnel, irrespective of their agency, are banned from this type of activity.”

“Our employees, because they have high level security clearances, we are very, very concerned about people potentially being blackmailed […]. We don’t believe that anyone should put themselves in any kind of compromising position in regards to their conduct abroad. Certainly, engaging in adultery is something that could potentially compromise you subject to blackmail and then potentially endanger the national security.”

“Since our regional security officers and our political officers are present in every embassy around the world where the Secret Service might be going as part of their mission, we’re making ourselves available to conduct briefings on individual situations in the country that they’re traveling to.”