A visit by the U.S. president is a big deal, not only due to the attention that such a visit brings to your cause or establishment, but also due to the heavy security that comes with it. Every location is secured beforehand, and anyone present during the visit has to be screened and pre-approved. This practice extends to every little aspect of the trip, including visits to the toilet. However, sometimes nature’s call is too strong to ignore, even for the president.
Normally the president has a tightly regulated toilet schedule where he exclusively uses a specially designed portable toilet that is moved around with him, and the waste is kept and brought back to US soil before it is desposed of. This may sound strange or even bizarre, but in fact it is common practice amongst most world leaders. The reason for it, is that an “uncleared” toilet can be tampered with in such a way that it captures the stool or urine of it’s users. These stolen products can then be examined by foreign intelligence in order to learn about the president’s health, food habits and the kinds of medicine that he uses. This is why the so-called ‘toilet security’ (TOILSEC) has a much more important job than you may think.
Of course no system is perfect and sometimes nature’s call is stronger than ones paranoia about potential poop snachers. One such occasion was allegedly during a 30 minute visit of president Obama to the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) library in 2013, where he met several researchers working on renewable energy solutions. Towards the end of this visit it is said that he went to the toilet right before he left.
This action had not gone unnoticed as shortly after the visit a sign was erected at the toilet in question reading: ‘US President Barrack Obama sat here. Sept 4 2013’.
Now when talking to the library staff much of this story can be confirmed and we learn that in fact the sign was placed by an employee of the library. However, not everybody believes that he actually used the toilet on way out, or at least that he sat on it. It is of course hard to say since the entire coridoor was blocked off by his guards, so nobody but the president and his staff would be able to tell us whether or not it’s true.
Know Before You Go
The toilet is not in the public part of the library and therefore not accessible to tourists.
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