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Secret Service Critics Pounce After White House Breach
HughPickens.com writes On Friday evening, a man jumped the White House fence, sprinted across the North Lawn toward the residence, and was eventually tackled by agents, but not before he managed to actually enter the building. Now CBS reports that the security breach at the White House is prompting a new round of criticism for the Secret Service, with lawmakers and outside voices saying the incident highlights glaring deficiencies in the agency's protection of the president and the first family. "Because of corner-cutting and an ingrained cultural attitude by management of 'we make do with less,' the Secret Service is not protecting the White House with adequate agents and uniformed officers and is not keeping up to date with the latest devices for detecting intruders and weapons of mass destruction," says Ronald Kessler. "The fact that the Secret Service does not even provide a lock for the front door of the White House demonstrates its arrogance." But the Secret Service must also consider the consequences of overreaction says White House correspondent Major Garrett. "If you have a jumper and he is unarmed and has no bags or backpacks or briefcase, do you unleash a dog and risk having cell phone video shot from Pennsylvania Avenue of an unarmed, mentally ill person being bitten or menaced by an attack dog?" But Kessler says Julia Pierson, the first woman to head the Secret Service, has some explaining to do. "If the intruder were carrying chemical, biological or radiological weapons and President Obama and his family had been in, we would have had a dead president as well as a dead first family."
wasn't there something a while ago about someone getting hammered for firing a .22 at the white house (think two inch thick laminated glass) while the president was abroad, yet he still got it for attempted assassination?
It was the motivation and intended outcome that mattered in that case. He shot at the White House with every reason to believe that the president was there, and no reason to believe that his bullet wouldn't penetrate the building and hit someone. He was guilty of attempted assassination. Just because he was ignorant doesn't mean he wasn't malicious.
I wish I had a good sig, but all the good ones are copyrighted
There was a time that a citizen could walk right up to the white house.
Back when rather few people actually traveled any significant distance. Also back in those days the federal government mattered rather less than it does today. It's only since the Civil War that the federal government has started to play more of a role than state government in the every day lives of people.
What has changed with our society that our president needs to live in a castle with a moat and defense force?
A lot has changed. Maybe the fact that every president since Johnson has been the target of known assassination attempts or plots. Four presidents have been assassinated (Kennedy, Lincoln, McKinley and Garfield) and two were wounded by would-be assassins (Reagan and Teddy Roosevelt). When you are the leader of a nation there are some crazy people out there who will kill you if they have the chance.
Losing your nation's leader is a BIG deal. It causes very serious problems no matter what country you are talking about.
For FY 2014, the budget allocation for the Secret Service was 1.546 billion.
As of July 31, 2014 there is 17.6 trillion in debt.
Cutting the Secret Service budget to 0 would relieve 0.00878% of the debt.
Nice try, though.
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
yup.
what would people be saying if the Secret Service popped that guy's melon with a sniper bullet.. in front of all the tourists. body would sit there for hours with a yellow tarp over it while the press broadcast that image all over the world.. and the "why did you have to shoot that guy" crowd would come out of the woodwork.. or, they were ready to shoot, but there were too many innocents on the OTHER side of the target... this will blow over in a couple days.. had they wounded or killed an innocent, there'd probably be Congressional hearings.
you will give up some security when you balance it with the appearance of bing civilized.
they COULD put razor wire on the fence, but they don't
they COULD build gun towers with searchlights, but they don't
POTUS could cruise around in an (actual) armored vehicle, but they made it look like a Caddy (that can't possibly be a safe as one of those EOD trucks - or Bradley with reactive armor)
the USSS could wear SWAT gear while they're flanking POTUS when he's walking the rope line shaking hands, but they keep their weapons hidden and wear suits.
you know the Secret Service wants to keep POTUS in a box and only let him out for TV.. but they let him get danger close to the public.. all for appearances sake- and this DESPITE Squeaky Fromme, John Hinkley Jr. and whoever actually got a shot off at Ford in SF.
i'm thinking the only publicly visible change to protocol is no more convertibles (see Kennedy)
Yes, and apply that "logic" everywhere and you end up with what we have now: each program is supposedly critical and has no room to cut, and so NOTHING gets cut.
Not that I agree with the President on many issues, but his protection IS something that is critical.