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Secret Service Plans New Fence, Full Scale White House Replica, But No Moat
HughPickens.com writes The NYT reports that the Secret Service is recruiting some of its best athletes to serve as pretend fence jumpers at a rural training ground outside Washington in a program to develop a new fence around the White House that will keep intruders out without looking like a prison. Secret Service officials acknowledge that they cannot make the fence foolproof; that would require an aesthetically unacceptable and politically incorrect barrier. Prison or Soviet-style design is out, and so is anything that could hurt visitors, like sharp edges or protuberances. Instead, the goal is to deter climbers or at least delay them so that officers and attack dogs have a few more seconds to apprehend them. In addition, there might be alterations to the White House grounds but no moat, as recently suggested by Representative Steve Cohen of Tennessee. "When I hear moat, I think medieval times," says William Callahan, assistant director for the office of protective operation at the Secret Service.
The Times also reports that the Secret Service wants to spend $8 million to build a detailed replica of the White House in Beltsville, Maryland to aid in training officers and agents to protect the real thing. "Right now, we train on a parking lot, basically," says Joseph P. Clancy, the director of the Secret Service. "We put up a makeshift fence and walk off the distance between the fence at the White House and the actual house itself. We don't have the bushes, we don't have the fountains, we don't get a realistic look at the White House." The proposed replica would provide what Clancy describes as a "more realistic environment, conducive to scenario-based training exercises," for instructing those who must protect the president's home. It would mimic the facade of the White House residence, the East and West Wings, guard booths, and the surrounding grounds and roads. The request comes six months after an intruder scaled a wrought-iron fence around the White House and ran through an unlocked front door of the residence and into the East Room before officers tackled him.
The Times also reports that the Secret Service wants to spend $8 million to build a detailed replica of the White House in Beltsville, Maryland to aid in training officers and agents to protect the real thing. "Right now, we train on a parking lot, basically," says Joseph P. Clancy, the director of the Secret Service. "We put up a makeshift fence and walk off the distance between the fence at the White House and the actual house itself. We don't have the bushes, we don't have the fountains, we don't get a realistic look at the White House." The proposed replica would provide what Clancy describes as a "more realistic environment, conducive to scenario-based training exercises," for instructing those who must protect the president's home. It would mimic the facade of the White House residence, the East and West Wings, guard booths, and the surrounding grounds and roads. The request comes six months after an intruder scaled a wrought-iron fence around the White House and ran through an unlocked front door of the residence and into the East Room before officers tackled him.
Why use secrete service agents when instead it could be a dual use facility for the training of the US Olympic track and field team. They excel at running and jumping so if it puts things beyond their abilities then it would be well beyond the abilities of any ordinary fence jumper.
Time to offend someone
Transparent : tall invisible bars are aesthetically acceptable.
Fragile : make it seem easy and simple but fragile in a way that once broken it becomes hard to climb. If you break something and hurt yourself few people will blame the inanimate object.
Sticky: as soon as you touch it, it secretes superglue. The guards come with an innocuous solvent.
Hidden : fill the moat with a "non-Newtonian" dirt colored fluid. Doesn't look like a moat, but people do fall inside and it's hard to move fast through it.
For that kind of money it would be more economical to actually build a real work residence for the president. Why stay in a 18th century mansion when you can build a modern facility with serious infrastructure. Keep the White House for tourists and perhaps as a museum or special press meetings, but let real work take place in a secure environment that is actually designed for the modern state.
But I guess 8 million for a full-scale doll house is better for morale.
I think that the only thing that was ever really "secret" about it was that its agents didn't wear uniforms.
The US Secret Service historically has carried 2 primary mandates. To protect heads of state and to protect the reputation of US currency.
Tells you where priorities lie.
"Ring of rose bushes." In fact, such was a common element in medieval fortifications, perhaps just as much as moats.