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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
Secret Service? And we are reading about what it does on Slashdot... Not so so secret, are you?
"the Secret Service is recruiting some of its best athletes to serve as pretend fence jumpers"
Why? There seem to be plenty of amateurs doing quite well in that discipline.
Shouldn't they train to stop the real jumpers when they get down on the other side?
That's where the deficit seems to be.
How do they expect to repel the Mongol Hoard that doesn't know how to swim?
The Animal Kingdom park has lots of cool visual tricks so you can't see the things keeping the animals from eating the visitors (and/or vice versa). Things like ha-has can be made almost invisible from both sides, with good landscaping.
Doesn't have such a negative visual aspect as a perfectly secure fence, doesn't involved major works such as a "medieval" moat etc? Would look like theres nothing there.
Fairly cheap as well.
Or turn over the outer lawns to rabid badgers.
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.
Eh, a lot of people need practice and routine to drill things into their head, and get them a sense of how to respond, especially when matters get a touch more complex. That's why sports teams run plays in a live environment rather than just learn it in their head, and why actors rehearse a play rather than just memorize lines, and why firemen practice putting out some buildings, and more.
And yes, that includes a lot of the more involved security jobs. Your local police probably has a number of training programs.
A moat is still a good idea. It can be an attractive feature, if done correctly, and someone entering the moat is a flag that they may be able to jump the fence.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
At the same time, ugly fences are not an issue when it comes to US embassies on foreign soil.
A good example might be the one at 1, Liberty Square, Budapest, Hungary.
Bonus points for the address...
As a loyal citizen o Her Britannic Majesty, I ind this whole thing hilarious.
You need a castle mate.
All this bollocks about fences "looking like a prison" is failure of imagination on a galactic scale.
For centuries people from less happy lands have crossed our silver sea to raise the hand of war against out kings and queens but their knavish tricks have been frustrated by our castles.
They are so aesthetically pleasing that millions of tourists flock to them, The Tower of London has no moat but would remain fast against any plausible attack. We use it to store the Crown Jewels.
If your Mr. Obama would care to contact Her Majesty then I'm sure she would supply the plans as a gift, I have her address if you need it.
Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of Her other Realms and Territories Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, Queen of Canada,Queen of Australia,Lord of Man,Overlord of Sark Defender of the Faith
Buckingham Palace
London
SW1A 1AA
Dominic Connor,Quant Headhunter
"Ring of rose bushes." In fact, such was a common element in medieval fortifications, perhaps just as much as moats.
No need for a moat. Just make a shallow depression on the White House side of the fence, and plant the slope back up to the White House Lawn with a low hedge of barberry, firethorn, and roses. Beautiful for picture taking, will make casual fencejumpers think twice, and slow down anyone who does. Won't stop a serious assault, but that's not what this is about.
My proposal: the Annual White House Fence Run. Then some hide and seek, and whoever doesn't get caught gets to play President for one day.
Don't be silly. D.C.'s draconian gun control laws make that simply IMPOSSIBLE.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
Why don't they just put up a normal sized fence, but cover it in cock lube so that it's really slippery and anyone who tries to climb it will just fall off?
To prevent people from jumping over, they should put tasers along the top, with computer-guided targeting systems that will shoot the tasers into the genitalia of anyone jumping the fence.
If somebody does make it over, they can just beat the person in the groin with sticks.
Sure, then the White House grounds would be inundated with masochists getting their jollies by scaling the fence; soon, as the prisons fill with them the ACLU gets involved, declaring the security practice "discriminatory," and our courts are clogged with lawsuits declaring the right to have one's testicles electrocuted is guaranteed in the Constitution. The Department of Health and Human Services will find some US code that can be interpreted loosely to agree with that assertion and circumvent Congress, forcing states to provide Testicle Electrocution centers. Due to cost concerns the states will be allowed to make electric car charging stations dual purpose ("charge your electric car...or your nuts"), but soon angry parents will protest because charging stations near schools will have to allow guys to pull out their nuts in public. The teachers' unions won't allow the government to move the charging stations because they are in bed with the "green" movement, so now regular old perverts will hang out at the stations and pretend they are electrocuting their nuts.
In conclusion, your idea will lead to perverts showing their balls to school girls, you insensitive clod.
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Coming from Texas, HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH,
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What I want to know is how they will be defending against trebuchets.
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Read TFS again. They're trying to build a better wall, and so would need to test said wall. Hence, the replica. This isn't about why they did or didn't need it in the past, but why they need it in the future. You want to beat them up over the security breaches, and when they try to fix it, beat them up over what they need to fix it?
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.