Really? A Secret Service Plot?
Juliette Ochieng tweet:
@JulietteAkinyi
These security breaches aren't accidents. The #SecretService is sending the president a message: "we let in what we want to let in."
Sounds more like incompetence to me. From the WashEx, Kelly Cohen writes that the Secret Service agent who stopped the White House intruder was off-duty (annoying auto-play video):
[He} was leaving for the night through the White House after seeing off the first family, sources told the Washington Post.Initially, the Secret Service said Gonzalez had been quickly stopped at the front door. Gonzalez actually made it well into the White House before being tackled on the southern side of the Eastern Room, the Post reported Monday.
From the WashEx, Susan Crabtree writes of a "pervasive culture of cover-up" (also annoying auto-play video):
Secret Service managers told agents on the ground in Atlanta not to file a written report after discovering that a convict with a gun rode in an elevator with President Obama during his visit to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Sept. 16, according to two sources familiar with the case.The president's Secret Service protective detail and other agents routinely file written reports if anything even mildly suspicious happens during a presidential trip or in the course of protecting any member of the first family at the White House on any given day.
Agents became alarmed during Obama's trip to Atlanta after discovering that a private security contractor working for the CDC with a criminal record had a gun within arms-length of the president, but superiors told them not to file "any paperwork" or initiate an investigation, according to two sources familiar with the case.
...The security officer with the gun attracted agents' attention and suspicion when he tried to take photos of Obama and videotape him leaving the elevator even after they told him to stop.
Secret Service agents questioned the man, alongside a supervisor who fired him on the spot and asked him to turn in his gun. The agents also ran his name through a database and discovered he had been convicted of assault.
The elevator case is another embarrassing blow to Secret Service leaders and exposes a breakdown in security protocols. One source called it a prime example of a pervasive "culture of cover-up" at the agency.
These episodes make me think "Keystone Kops." Did Mack Sennett write the Secret Service training manual?r
Jay at October 1, 2014 8:44 AM
Who's in charge of keeping the SS clean and loyal, anyway?
These ARE the same guys who guarded JFK and RFK, after all. Reagan nearly got assassinated on their watch, and they failed to keep the besotted Bush twins from getting kicked out of Argentina.
Top it off with their own screw-ups around boozing and hookers, and it's time to revamp this squad of armed frat boys.
But racist? No.
Gog_Magog_Carpet_Reclaimers at October 1, 2014 8:49 AM
Ron Fournier suggests in National Journal that putting the Secret Service under DHS is the problem.
http://www.nationaljournal.com/white-house/no-joke-here-s-how-to-fix-the-secret-service-20141001
Since we all love the TSA here, blaming the culture at DHS seems like something that would resonate.
Conan the Grammarian at October 1, 2014 10:02 AM
Secret Service is under DHS now? I didn't know that. Didn't it used to be under the Treasury Department?
Cousin Dave at October 1, 2014 10:16 AM
Ron Fournier suggests in National Journal that putting the Secret Service under DHS is the problem.
Rubbish. Unless you'd like hundreds of independent agencies formally reporting to the president, they've got to be housed in departments.
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It sounds as if the Secret Service is an agency which is what Fr. Paul Shaughessy, SJ called 'sociologically corrupt'. You likely need good leadership and a free hand to correct that, and it's doubtful Obama or his minions know how to identify that.
Fr. Schaugnessy explains:
If we examine any trust-invested agency at any given point in its history, whether that agency be a police force, a military unit, or a religious community, we might find that, say, out of every hundred men, five are scoundrels, five are heroes, and the rest are neither one nor the other: ordinarily upright men who live with a mixture of moral timidity and moral courage. When the institution is healthy, the gutsier few set the overall tone, and the less courageous but tractable majority works along with these men to minimize misbehavior; more importantly, the healthy institution is able to identify its own rotten apples and remove them before the institution itself is enfeebled. However, when an institution becomes corrupt, its guiding spirit mysteriously shifts away from the morally intrepid few, and with that shift the institution becomes more interested in protecting itself against outside critics than in tackling the problem members who subvert its mission. For example, when we say a certain police force is corrupt, we don't usually mean that every policeman is on the take-perhaps only five out of a hundred actually accept bribes. Rather we mean that this police force can no longer diagnose and cure its own problems, and consequently if reform is to take place, an outside agency has to be brought in to make the changes.
Art Deco at October 1, 2014 10:46 AM
Yes, CD, the Secret Service used to be under the Treasury Department. That's why Elliot Ness was a "T-Man." FBI agents were "G-Men."
The Secret Service was not only responsible for protecting the president, it also handles currency crimes (e.g., counterfeiting) and tax evasion (the charge on which they got Al Capone).
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Art, Fournier's not suggesting the Secret Service be independent and report directly to the President. He's suggesting it be returned to the Treasury Department, where it was an elite agency and had a unique identity, instead of being under DHS and being one of several law enforcement agencies with overlapping missions and competing for resources.
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Never assign to malevolence what can be adequately explained by incompetence.
Conan the Grammarian at October 1, 2014 12:47 PM
Rubbish. Unless you'd like hundreds of independent agencies formally reporting to the president, they've got to be housed in departments.
That's not the criticism. The obvious take-away is that Treasury didn't tolerate[1] any small hijinks let alone large ones like the advance team banging foreign hookers on the taxpayer's dime and exposing SS agents to potential blackmail or accidentally leaking confidential information about the President's travel and security plans[2], but DHS seems to have a wink-wink-nudge-nudge culture that at best looks the other way, and at worst takes a "if we don't know we can't punish you".
[1] or Treasury was better at cover ups
[2] such a blackmail scheme starts with "we have video of you banging a hooker, but we won't out you if you do us a small favor". The small favor is also illegal (and also recorded) and you've now turned that agent into being a spy. Against their will, but an individual who would out themselves is also an individual who would likely not fall into that honey trap.
I R A Darth Aggie at October 1, 2014 1:09 PM
By the way, I'm not sure I agree with all of Fournier's argument.
We don't need several government agencies all with their own armed enforcers. The Social Security Agency has its own SWAT team, fer cryin' out loud.
However, with a single agency, some crimes will be deprioritized as the agency seeks efficiency and maximum bang for the buck. Having everybody under one department leaves the FBI, ATF, DEA, ICE, Secret Service, and other agencies all trying to convince the DHS head that the crimes they investigate represent the gravest threat to the republic.
With separate agencies under different cabinet departments, the department heads are likely to be closer to the actual mission of the agency and better able to judge its true import and to apportion resources for resolving issues between armed agencies and unarmed agencies.
Conan the Grammarian at October 1, 2014 1:10 PM
The news came out the other day that the FDA has been stockpiling submachine guns.
Maybe they can guard the Prez and let the SS do the poultry inspections.
Gog_Magog_Carpet_Reclaimers at October 1, 2014 6:08 PM
He's suggesting it be returned to the Treasury Department, where it was an elite agency and had a unique identity, instead of being under DHS and being one of several law enforcement agencies with overlapping missions and competing for resources.
Not buying. The Treasury department is already an omnibus which incorporates intramural services, public services, regulatory functions, and the antagonistic function of revenue collection (but somehow omits the intramural function of preparing the budget). It needs to be further dismantled, not to be graced with a police force to boot.
Art Deco at October 2, 2014 6:05 AM
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