My Thoughts on the Secret Service

A cadet climbs into the buffer zone for a photo with U.S. President Barack Obama after he spoke about his decision to increase U.S. troop levels in Afghanistan by about 30,000 during a speech at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York, on December 1, 2009.

The Secret Service is getting a pretty bad rap lately. You can see them in the background here ready to spring into action if needed.

I have the utmost respect for the Secret Service and the men and women who protect those who serve. I know three, now retired, former agents; have gone though some of the same training they have (Microexpression and Dangerous Demeanor training); and have just finished the book, In the President's Secret Service: Behind the Scenes with Agents in the Line of Fire and the Presidents They Protectthat was in Amazon's Top Books when I purchased it about a month ago and one thing is crystal clear...

The criticism is welcomed, deserved, and something has to change.

It is great someone got into the White House uncleared for the first official dinner.

Since the Secret Service has fallen under the Department of Homeland Security they have had to fight for their budget and doing more with less is not what is occurring, they are doing less with less. If you talk to the agents in the field they would agree with everything I am stating. They do not have the latest weapons and would be outgunned in a gun battle; they do not recognize or train for the very real modern threats to their protectees (I will not state them here for security reasons) thereby will be unprepared for threats commonly seen in assination attempts to other country's leaders that have been successful; CAT teams travel with protectees and they are equivalent to a SWAT team, a full team is 5+ members, many are operating with just 2; turnover is at an all time high for a variety of reasons, and I could go on for another couple of pages of issues.

There is a real threat to the safety of the protectees and the agents of the Secret Service. There has been real concerns voiced but change does not occur. I think is is a good thing that a couple was able to gain access to the President and did not mean him harm, because it is things like this that should be a wake up call and set in motion real attention to the important and necessary changes that need to occur, because it should not take an attempted assassination to be the catalist for change.

At Amazon an excerpt of the book In the President's Secret Service: Behind the Scenes with Agents in the Line of Fire and the Presidents They Protect that I mention above is available- while the author does go into details of some major concerns within the Secret Service, it is in the later chapters.◦

My Thoughts on the Secret Service