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 Fast-forward to today: the 149-year-old Secret Service is
struggling to emerge from a succession of scandals that have
tarnished that iconic reputation, forced the abrupt resignation of
its director and raised questions about its ability to fulfill its
most critical duty: protecting President Barack Obama and his
family.
Sources inside and outside the administration say many problems such
as low morale, a leadership crisis and a culture of covering up
mistakes can be traced back 11 years to when the Secret Service was
pulled out of the Treasury Department and absorbed into the
sprawling new Department of Homeland Security, where it had to
compete for turf and money.
Even as the agency's workload has mushroomed, its manpower levels
stagnated and its funding increases have failed to keep pace with
growth in overall federal spending in the past decade, a Reuters
examination of Secret Service budget data shows.
There is also growing pressure to consider whether the Secret
Service’s divided mission, which includes investigating financial
fraud and cybercrime, is diverting resources and attention from
providing security for the president, his family and other top
officials.
"We’ve seen what many think was a high point for the Secret
Service," said Carolyn Parr, who co-authored a memoir with her
husband, Jerry Parr, the agent who raced a wounded Reagan away from
the scene of the shooting after John Hinckley Jr. opened fire
outside a Washington hotel 33 years ago.
"What’s happening now is sad. I don’t know why the ball got
dropped."
"MORE POLITICIZED"
The damage has been piling up, costing Secret Service director Julia
Pierson her job on Wednesday. First came a Sept. 19 incident in
which an Iraq war veteran with a knife scaled the White House fence
and got deep inside the executive mansion.
That was followed by the disclosure that an armed private security
contractor with a criminal record rode on an elevator with Obama in
Atlanta on Sept. 16, along with new details of a 2011 incident in
which shots were fired at the White House.
Pierson, appointed in 2013 to clean up the agency after an
embarrassing prostitution scandal in Colombia the year before,
defended her agency in congressional testimony, acknowledging
"mistakes were made" but failing to quell the firestorm.
Some see the troubles rooted in the 2003 decision by President
George W. Bush to shift the agency into the newly formed Department
of Homeland Security (DHS) as part of a centralizing of the “war on
terrorism” after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
The move ended the quasi-independence the Secret Service enjoyed at
Treasury, where it was established in 1865 to suppress currency
counterfeiting. At the DHS, it faced competition from other security
agencies for funds and staffing.
"It became more politicized and more compliant ... often bowing to
pressure from political staff at the White House or congressional
staff during campaigns," said Ron Kessler, a national security
consultant and author of the newly published book “The First Family
Detail.”
"HOUSE-CLEANING IS NEEDED"
Some question if the Secret Service has spread itself too thin to
adequately perform its dual roles of financial investigator and
presidential protector, especially as online crime surges and
threats to the presidency grow increasingly complex in an era of
global terrorism.
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The Secret Service first began the work of presidential protection
in 1901 after the assassination of President William McKinley. It
has steadily expanded since. In recent years, its mandate has
mushroomed to include investigations of cyber theft, credit-card
fraud and computer-based attacks on financial, banking and
telecommunications infrastructure. "Are the two missions of the
Service compatible and how should they be prioritized?" the
Congressional Research Service asked in a report on the agency
released in mid-June.
Some former agents blame the Secret Service's troubles on a culture
of rule-bending they say became entrenched years ago.
"If only the director goes, very little changes," said Dan Emmett, a
former senior officer in the Secret Service’s Presidential
Protective Division and author of the book "Within Arm’s Length." "A
house-cleaning is needed at the top."
Other concerns include accusations the agency has favored men in
promotions and condoned racism, a point reinforced in a class-action
lawsuit filed in 2000 by African-American agents who accuse the
Secret Service of a pattern of failing to address allegations of
racial discrimination over many years.
The Secret Service's defenders point to half a century without an
American president assassinated and say criticism of the agency has
brewed for years, including in 1981 when it was forced to strengthen
security measures after allowing a gunman to get so close to the
president unscreened.
Asked whether Obama still felt safe, White House spokesman Eric
Schultz said on Thursday: "Absolutely".
A tight budget complicates its mission. Pierson testified on Tuesday
that the Secret Service had been stretched and was operating with
around 550 fewer employees than its "optimal level." Despite an
expansion in its work, its full-time workforce of 6,572 is just 66
higher than in fiscal 2005, according to DHS documents.
http://link.reuters.com/fuw92w
And while its fiscal 2014 annual budget of $1.585 billion is up 35
percent from a decade ago, that lags federal spending, which is up
48 percent since 2005. The agency's budget has also failed to keep
pace with the DHS' overall budget, which is up 54 percent in the
same period, DHS budget data show.
"What many of us have taken for granted is that the president is
always going to be well protected," Mark Meadows, a Republican on
the House Oversight Committee, told Reuters.
(Editing by Jason Szep and Tom Brown)
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