Sceret Mistakes

From the BBC:

"New breaches revealed in report that says Secret Service is 'in crisis'"

 

A man masquerading as a member of Congress walked into a secure backstage area without being properly screened and spoke with President Barack Obama at an awards dinner last fall. Five days later, a woman walked backstage unchecked at a gala dinner where Obama was a featured guest. Months after that, two people strolled unnoticed past a Secret Service checkpoint into the first layer of the White House grounds. The incidents were among a half-dozen previously undisclosed security breaches since 2013 that were detailed in an extensive, bipartisan congressional investigation of the inner-workings of the Secret Service. In a critical report to be released publicly on Thursday, House investigators describe the once-elite force as an "agency in crisis" that has failed to fix many of the deeply ingrained problems exposed last year amid a string of humiliating security lapses, according to a copy of the report obtained by The Washington Post. The report offers detailed assessments of the failings of the Secret Service during several well-publicized security incidents, including the agency's halting response to a 2011 shooting at the White House and an incident last year in which an armed man with an arrest record was able to board an elevator with Obama. More broadly, the report assessed the Secret Service as an agency that remains deeply troubled, despite recent attempts at reform. It concludes that the Service has a "staffing crisis," with fewer personnel today than in 2014, when an administration panel recommended adding 280 new staff members and Director Joseph Clancy took over vowing to the enact reforms. "The agency's recent public failures are not a series of isolated events, but the product of an insular culture that has historically been resistant to change," states the report, compiled by the Republican and Democratic staffs of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. The staffing decline, which includes the uniformed-officer division that guards the White House, is "perhaps the greatest threat" to the Secret Service, the report says. Among other factors, the report points to past budget cuts and "systemic mismanagement" by the agency. Although Clancy assured lawmakers earlier this year that there were "no greater priorities for me" than hiring the right number of staff, the agency's roster has dropped from 6,367 full-time employees at the end of September 2014 to 6,315 one year later - its lowest point in a decade. Morale is "critically low," contributing to a drop in personnel through attrition. The report also blames the decline on "systemic mismanagement" and an inefficient hiring process that hampers recruitment of high-caliber staff. The report also warns that Obama and 2016 presidential candidates face heightened danger if the administration does not swiftly fix the agency's problems. A Secret Service spokesman said the agency received the report late on Wednesday and would not comment until officials had time to review the full findings. The committee's probe uncovered a number of previously unreported breaches. Other previously unreported episodes affected other officials. In April 2013, four people went fishing on a small lake in the back yard of Vice President Joe Biden's Delaware home and were not discovered until neighbors called the Secret Service to report the security breach. The alarm system at Biden's home had been failing for some time. In spring 2014, a Czech citizen with an expired visa entered the property of former President George H.W. Bush and stayed for an hour without being detected. The report blasted Secret Service officials in several instances for failing to examine its own mistakes and asserted that Clancy and some of his predecessors had provided Congress with information that was false and misleading about the extent of problems. "The Committee believed — and still does — that new senior leadership from outside the agency would be best positioned to enact the reforms that the agency desperately needs," the report said.

 

 

 

^ This doesn't surprise me in the least. I have written many times before about the Secret Service. Their failures started in 1963 and have continued ever since. Those currently serving in the Secret Service seem to care more about drugs, alcohol and sex than doing their job and if I was a government official or a family member of one who was being "protected' by them I would seriously think about hiring my own, private security. I have told this story before: I was showing some friends around Washington DC a few years ago and we got lost. We ended up on the lawn of the White House (and we didn't climb any fences or see any type of security.) When I realized where we were I immediately turned around and got us out of there. I later learned that at the same time we were there the President was meeting with an Israeli official on the same yard we had been standing on. The fact that no Secret Service, police or anyone else were visible or questioned or stopped us shows just how bad the Secret Service has become. ^

http://www.stripes.com/news/us/new-breaches-revealed-in-report-that-says-secret-service-is-in-crisis-1.381667