Critical decisions after 9/11 led to slow, steady
decline in quality for Secret Service
The Secret Service began struggling
to carry out its most basic duties after Congress and the George W. Bush
administration expanded the elite law enforcement agency’s mission in the wake
of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
According to government documents
and interviews with dozens of current and former officials, the recent string
of security lapses at the White House resulted from a combination of tight
budgets, bureaucratic battles and rapidly growing demands on the agency that
have persisted through the Bush and Obama administrations in the 13 years since
the attacks. At the same time, the Secret Service was hit by a wave of early
retirements that eliminated a generation of experienced staff members and left
the agency in a weakened state just as its duties were growing.
The agency assumed new
responsibilities monitoring crowds at an increasing number of major sporting
events and other large gatherings seen as potential targets for terrorists. A
new anti-terrorism law gave the agency a leading role in tracking cyberthreats
against U.S. financial systems. And Bush expanded the circle of people granted
round-the-clock protection to include the president’s and vice president’s
extended family and some White House aides — an expansion that has been largely
maintained under President Obama.
Where the Secret Service had been a
gem of the Treasury Department for more than a century, its post-9/11 transfer
to the sprawling new Department of Homeland Security suddenly forced it to
compete for money and attention with bigger and higher-profile agencies focused
on immigration and airport security.
The changes set in motion during
that critical period after 2001 led to a slow, steady slide in quality, leaving
an agency that, according to a DHS report released on Dec. 18, is “stretched to
and, in many cases, beyond its limits.”
Poster’s
comment: Consider it is time for some
kind of change.
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