The U.S. Secret Service has been plagued by a series of security breaches in recent weeks that have raised questions among many in the government about the agency’s ability to protect the first family. The first incident occurred on Sept. 16 when President Barack Obama was allowed to ride in an elevator alongside an armed security contractor during a visit to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. Just a few days later, an intruder armed with a knife jumped the White House fence and was able to make it all the way to the East Room before eventually being subdued. Fortunately, neither the president nor his family were in the White House at the time and no one was injured.
The uproar over these incidents proved to be too much to overcome for Julia Pierson, who tendered her resignation as director of the Secret Service last week. Joseph Clancy, who recently retired as head of the Secret Service’s Presidential Protective Division, has been named as the agency’s interim director. Now that these breaches have been brought to light and the media furor quelled for the time being, the question before the Secret Service is how can they learn from these incidents and what areas need to be addressed to better protect against similar events moving forward?
Although he couldn’t speculate as to what exactly went wrong in each of the aforementioned incidents, former Secret Service Agent Bill Warren, who spent more than 20 years with the agency and helped protect six different presidents from Richard Nixon to Bill Clinton, said one thing is clear and that is there was a breakdown of security protocol somewhere along the line.
“First of all, I think we need to reassess exactly what our job is. There needs to be another hard look at the scope of our responsibilities and what it takes in order to provide the level of security that is required.” said Warren. “We’ve always had problems dealing with staff that wants an open atmosphere and security which requires a closed atmosphere. We know what needs to be done, but the service needs the power to stand up and say, ‘no, we’re not going to change anything.’”
Branch Walton, who worked for the Secret Service for 21 years and served on the protection details of three different presidents – Nixon, Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan – said that these events reemphasize the importance of holding training exercises, examining lessons learned and looking into the vetting process during hiring.
“I think one of the adverse conditions that exists, and this is true of a lot security-related positions, is a tendency to become complacent over a long period of time, years in this case when nothing happens,” said Walton. “That leads back to the need for consistent training, whether it be tabletop exercises, classroom training or tactical response exercises.”
Given the current state of world events and the rise of terror groups such as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), Warren said that the Secret Service cannot afford to rest on its laurels.
“I think that the protocols need to be addressed more than anything,” said Warren. “From my experience, the White House grounds and any place the president goes is one of the most secure places in the world because of the different layers of security we put in place and all of the different people doing their jobs. I still have every confidence in the service that they can protect the president.”
One thing that Walton brought up as something that the Secret Service may need to take a look at moving forward is the role budget cuts could be having on the agency.
“The big problem (the agency) has had facing them are budget cuts, limiting the opportunity for training and hiring additional people and so forth. With any government agency, budgets are always a problem,” said Walton.
Despite whatever changes the agency makes as a result of these incidents, both Warren and Walton said that there is no way the Secret Service will ever be able to provide a perfect, 100 percent foolproof level of protection that some people have come to expect.
“One thing that the public has to keep in mind is that no matter how much money, how much training or much manpower you have, nobody can guarantee 100 percent success in everything they do,” explained Walton. “There are so many variables, so many what ifs in there and when you are with a politician, especially one whose primary goal is to meet with the public and get votes, you have a little conflict there between the security goals and the political goals and you have to learn to compromise.”