The US Secret Service, the elite unit tasked with protecting the president, has been working to recover from recent scandals involving agents and prostitutes, and drinking on the job.

It now is facing new embarrassment after a man armed with a knife was able to jump the White House fence and enter the first family’s residence.

The following is a fact file about the Secret Service:

– A dual mission –

The Secret Service, which is a 6,500-strong force, was established under the auspices of the US Treasury in 1865 to protect US financial systems, a mission that endures today. It is now tasked with fighting high-tech financial crimes and fraud.

+ The agency’s mandate was expanded after the assassination of former president William McKinley in 1901 to protect the president, vice president and their families on American and foreign soil.

The Secret Service — part of the vast Department of Homeland Security since 2003 — also protects former presidents and vice presidents, their spouses and their children up to 10 years old.

It also watches over presidential candidates (a responsibility introduced after the assassination of senator Robert Kennedy in 1968), foreign leaders and foreign government delegations visiting the United States for official visits or major national or international meetings

– Top-notch training –

Known for their night-vision goggles and earpieces, Secret Service agents are armed. Some work as the president’s bodyguards, and others are positioned as snipers on the White House roof. Some agents are plain clothes officers and others don fancy attire for official receptions.

They are trained at the James Rowley Training Center near Washington, DC, where they learn to shoot close range, emergency first aid, site security protocol and the detection of financial crimes.

– A history of attacks –

President Harry Truman escaped as assassination attempt in 1950, as he was working from Blair House while the White House was undergoing renovations. Agent Leslie Coffelt managed to tackle one of the two would-be assailants, but nevertheless became the only member of the Secret Service killed while protecting a president.

President Ronald Reagan was shot and critically wounded in Washington on March 30, 1981. Special agent Tim McCarthy intervened and suffered serious abdominal injuries.

The assassination of John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963 in Dallas, Texas prompted a Congressional investigation and Secret Service reform.

An investigation of the Select Committee on Assassinations of the US House of Representatives concluded in 1979 that the Secret Service had not fulfilled its duties, had information that was not efficiently used, that its agents were not adequately trained and that Kennedy was not properly protected.

– Internal scandals –

In 2012, about a dozen agents assigned to protect US President Barack Obama were suspected of hiring prostitutes in Cartagena, Colombia ahead of an Americas summit there. In a report released in late 2013, the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general’s office said there was no widespread sexual misconduct among agency employees.

An investigation by Congress found that Secret Service agents had hired strippers and prostitutes in 2011 ahead of an official visit by Obama to El Salvador.

Three agents assigned to protect the president in the Netherlands in March 2014 were sent back to the US after a night of drinking in Amsterdam before Obama’s arrival.

– Security breaches –

A gate-crashing couple snuck into a White House state dinner attended by Obama in November 2009 and managed to have their photo taken with Vice President Joe Biden.

A homeless US army veteran armed with a knife jumped a fence and entered the front door of the White House before he was apprehended. Investigators later found 800 rounds of ammunition in his car. Obama said Monday he was “concerned” by the security breach.

The next day, another man tried to approach the White House on foot and then by car before he was arrested. An investigation has been ordered and safety procedures are under review.

SOURCE: http://www.vanguardngr.com/2014/09/us-secret-service-agency-fire/

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