Between watching The West Wing and reading about President Clinton’s visit to Kentucky yesterday, I started wondering–does the Secret Service overdo it?
The school that Clinton visited in Owensboro was, to quote the principal, “taken over by the Secret Service”. They did practice helicopter landings on the school lawn all week. When Clinton was on campus here a few years ago, I can’t even tell you how involved the setup was, and I’m sure I don’t know the half of it.
Shouldn’t the President–supposedly our most important representative–be able to visit an elementary school or speak on a college campus without such rigamarole? I understand that there are plenty of people out there who want to do him harm, and that security is necessary. I don’t even mind paying for the security. It seems to me, though, that the level of security builds a wall between the people and the President that approximates the monarchy that the Presidency was designed to avoid.
Any thoughts?
Dr. J
PS: I also have trouble with the Motorcade. Why should everybody else have to stop and wait just so the President doesn’t have to be stuck in traffic? It’s not like he’s going to miss his plane.
Because if he gets stuck in traffic, he becomes a sitting duck.
As to the rest, I don’t know if it’s “excessive” or not. But a couple days ago, the governor of Illinois, who didn’t have all the security precautions, was hit in the face with a pie by a protestor. Now, he wasn’t killed or anything, but if somebody can sneak a pie up to him, they could have more easily snuck a gun.
I’ll probably have the Secret Service kicking in my door for this but…
It seems that if someone really wanted to kill the President it wouldn’t be too hard. Getting away with it is another matter and extremely unlikely.
Given the relative ease with which a psycho could nail the President the SS goes nuts making it as difficult as possible for the crazy. If the SS had their way they’d probably lock the President in a vault under a mountain somewhere for the duration of his term.
As for not stopping the motorcade part of it is that he’d be an easier target if he stopped. The big part though is the presumption that he is on business SO important that he simply can’t be delayed.
I don’t know if it’s an UL but I believe that Senators and US Representatives are allowed to break the speed limit legally if they are on their way to a session of Congress. Same idea as above…running the country takes priority over more mundane concerns such as safety and the law.
Of course we ALL know what the real reason is for all of this…
The Secret Service would be delighted to lock the President in the White House for 4 years. Just look back at the two assasination attempts on Gerald Ford and the attempt on Reagan for graphic examples of why they never want the President in an uncontrolled situation.
I hate when people compare fiction to reality, but I’ma’gonna do it anyway.
Tom Clancy wrote a book called Executive Orders about how Harrisone Fo… er… Jack Ryan becomes President of the US.
There is a scene where baddies try to kill (or kidnap?) his daughter from her pre-school, but the SS guys and gals save the day.
It’s scary.
I also read the novel he wrote about enviro-loonies who try to kill the whole world via a bio-germ spread at the Olympic games.
Also scary.
The fact of the matter is that we can sit and talk about over-doing things and stepping on people’s civil rights, but the men and women of these government and military angencies are in the real-life business of keeping important people (like me!) safe.
Air Force One raised awareness on this issue also - the President may be a scumbag (or may not be) but he still is the most powerful (and one of the most important) man on the planet.
I don’t know if there’s case law specifically stating that congresspeople are free to speed on their way to legislative sessions. A speeding ticket is not the same as an arrest, and of course this section of the Constitution was not designed to shield legislators from traffic laws.
I agree completely, DoctorJ, that the security around the President creates a vast divide between him and the people. And yes, the theory was to avoid a monarchy. But like it or no, the President has more power than the founders ever expected. In many ways, he is indeed the most powerful politician on earth.
Perhaps we could lessen the divide by limiting executive power, making him less ofa target But short of that, I sure can’t see any other solutions.
There is a difference between protecting the office and protecting the person who occupies the office. The US president is important not because of who s/he is but because of the office which s/he holds. Protecting the person suggests that the office is important because the person holds the office rather than the other way around. The president in a democracy is not a leader, but the agent of the people.
The office-holder is expendable, but should be given protection to the degree that would not discourage suitable people from running for office.
Mind you, there is such a thing as lax security for politicians. In my country (Australia) a disturbed man recently managed to enter the South Australian Parliament chamber and remove his clothes before being disturbed.
On the issue of immunity for speeding, a famous story in Australia is told of the Chief Justice of the High Court (our equiv. of the Supreme Court) being caught speeding. Police Officer: “Aren’t you …” “Yes” “You should know better then.”
Don’t get me wrong–I do appreciate the job the Secret Service is doing. The President certainly needs security, since there is no small number of total wackos out there. I just wonder if the extent they go to is really necessary, or if they’re just erring way on the side of caution.
I don’t know–if my experience when he was on campus is any indication, I’m not sure how it could be done. We were there for a while before he arrived, so we scoped the SS situation. There were guys with rifles and binoculars on top of every building that we could see. There’s a park across the street that couldn’t be secured very well, but they had placed a large blue tarp between the park and where the President would be, so you couldn’t see him from there. Between that, the metal detectors, and the huge presence of SS agents, not only would someone be stupid to try, I don’t even know how they would go about it.
Dr. J
PS: To the FBI agents monitoring this thread–I could never hurt anyone, let alone the President. Heck, I voted for him twice.
The US president probably does need a lot of security, but it does seem somewhat excessive to me, when you compare it to the security offered to other heads of state. Does the president of Israel or Russia have as much security?
Two funny anecdotes:
Last year I saw a picture in a public transport magazine of swiss president Ruth Dreifuss going to work. She was taking the bus like any other citizen.
And a few years ago, swiss president Kurt Furgler was hosting a visit by the Queen of England, and was shown on television with bandages all over his face. The explanation: he fell from his bike on his way to the federal palace (the Swiss equivalent to the “white house”) the previous day.
Andrew Jackson- Jan. 30, 1835
Abraham Lincoln- Apr. 14, 1865 Died Apt. 15, 1865
James A. Garfield- July 2, 1881 Died Sept. 19, 1881
William McKinley- Sept. 6, 1901 Died Sept. 14, 1901
Theodore Roosevelt- Oct. 14, 1912 Wounded; recovered
Franklin D. Roosevelt- Feb. 15, 1933
Harry S. Truman- Nov. 1, 1950
John F. Kennedy- Nov. 22, 1963 Died that day
Attempts have thus been made on the lives of one of every five American Presidents. One of every nine Presidents has been killed. Since 1865, there have been attempts on the lives of one of every four Presidents and the successful assassination of one of every five. During the last three decades, three attacks were made.
It was only after William McKinley was shot that systematic and continuous protection of the President was instituted. Protection before McKinley was intermittent and spasmodic. The problem had existed from the days of the early Presidents, but no action was taken until three tragic events had occurred.
I think for a person dedicated to an assasination attempt they might have a fair chance of pulling it off assuming they DO NOT care if they a) Die or b) Get Caught.
I’m sure the SS guys make it tough on would-be assasins but the SS has an EXTREMELY difficult job. The President is regularly in front of and in crowds.
Do I remember my history right? Didn’t Abraham Lincoln sign the executive order creating the Secret Service the day of (or before) he was shot? If he did was he creating the existence of the Treasury Agents or was he creating Treasury Agents as protection for the President?
I dunno… I think pie-ing our politicians in the face should be a constitutional right.
On a more serious note: Jeff_42, 1 in 9 presidents killed? Wow, that’s a pretty risky occupational hazard. Do even firefighters and policemen and fishermen have that high a chance of being killed on the job?
Whose big presumption? I have never seen any other reason given besides the fact that it’s more dangerous. Where did you get the “presumption” of being too important to stop?
For the record, the Secret Service was established on July 5, 1865. The Secret Service did not begin any presidential protection until 1894 and started doing it fulltime in 1902.
Maybe the word presumption is a little flip but read Otto’s post above on US Constitution, Article I, section 6.
It seems that the writers of the Constitution of the United States felt getting congresspersons to their jobs was important enough to list it in that fine document. A kind of ‘presumption’ of the importance of their job if you will. And this was long before anyone was concerned with protecting the President.
There’s a big difference between saying Congressmen can’t be arrested and having people make way for the President. I’m sorry, but I just don’t see it – especially when there is a perfectly legitimate security reason for making sure he’s not a sitting duck.
IMHO once sworn in, the president should be locked in the White House and not let out until four years later. His job is in there and not touring kindergardens for political posturing.
I would ammend the constitution to provide that the president should remain permanently in the White House AND only FAT AND UGLY AND OLD women can become interns
Again, I don’t believe that section of the Constitution relates to such things as speeding tickets (obviously since cars weren’t invented when the Constitution was written). The function of that section of the Constitution is to protect legislators from arrest in connection with their official duties. Members of Congress have qualified immunity but not blanket immunity. Note that the section makes exceptions for “treason, felony and breach of the peace.” If a Congressman murdered someone on the floor of the House, he would not be immune to arrest just because he was on the job at the time. Similarly, if he raped someone on his way to work, the fact that he was going to work would not make him immune to arrest. I don’t believe the Founders would have considered “getting congresspersons to work” to be more important than justice for their victims.
