Does not paint a flattering portrait of Secret Service competence.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/secret-service-stumbled-after-gunman-hit-white-house-residence-in-2011/2014/09/27/d176b6ac-442a-11e4-b437-1a7368204804_story.html
QuoteSecret Service fumbled response after gunman hit White House residence in 2011
By Carol D. Leonnig September 27
The gunman parked his black Honda directly south of the White House, in the dark of a November night, in a closed lane of Constitution Avenue. He pointed his semiautomatic rifle out of the passenger window, aimed directly at the home of the president of the United States, and pulled the trigger.
A bullet smashed a window on the second floor, just steps from the first family's formal living room. Another lodged in a window frame, and more pinged off the roof, sending bits of wood and concrete to the ground. At least seven bullets struck the upstairs residence of the White House, flying some 700 yards across the South Lawn.
President Obama and his wife were out of town on that evening of Nov. 11, 2011, but their younger daughter, Sasha, and Michelle Obama's mother, Marian Robinson, were inside, while older daughter Malia was expected back any moment from an outing with friends.
Secret Service officers initially rushed to respond. One, stationed directly under the second-floor terrace where the bullets struck, drew her .357 handgun and prepared to crack open an emergency gun box. Snipers on the roof, standing just 20 feet from where one bullet struck, scanned the South Lawn through their rifle scopes for signs of an attack. With little camera surveillance on the White House perimeter, it was up to the Secret Service officers on duty to figure out what was going on.
Then came an order that surprised some of the officers. "No shots have been fired. . . . Stand down," a supervisor called over his radio. He said the noise was the backfire from a nearby construction vehicle.
That command was the first of a string of security lapses, never previously reported, as the Secret Service failed to identify and properly investigate a serious attack on the White House. While the shooting and eventual arrest of the gunman, Oscar R. Ortega-Hernandez, received attention at the time, neither the bungled internal response nor the potential danger to the Obama daughters has been publicly known. This is the first full account of the Secret Service's confusion and the missed clues in the incident — and the anger the president and first lady expressed as a result.
By the end of that Friday night, the agency had confirmed a shooting had occurred but wrongly insisted the gunfire was never aimed at the White House. Instead, Secret Service supervisors theorized, gang members in separate cars got in a gunfight near the White House's front lawn — an unlikely scenario in a relatively quiet, touristy part of the nation's capital.
That command was the first of a string of security lapses, never previously reported, as the Secret Service failed to identify and properly investigate a serious attack on the White House. While the shooting and eventual arrest of the gunman, Oscar R. Ortega-Hernandez, received attention at the time, neither the bungled internal response nor the potential danger to the Obama daughters has been publicly known. This is the first full account of the Secret Service's confusion and the missed clues in the incident — and the anger the president and first lady expressed as a result.
By the end of that Friday night, the agency had confirmed a shooting had occurred but wrongly insisted the gunfire was never aimed at the White House. Instead, Secret Service supervisors theorized, gang members in separate cars got in a gunfight near the White House's front lawn — an unlikely scenario in a relatively quiet, touristy part of the nation's capital.
It took the Secret Service four days to realize that shots had hit the White House residence, a discovery that came about only because a housekeeper noticed broken glass and a chunk of cement on the floor.
This report is based on interviews with agents, investigators and other government officials with knowledge about the shooting. The Washington Post also reviewed hundreds of pages of documents, including transcripts of interviews with officers on duty that night, and listened to audio recordings of in-the-moment law enforcement radio transmissions.
Secret Service spokesman Ed Donovan declined to comment. A spokesman for the White House also declined to comment.
The episode exposed problems at multiple levels of the Secret Service, and it demonstrates that an organization long seen by Americans as an elite force of selfless and highly skilled patriots — willing to take a bullet for the good of the country — is not always up to its job.
Just this month, a man carrying a knife was able to jump the White House fence and sprint into the front door. The agency was also embarrassed by a 2012 prostitution scandal in Cartagena, Colombia, that revealed what some called a wheels-up, rings-off culture in which some agents treated presidential trips as an opportunity to party.
The actions of the Secret Service in the minutes, hours and days that followed the 2011 shooting were particularly problematic. Officers who were on the scene who thought gunfire had probably hit the house that night were largely ignored, and some were afraid to dispute their bosses' conclusions. Nobody conducted more than a cursory inspection of the White House for evidence or damage. Key witnesses were not interviewed until after bullets were found.
Moreover, the suspect was able to park his car on a public street, take several shots and then speed off without being detected. It was sheer luck that the shooter was identified, the result of Ortega, a troubled and jobless 21-year-old, wrecking his car seven blocks away and leaving his gun inside.
The response infuriated the president and the first lady, according to people with direct knowledge of their reaction. Michelle Obama has spoken publicly about fearing for her family's safety since her husband became the nation's first black president.
Her concerns are well founded — President Obama has faced three times as many threats as his predecessors, according to people briefed on the Secret Service's threat assessment.
"It was obviously very frightening that someone who didn't really plan it that well was able to shoot and hit the White House and people here did not know it until several days later," said William Daley, who was White House chief of staff at the time.
Daley said he recalls the late discovery of the bullets shaking up the Obamas and their staffs. The Secret Service could not have prevented the shooting, Daley said, but it should have determined more quickly what happened.
"The handling of this was not good," he said.
Confusion after shots
By the time Ortega shot at the White House, President Obama and the first lady were in San Diego on their way to Hawaii for the Veterans Day weekend.
With the first couple gone, the Secret Service staff at the White House slipped into what some termed a "casual Friday" mode.
By 8:30 p.m., most of the Secret Service agents and officers on duty were coming to the tail end of a quiet shift.
An undercover agent in charge of monitoring the White House perimeter for suspicious activity, McClellan Plihcik, had left with a more junior officer to fill up his service car at a gas station about a mile away.
On the White House's southern border, a few construction workers were milling about. D.C. Water trucks, arriving on Constitution Avenue to clean sewer lines, had just parked in the lane closed off by red cones on the White House side of the street.
It was near that spot that Ortega pulled over his black 1998 Honda Accord.
Ortega had left his Idaho home about three weeks earlier, during a time his friends said he had been acting increasingly paranoid. He kept launching into tirades about the U.S. government trying to control its citizens, saying President Obama "had to be stopped."
He had arrived in Washington on Nov. 9. He had 180 rounds of ammunition and a Romanian-made Cugir semiautomatic rifle, similar to an AK-47, that he had purchased at an Idaho gun shop.
Now, in striking distance of the president's home, Ortega raised his weapon.
A woman in a taxi stopped at a nearby stoplight immediately took to Twitter to describe the actions of "this crazy guy."
"Driver in front of my cab, STOPPED and fired 5 gun shots at the White House," she wrote, adding, "It took the police a while to respond."
Another witness — a visiting neuroscientist who was riding by in an airport shuttle van — later told investigators he had seen a man shooting out of a car toward the White House.
On the rooftop of the White House, Officers Todd Amman and Jeff Lourinia heard six to eight shots in quick succession, likely semiautomatic fire, they thought. They scurried out of their shedlike booth, readied their rifles and scanned the southern fence line.
Under the Truman Balcony, the second-floor terrace off the residence that overlooks the Washington Monument, Secret Service Officer Carrie Johnson heard shots and what she thought was debris falling overhead. She drew her handgun and took cover, then heard a radio call reporting "possible shots fired" near the south grounds.
Johnson called the Secret Service's joint operations center, at the agency's headquarters on H Street Northwest, to report she was breaking into the gun box near her post, pulling out a shotgun. She replaced the buckshot inside with a more powerful slug in case she needed to engage an attacker.
The shots were fired about 15 yards away from Officers William Johnson and Milton Olivo, who were sitting in a Chevrolet Suburban on the Ellipse near Constitution Avenue.
They could smell acrid gunpowder as they jumped out of their vehicle, hearts pounding. Johnson took cover behind some flowerpots. Olivo grabbed a shotgun from the Suburban's back seat and crouched by the vehicle.
William Johnson noticed a curious clue as he crouched in the crisp autumn air — leaves had been blown away in a line-like pattern, perhaps by air from a firearm muzzle. It created a path of exposed grass pointing from Constitution Avenue north toward the White House.
Then another call came over the radio from a supervising sergeant — the one ordering agents to stand down.
The call led to some confusion and surprise, especially for officers who felt sure they had heard shots. Nevertheless, many complied, holstering their guns and turning back to their posts.
But William Johnson knew shots were fired and got on his radio to say so. "Flagship," he said, using the code name for the command center, "shots fired."
Ortega, meanwhile, was driving away "like a maniac," the woman in the cab wrote on Twitter.
He was speeding down Constitution Avenue toward the Potomac River at about 60 mph, according to witnesses.
Ortega narrowly missed striking a couple crossing the street before he swerved and crashed his car.
Three women walking nearby heard the crash, and one called 911 on a cellphone. As they walked closer to the scene, the women saw the Honda spun around, headlights glaring at oncoming traffic, half on the on-ramp to the Roosevelt Bridge carrying Interstate 66 into Virginia. The driver's-side door was flung open. The radio was blaring. The driver was gone.
At the same time, Park Police and Secret Service patrol cars were beginning to swarm the bridge area. Nestled in the driver console was a semiautomatic assault rifle, with nine shell casings on the floor and seat.
Plihcik, the special agent who had been gassing up his patrol car, was among those arriving on the scene. A homeless man told him he had seen a young white male running from the vehicle after the crash and heading toward the Georgetown area.
Amid conflicting radio chatter, including a Secret Service dispatcher calling into 911 with contradictory descriptions of vehicles and suspects, police began looking for the wrong people: two black men supposedly fleeing down Rock Creek Parkway.
The man who had shot at the White House had disappeared on foot into the Washington night, with the Secret Service still trying to piece together what he had done.
Fear for girls' safety
Back in the White House, key people in charge of the safety of the president's family were not initially aware that a shooting had occurred.
Because officers guarding the White House grounds communicate on a different radio frequency from the one used by agents who protect the first family, the agent assigned to Sasha learned of the shooting a few minutes later from an officer posted nearby.
The White House usher on duty, whose job is tending to the first family's needs, got delayed word as well. She immediately began to worry about Malia, who was supposed to be arriving any minute. The usher told the staff to keep Sasha and her grandmother inside. Malia arrived with her detail at 9:40 p.m., and all doors were locked for the night.
The Secret Service's watch commander on duty, Capt. David Simmons, had been listening to the confusing radio chatter since the first reports of possible shots.
When word came of the wrecked Honda, Simmons left the command center and drove to the scene at the foot of the Roosevelt Bridge.
It was up to Simmons to decide whether the events of that night appeared to be an attack on the White House. After consulting with investigators and calling his bosses at home to confer, he turned the case over to the U.S. Park Police, the agency with jurisdiction over the grounds near the White House.
In effect, the Secret Service had concluded there was no evidence linking the shooting to the White House.
U.S. Park Police spokesman David Schlosser told reporters at the time that the connection was a big coincidence. "The thing that makes it of interest is simply the location, you know, a bit like real estate," he said.
At the time of the shooting, President Obama had been sitting courtside on the USS Carl Vinson warship in the California's Coronado Bay, watching the University of North Carolina and Michigan State University basketball teams play on the flight deck. He was getting ready to be interviewed by ESPN at 9 p.m.
Forty-five minutes later, the president and Michelle Obama climbed aboard Air Force One, bound for a trade summit in Honolulu, unaware that a man had taken several shots at their living quarters.
Housekeeper's discovery
The next day, things seemed to have settled down at the White House.
Officer Carrie Johnson, who had heard debris fall from the Truman Balcony the night before, listened during the roll call before her shift Saturday afternoon as supervisors explained that the gunshots were from people in two cars shooting at each other.
Johnson had told several senior officers Friday night that she thought the house had been hit. But on Saturday she did not challenge her superiors, "for fear of being criticized," she later told investigators.
Though the Park Police was now in charge of the investigation, Secret Service agents continued to assist, using social media and other sources to locate witnesses, such as the tweeting taxi passenger, and people who knew Ortega.
Investigators did not issue a national lookout to notify law enforcement that Ortega was wanted. If they had, Ortega could have been arrested that Saturday in Arlington County, Va., where police responded to a call about a man behaving oddly in a local park. They questioned Ortega but had no idea he was a suspect in a shooting, and they let him go.
The Park Police did not obtain a warrant for Ortega on weapons charges until that Sunday. A Park Police spokeswoman, reached this Friday, declined to comment, saying the agency needed more time to review the episode.
Meanwhile, Secret Service agents, who had been learning from Ortega's friends and family that he was obsessed with President Obama, began canvassing the D.C. area to locate him.
The situation at the White House remained quiet until Tuesday morning. President Obama was continuing from Hawaii to Australia. But the first lady had returned to Washington on an overnight flight. She had gone upstairs to take a nap shortly after arriving home early that morning.
Flying back on her plane was Secret Service Director Mark Sullivan. At that time, his agents were learning that Ortega, still at large, appeared to be obsessed with the president. The episode had not yet risen to the level of a confirmed threat that the Secret Service would share with the first couple, according to people familiar with agency practice.
Reginald Dickson, an assistant White House usher, had come to work early to prepare the house for the first lady.
Around noon, a housekeeper asked Dickson to come to the Truman Balcony, where she showed him the broken window and a chunk of white concrete on the floor.
Dickson saw the bullet hole and cracks in the antique glass of a center window, with the intact bulletproof glass on the inside. Dickson spotted a dent in another window sill that turned out to be a bullet lodged in the wood.
Dickson called the Secret Service agent in charge of the complex.
Suddenly, Ortega was no longer just a man who had abandoned a car with a rifle inside. He was now a suspect in an assassination attempt on the president of the United States — and he was about to become the target of a national manhunt.
Daley, the White House chief of staff, was alerted by aides about the discovery on the second floor of the residence.
The first lady was still napping, and Daley and his aides knew it was their job to tell her. They debated whether they should wake her up and give her the news.
They decided, according to people familiar with the discussions, to let her sleep. Instead, they concluded, they would brief the president and let him tell his wife.
But someone else told her first.
First lady furious
Dickson, the usher, went upstairs to the third floor to see how Michelle Obama was doing.
He assumed she knew about the bullets and began describing the discovery.
But she was aghast — and then quickly furious. She wondered why Sullivan had not mentioned anything about it during their long flight back together from Hawaii, according to people familiar with the first lady's reaction.
That afternoon, Secret Service investigators for the first time began interviewing officers and agents who had been on the grounds the previous Friday night.
Authorities put out an all-points bulletin for Ortega and circulated his picture. Local police officers up and down the Eastern Seaboard were tasked with checking train and bus stations.
A team of FBI agents met early that evening to plan for taking over the investigation and securing the crime scene at the White House.
At 7:45 a.m. the next day, FBI agents arrived at the White House complex.
They interviewed some of the Secret Service officers who were on duty that Friday night and scoured the Truman Balcony and nearby grounds for casings, bullet fragments and other evidence.
The agents that day found $97,000 worth of damage.
At that same time, state troopers were headed to a Hampton Inn in Indiana, Pa. A desk clerk, on alert after Secret Service agents found out Ortega had stayed there and circulated his picture, called police after recognizing the man with a distinctive tattoo on his neck. They arrested Ortega and kept him chained at his feet and hands in a holding cell until FBI agents could arrive to question him.
Back at the White House, Michelle Obama was worried about how the scene of agents on the family balcony might upset her daughters. She relayed a special request that the FBI team finish their work on the balcony by 2:35 p.m., before Sasha and Malia came home from school.
The first lady was still upset when her husband arrived home five days later from Australia. The president was fuming, too, former aides said. Not only had their aides failed to immediately alert the first lady, but the Secret Service had stumbled in its response.
"When the president came back . . . then the s--- really hit the fan," said one former aide.
Tensions were high when Sullivan was called to the White House for a meeting about the incident. Michelle Obama addressed him in such a sharp and raised voice that she could be heard through a closed door, according to people familiar with the exchange. Among her many questions: How did they miss bullets from an assault rifle lodged in the walls of her home?
Sullivan disputed this account of the meeting but declined to characterize the encounter, saying he does not discuss conversations with the first lady.
Problems exposed
Ortega was eventually charged with attempted assassination. His attorneys insisted he had no idea what he was doing. He pleaded guilty to slightly lesser charges and was sentenced to 25 years in prison.
The next year, the Colombia prostitution scandal rocked the agency's reputation. Sullivan retired from the agency in 2013 to start a private security firm. President Obama named the first woman to head the service, Julia Pierson, with hopes she could help end Cartagena-like embarrassments.
Yet, on Capitol Hill and among many former Secret Service officials, the 2011 shooting was a sign of far deeper troubles. For them, no duty is more sacred than protecting the life of the president and his family, and on this night a man nearly got away with shooting into his house. In this case, they fear, a more powerful weapon might have pierced the residence, or the Obama daughters could have been on the balcony.
"This is symptomatic of an organization that is not moving in the right direction," Rep. Jason Chaffetz (Utah), a leading Republican on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said in an interview. The committee, which oversees the Secret Service, has invited the director to testify at a Tuesday hearing on security issues.
A subsequent internal security review found that the incident illustrated serious gaps.
The Secret Service, for instance, could not use any of the dozens of ShotSpotter sensors installed across the city to help police pinpoint and trace gunshots. The closest sensor was more than a mile away, too far to track Ortega's shots.
Sullivan acknowledged in closed congressional briefings that the agency lacked basic camera surveillance that could have helped agents see the attack and swarm the gunman immediately.
Some of the technology issues have since been addressed, according to officials. The agency added a series of surveillance cameras in 2012, giving authorities a full view of the perimeter.
Alice Crites and Julie Tate contributed to this report.
Quote from: jimmy olsen on September 29, 2014, 12:33:13 AM
Does not paint a flattering portrait of Secret Service competence.
Thanks.
Quote"This is symptomatic of an organization that is not moving in the right direction," Rep. Jason Chaffetz (Utah), a leading Republican on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said in an interview. The committee, which oversees the Secret Service, has invited the director to testify at a Tuesday hearing on security issues.
Then stop cutting their budget, you GOP fuckstick.
Fun fact: the uniformed branch of the Secret Service--a rank structure with shift work and rotating schedules--do not get overtime pay. The secret squirrels in suits? Yeah, they get overtime. Big bone of contention in the USSS. That agency is all fucked up.
I tend to think most of the federal law enforcement agencies are all fucked up, organization-wise.
USSS doing counterfeit currency work? I think that could be handed off to Treasury or Justice (especially as the USSS is no longer under Treasury). Let the SS focus just on the protection role.
Of course, I'd can the DHS too. :P
It'd probably be better if certain crimes were under the jurisdiction of appropriate federal departments (counterfeits under Treasury, for example), in order to keep all law enforcement functions being under Justice...as that would make the Attorney General a monster appointment. But even under Justice, we'd have way too many agencies. No reason why FBI/ATF/DEA/US Marshal Service couldn't all be combined.
:lol: Seedy's excuse for any federal agency that fails - we're not spending enough money on them!!!
Quote from: derspiess on September 29, 2014, 09:12:19 AM
:lol: Seedy's excuse for any federal agency that fails - we're not spending enough money on them!!!
They've been flying in special agents from other field offices on special detail to work the White House grounds because of cutbacks to the uniformed branch. Does that sound fiscally conscientious to you, bonehead?
But we all know who you're rooting for when it comes down between a black man and a gun nut with an AK, regardless of whose house it is. Fucking mutt.
Biggest non-story ever? Some crazy dude launches an "attack" so non-threatening that no one even realizes that it happened? WTF are people thinking should have been done? Artillery fire in all directions?
It's not the first time the USSS has failed. Please see: Dallas, 1963; Killer Rabbit, 1979.
Quote from: CountDeMoney on September 29, 2014, 10:09:31 AM
It's not the first time the USSS has failed. Please see: Dallas, 1963; Killer Rabbit, 1979.
Pretzel, 2002.
Quote from: grumbler on September 29, 2014, 10:05:13 AM
Biggest non-story ever? Some crazy dude launches an "attack" so non-threatening that no one even realizes that it happened? WTF are people thinking should have been done? Artillery fire in all directions?
Limited nuclear strike at the current enemy #1 in the Middle East.
The recent fence jumper made it deeper inside the house than first reported.
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/omar-gonzalez-white-house-fence-jumper-made-it-farther-inside-n214316
Quote from: jimmy olsen on September 29, 2014, 07:08:45 PM
The recent fence jumper made it deeper inside the house than first reported.
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/omar-gonzalez-white-house-fence-jumper-made-it-farther-inside-n214316 (http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/omar-gonzalez-white-house-fence-jumper-made-it-farther-inside-n214316)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVvQJFM4WBg (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVvQJFM4WBg)
(https://i.ytimg.com/vi/bVvQJFM4WBg/mqdefault.jpg)
I'm amused that a chick SS agent was overpowered.
Women.....useless.
You got cops all over America shooting the shit out of unarmed black people on a daily basis, and yet you've got Secret Squirrels that refuse to shoot anything that poses a direct threat to a black President.
Crazy world. Someone ought to sell tickets.
Quote from: mongers on September 29, 2014, 10:54:16 AM
So the films exaggerate the SS badassery a bit? :unsure:
To Live and Die in L.A (by the guy who directed The French Connection) did not such thing! :smarty:
Quote from: CountDeMoney on September 29, 2014, 10:06:54 PM
You got cops all over America shooting the shit out of unarmed black people on a daily basis, and yet you've got Secret Squirrels that refuse to shoot anything that poses a direct threat to a black President.
Crazy world. Someone ought to sell tickets.
You never know. Some enterprising soul from Betelgeuse-5 may be doing just that.
Quote from: jimmy olsen on September 29, 2014, 07:08:45 PM
The recent fence jumper made it deeper inside the house than first reported.
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/omar-gonzalez-white-house-fence-jumper-made-it-farther-inside-n214316
Yeah, more embarrassment for the SS. Congress is holding hearings on this stuff today. Guy got past the outside grounds and into the WH quite a ways. You'd think first off that all the outside area and the fence is constantly monitored. I'm sure it is but there was a screw-up in the process. Thankfully they can learn from this before someone with more lethal intent does the same.
They're not going to learn, because like the FBI, they eat up their own mystique. Assholes.
They are trying to get that man killed.
QuoteArmed contractor with criminal record was on elevator with Obama in Atlanta
A security contractor with a gun and three convictions for assault and battery was allowed on an elevator with President Obama during a Sept. 16 trip to Atlanta, violating Secret Service protocols, according to three people familiar with the incident.
Obama was not told about the lapse in his security, these people said. The Secret Service director, Julia Pierson, asked a top agency manager to look into the matter but did not refer it to an investigative unit that was created to review violations of protocol and standards, according to two people familiar with the handling of the case who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
The incident, which took place when Obama visited the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to discuss the U.S. response to the Ebola crisis, rattled Secret Service agents assigned to the president's protective detail.
The private contractor first aroused the agents' concerns when he acted oddly and did not comply with their orders to stop using a cellphone camera to record the president in the elevator, according to the people familiar with the incident.
When the elevator opened, Obama left with most of his Secret Service detail. Some agents stayed behind to question the man and then used a national database check that turned up his criminal history.
When a supervisor from the firm providing security at the CDC approached and discovered the agents' concerns, the contractor was fired on the spot. Then the contractor agreed to turn over his gun — surprising agents, who had not realized that he was armed during his encounter with Obama.
Extensive screening is supposed to keep people with weapons or criminal histories out of arm's reach of the president. But it appears that this man, possessing a gun, came within inches of the president after undergoing no such screening.
Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), who heads a House subcommittee that oversees the Secret Service, first heard of the breakdown from a whistleblower. The Washington Post confirmed details of the event with other people familiar with the agency's review.
"You have a convicted felon within arm's reach of the president, and they never did a background check," Chaffetz said. "Words aren't strong enough for the outrage I feel for the safety of the president and his family. "
Chaffetz added: "His life was in danger. This country would be a different world today if he had pulled out his gun."
A Secret Service official, speaking on behalf of the agency, said an investigation of the incident is ongoing. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity, citing the pending review.
A White House spokesman declined to comment on the incident or say when, or if, the president had been informed of it.
In response to a question at a combative House hearing Tuesday, Pierson said she briefs the president "100 percent of the time" when his personal security has been breached. However, she said that had happened only one time this year: when Omar Gonzalez jumped over the White House fence Sept. 19 and was able to burst into the mansion.
The revelation of the lapse in Atlanta is the latest in a string of embarrassments for the Secret Service. Some elements of the incident were first reported Tuesday afternoon on the Washington Examiner's Web site.
Pierson drew criticism Tuesday from lawmakers in both parties during the hearing on her agency's security lapses. The session focused on the Secret Service's fumbled responses to the recent White House fence jumper and a 2011 shooting attack on the residence.
The fence breach came three days after Obama's trip to Atlanta.
The elevator incident exposed a breakdown in Secret Service protocols designed to keep the president safe from strangers when he travels to events outside the White House.
Under a security measure called the Arm's Reach Program, Secret Service advance staffers run potential event staff members, contractors, hotel employees, invited guests and volunteers through several databases, including a national criminal information registry, and records kept by the CIA, the National Security Agency and the Defense Department, among others. Anyone who is found to have a criminal history, mental illness or other indications of risk is barred from entry.
Local police and federal officers are not checked in the same way under the Arm's Reach Program, with the Secret Service presuming that they meet the safety standards because of their employment in law enforcement. But private security contractors would typically be checked, said two former agents who worked on advance planning for presidential trips.
For nearly every trip the president takes, at least one person is barred from attending or participating in an event because of problems discovered in his or her background, the two former agents said. Most recently, a local political campaign volunteer who was offering to help drive staffers to and from events during a visit had faced an assault charge in the past.
As part of the Secret Service's review of the elevator incident, Pierson directed a supervising agent on the president's protective detail to stay in Atlanta to examine the breakdown.
That decision aroused suspicion on Capitol Hill. Chaffetz said he believes that Pierson was trying to keep another security gaffe quiet at a time when her agency and her leadership are under fire.
Former and current agents say Secret Service leaders prefer this kind of informal internal review for assessing potentially embarrassing mistakes. They say such reviews rarely lead to broad reforms or consequences.
These agents also say it is problematic for a presidential protective detail supervisor to review how his team performed.
In an incident The Post revealed in 2013, a top manager of the president's protective detail had met a woman while drinking at a bar at the Hay-Adams hotel and had left a bullet from his service weapon in her room after spending the evening with her there. One of his superiors reviewed the incident and at first recommended that he receive a few days of counseling. The Post report about the episode led to the agency launching a fuller investigation.
Damn, that's a big breach.
I like how Rick Perry took the opportunity to brag on how comparatively tight his security is. I guess he forgot when an arsonist burned out the Governor's Mansion.
:lol: He's awesome.
Watching Pierson testifying yesterday was like watching a corpse testify. Oh, and that hair, girl.
Quote from: CountDeMoney on September 29, 2014, 10:06:54 PM
You got cops all over America shooting the shit out of unarmed black people on a daily basis, and yet you've got Secret Squirrels that refuse to shoot anything that poses a direct threat to a black President.
Crazy world. Someone ought to sell tickets.
Quite a compelling argument when you put it like that. :hmm:
For Seedy: http://boston.cbslocal.com/2014/10/01/boston-herald-apologizes-for-obama-watermelon-toothpaste-cartoon/
Quote from: derspiess on October 01, 2014, 10:30:21 AM
For Seedy: http://boston.cbslocal.com/2014/10/01/boston-herald-apologizes-for-obama-watermelon-toothpaste-cartoon/
I'm not offended but how did they not know that was in poor taste?
For the same reason people think marketing stripes shirts with gold stars on them or Kent State tees with blood stains is a good idea: nobody thinks anymore.
Quote from: CountDeMoney on October 01, 2014, 11:11:39 AM
For the same reason people think marketing stripes shirts with gold stars on them or Kent State tees with blood stains is a good idea: nobody thinks anymore.
Meh that wasn't designed and it was clearly not bloodstained either. Tempest in a teacup.
The Kent State thing was a Halloween outfit. OMG shock horror a slutty killed student! People these days. :rolleyes:
The hag in charge of the SS has been fired.
Quote from: MadImmortalMan on October 01, 2014, 02:31:06 PM
The hag in charge of the SS has been fired.
Pretty sure that was the only bullet the USSS saw coming a mile away.
Quote from: CountDeMoney on October 01, 2014, 02:45:05 PM
Quote from: MadImmortalMan on October 01, 2014, 02:31:06 PM
The hag in charge of the SS has been fired.
Pretty sure that was the only bullet the USSS saw coming a mile away.
:XD:
On the elevator guy. Turns out he's not a felon. And an armed guard at the CDC. Who was assigned to take Obama to and form his meeting.
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/11/kenneth-tate-elevator-gun-obama/382294/
QuoteThe Man Who Was Fired for Taking a Photograph of the President
Kenneth Tate, the CDC guard who lost his job after snapping a picture of Obama's motorcade, was labeled a criminal after officials discovered he had ridden an elevator with the commander in chief while armed. Now, Tate is telling his story.
Around this time last month, Americans were treated to a rare sojourn into the land of bipartisan outrage after a series of security lapses forced the resignation of Secret Service Director Julia Pierson. First, there were the revelations that, in 2011, it had taken the Secret Service several days to discover that a man had fired seven bullets into the White House and that a knife-wielding intruder had scaled the White House fence and made it far into the building before being subdued by an off-duty agent.
Hours after Pierson's testimony and hours before her resignation, word spread that a guard with an unauthorized gun had joined President Obama on an elevator at the Center for Disease Control in September. Here's how Representative Jason Chaffetz framed the incident:
"You have a convicted felon within arm's reach of the president, and they never did a background check. Words aren't strong enough for the outrage I feel for the safety of the president and his family."
Reports added that the man had drawn suspicion after taking photos and video of the president and his motorcade, and that when he was fired on the spot he had shocked Secret Service agents by handing over a gun that he was not supposed to be carrying near the president.
Over the weekend, we learned more about that man. In an interview with The New York Times, Kenneth Tate revealed several things about the brief chain of events that ultimately cost him his job.
First, and most importantly, all talk of Tate being a felon wasn't true. While his arrest record was noted in some reports, he was never convicted. Also contrary to most accounts, Tate had been assigned to tour the president around the CDC facility.
"From the reports, I was some stranger that entered the elevator," he said. "I mean, I was appointed."
While there are still some discrepancies about the chronology of the events, Tate's interview reveals a man—a black Chicago native who deeply admires President Obama, to boot—who minutes after meeting the president, shaking his hand, and briefly exchanging pleasantries, was fired from his job and never given a full explanation why.
I spoke with Tate's lawyer, Christopher Chestnut, who said that Tate's dismissal was a "baseless termination" that he would "continue to investigate and demand answers."
"This cost him everything in his life," Chestnut said, adding that the circumstances of the firing as well as the erroneous labeling of Tate as a felon had branded him with a "scarlet letter."
Of the .40-caliber handgun that Tate carried into the elevator with the president, Chestnut said that the Professional Security Corporation, Tate's employer, "had given him the gun just as they do every morning." While he stopped short of saying whether Tate would pursue a lawsuit against his former employer, Chestnut promised to follow "whatever legal recourse is necessary for justice."
The Times interview inspired a chorus to speak out in support of Tate on Twitter, calling for his job to be restored and also casting blame on those who incorrectly labeled him a felon.
Tate claims he never disobeyed Secret Service directives by getting too close to the presidential motorcade. Two weeks later, during the height of the furor, Tate's son, also a contractor at the CDC, was reportedly laid off in a "downsizing."
Secret Service is not the only one with problems.
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-29784493
QuoteJogger in PM security alert had 'no idea' what happened
A member of the public who caused a security alert when he bumped into David Cameron in Leeds has said he had "no idea" it was the prime minister.
Dean Farley said he was only aware that he had collided with Mr Cameron an hour after he had been arrested by police.
He insisted he was "not particularly political" and was just going out on his daily lunchtime jog to the gym when he ran into a "bunch of men in suits".
Mr Cameron has downplayed the incident, now the subject of a police review.
But former Deputy Prime Minister Lord Prescott, who punched a protester during the 2001 general election campaign after being hit by an egg, said the episode proved that security around top politicians needed to be "tightened up".
And speaking during a parliamentary statement on last week's EU summit, Mr Cameron jokingly made reference to the so-called "Prescott punch".
"I was actually in a meeting in Leeds speaking to a group of city leaders and other politicians and John Prescott was in the room as I gave the speech," he told MPs.
"And as I left the room I thought the moment of maximum danger had probably passed but clearly that wasn't the case."
Mr Cameron said he wanted to put on record the "debt" he owed to those who protect him on a daily basis, saying they did a "very good job".
It comes less than a week after a man threw a bag of marbles at the glass screen which separates the public from MPs in the House of Commons.
That incident took place during Prime Minister's Questions.
I don't get it? What's the problem there?
Quote from: Neil on November 05, 2014, 09:02:05 AM
I don't get it? What's the problem there?
You think security would notice a man running down the street and stop him before running into the PM. If he'd had a knife and will to kill Cameron would have been stabbed.
Quote from: jimmy olsen on November 05, 2014, 09:15:42 AM
Quote from: Neil on November 05, 2014, 09:02:05 AM
I don't get it? What's the problem there?
You think security would notice a man running down the street and stop him before running into the PM. If he'd had a knife and will to kill Cameron would have been stabbed.
But he didn't. The lone lunatic will always find a way, so rather than behaving like assholes towards everyone, just do the best you can.
Mongers would've peed on him.
If I wanted to I could stink up Languish with inane posts. But I don't. BFD.
QuoteIt comes less than a week after a man threw a bag of marbles at the glass screen which separates the public from MPs in the House of Commons.
:lol:
Quote from: jimmy olsen on November 05, 2014, 09:15:42 AM
Quote from: Neil on November 05, 2014, 09:02:05 AM
I don't get it? What's the problem there?
You think security would notice a man running down the street and stop him before running into the PM. If he'd had a knife and will to kill Cameron would have been stabbed.
The truth is senior British politicians are vulnerable to attack, but our culture won't allow them to be walled off by steel and guns like the way it is in some other countries.
For example the day Tony Blair left office, I happened to be passing through Westminster on my way to the Strand, so I stopped to see him depart and then led a Canadian tourist to the other side of the treasury and we and a few dozen other people waited for Gordon Brown to emerge, on his way to see the Queen and become Prime Minister.
So we're all standing there with about a half dozen police and I'm carrying a heavy shoulder bag, as Gordon Brown strides out, stops for photos and to savour the moment. I think he kissed his wife goodbye, though she may not have been there.
But basically I was within 15-20 feet of the future PM with a large un-search bag that could have been carrying 10-15 lbs of explosives, all you'd have to do is take one step forward and detonate a bomb, which would have almost certainly have killed him and a good few others too.
But because I'm white, polite, not an angry type I wasn't a security thread; we all sort of rely on the fact, that even today these nut-jobs and terrorists are a vanishingly small part of our population; security in numbers/by the percentages??
Quote from: mongers on November 05, 2014, 06:15:29 PM
The truth is senior British politicians are vulnerable to attack, but our culture won't allow them to be walled off by steel and guns like the way it is in some other countries.
And yet look at all the barriers round Parliament :(
Edit: And there's now a fair bit of security round Downing Street after various IRA attacks like the mortar and the Brighton bombing.
Why should they expect to be safer than the rest of the population? Every citizen should be safer than the Home Secretary. :P
Quote from: Sheilbh on November 05, 2014, 06:19:20 PM
Quote from: mongers on November 05, 2014, 06:15:29 PM
The truth is senior British politicians are vulnerable to attack, but our culture won't allow them to be walled off by steel and guns like the way it is in some other countries.
And yet look at all the barriers round Parliament :(
Edit: And there's now a fair bit of security round Downing Street after various IRA attacks like the mortar and the Brighton bombing.
Those are buildings or institutions if you wish, but not politicians, which was what I was commenting on.
We've had nothing remotely approaching the Presidential motorcade when he's on official business and I'd guess the president moves with quite a lot of security even when on holiday.
Quote from: MadImmortalMan on November 05, 2014, 06:23:59 PM
Why should they expect to be safer than the rest of the population? Every citizen should be safer than the Home Secretary. :P
That's a fair point, though personally I would like to see senior politicians with better personal security, because I think if one of these Jihadi converts got a top political scalp so to speak, it would hand them a massive propaganda coup.
The level of security is shockingly high compared to the old days. Back in the 1970s any drunken fool could stroll down Downing Street any old time of day or night and exchange badinage with the copper outside number 10 :bowler:
In general I don't think that the political classes should be protected any more than the general public. Clearly some allowances have to be made for people like the PM who are vulnerable to the attention of nutters.
:yes:
Spencer Percival was one too many.
Quote from: mongers on November 05, 2014, 06:26:01 PM
We've had nothing remotely approaching the Presidential motorcade when he's on official business and I'd guess the president moves with quite a lot of security even when on holiday.
Thank God. I remember being in Rome during the aftermath of JPII's death and we had the motorcade of one President and two exes go past. It was preposterous. People were laughing at how long it went on for, it was like something from Monty Python when they extend a joke just a bit too far.
Quote from: Sheilbh on November 05, 2014, 06:31:50 PM
Quote from: mongers on November 05, 2014, 06:26:01 PM
We've had nothing remotely approaching the Presidential motorcade when he's on official business and I'd guess the president moves with quite a lot of security even when on holiday.
Thank God. I remember being in Rome during the aftermath of JPII's death and we had the motorcade of one President and two exes go past. It was preposterous. People were laughing at how long it went on for, it was like something from Monty Python when they extend a joke just a bit too far.
:D
Indeed. I've heard people talk like those are tourist attractions in their own right, something to behold.
I think I once encountered the motorcade of a British PM, somewhere out in Hertfordshire, I guess on the way to Checkers, it amounted to a couple of motorcycle cops out front, getting you to slow down/move over to allow the prime ministerial Jag and an accompanying Range Rover to pass. And this was before the IRA gave up, so it might have been Maggie or possible Major.
The President can seriously shut down a city when he's in town. It can be problematic.
Quote from: MadImmortalMan on November 05, 2014, 06:37:54 PM
The President can seriously shut down a city when he's in town. It can be problematic.
Tell me about it. <_<
Quote from: mongers on November 05, 2014, 06:36:50 PM
Quote from: Sheilbh on November 05, 2014, 06:31:50 PM
Quote from: mongers on November 05, 2014, 06:26:01 PM
We've had nothing remotely approaching the Presidential motorcade when he's on official business and I'd guess the president moves with quite a lot of security even when on holiday.
Thank God. I remember being in Rome during the aftermath of JPII's death and we had the motorcade of one President and two exes go past. It was preposterous. People were laughing at how long it went on for, it was like something from Monty Python when they extend a joke just a bit too far.
:D
Indeed. I've heard people talk like those are tourist attractions in their own right, something to behold.
I think I once encountered the motorcade of a British PM, somewhere out in Hertfordshire, I guess on the way to Checkers, it amounted to a couple of motorcycle cops out front, getting you to slow down/move over to allow the prime ministerial Jag and an accompanying Range Rover to pass. And this was before the IRA gave up, so it might have been Maggie or possible Major.
And of course there's the pre-Troubles days with people like Alec Douglas-Home:
QuoteHow Alec Douglas-Home foiled student kidnappers with beer
By Andrew Pierce12:01AM BST 14 Apr 2008
A bungled plot by Left-wing students to kidnap Alec Douglas-Home, the Conservative prime minister, has been revealed for the first time in the coded diaries of Lord Hailsham, the former Lord Chancellor.
The unpublished papers, some of which are written in a shorthand system that was translated by staff at GCHQ, disclose that the Prime Minister averted abduction by offering his would-be kidnappers beer.
He joked that if the students removed him from the political scene the Tories would win the general election, which was due in the autumn, with a landslide.
The incident is detailed in diaries that Lord Hailsham - who was Lord Chancellor in the Heath and Thatcher governments - requested remained closed during his lifetime.
He died in 2001 and they were given to the University of Cambridge's Churchill Archives Centre. They are now being published online by the Margaret Thatcher Foundation.
They cover Edward Heath's time as prime minister from 1970-74 and are believed to be the only ones in existence from any senior member of his Cabinet.
The diaries reveal Lord Hailsham's closeness to Mrs Thatcher and her often tempestuous relationship with Mr Heath, whom she replaced as Conservative leader in 1975.
But it is the story of the kidnap that never was that will intrigue political historians.
The diary entry for Jan 9, 1977 describes how Sir Alec related the tale to Lord Hailsham and other members of a shooting party at Birkhill in Scotland.
He wrote: "An odd story of the 1964 election never published. Alec (then Prime Minister) was staying with John and Priscilla Tweedsmuir, who had no room for Alec's private bodyguard. He went to the nearest town (Aberdeen?) and John & Priscilla left Alec for a time alone in the house. Knock at the door. Door answered by PM in person.
"Deputation of Left-wing students from Aberdeen University. Said they were going to kidnap Alec. He, 'I suppose you realise if you do, the Conservatives will win the election by 200 or 300.' He asked and received permission to pack a few things & was given 10 minutes grace. After that they were offered and accepted beer. John & Priscilla returned and the kidnap project abandoned. The bodyguard swore Alec to secrecy as his job would have been in peril."
The incident took place in April 1964, when the prime minister, who had just announced that there would be an election in October, appeared at the Scottish Unionist conference.
He encountered students from Aberdeen University, who asked him to sign a forfeit for charity in return for not kidnapping him. He signed, gave them £1, and assumed it was all in good fun.
After the conference he drove in heavy fog to nearby Potterton House, the home of his hosts John and Priscilla Tweedsmuir. Mr Tweedsmuir was the son of John Buchan, the author of The 39 Steps, and his wife was a Scottish minister.
Unknown to Sir Alec, the students tailed his car. They planned to contrive an accident, block the car, and take him to a house in Aberdeen for a few hours then release him.
But they lost their nerve and Sir Alec made it to Potterton House. A group of students walked to the house, rang the bell and, to their astonishment, Sir Alec opened it.
He was apparently alone. He let the students take photos and played for time until the Tweedsmuirs returned.
Chris Collins, the editor of MargaretThatcher.org, said: "The kidnap prank was one of the worst breaches of a prime minister's personal security in the 20th century, at least that we know of.
"If Home's assailants had been darker in purpose he would have died that night."
The Tories went on to lose the 1964 election, which was won by Harold Wilson's Labour Party.
He also apparently didn't want to ruin the students lives for a silly prank, so never made any complaint :lol:
Quote from: Sheilbh on November 05, 2014, 06:44:36 PM
He also apparently didn't want to ruin the students lives for a silly prank, so never made any complaint :lol:
Respect for that. I bet they would all have their lives ruined today.
Yeah. It reminds me of the recent story about the great Mary Beard:
QuoteMary Beard reveals she befriended Twitter trolls following online abuse
Classicist says she wrote reference for one troll because she feared name-and-shame response would harm his job prospects
Hannah Ellis-Petersen
The Guardian, Wednesday 27 August 2014 19.58 BST
Academic and TV historian Mary Beard has disclosed her innovative approach to dealing with her vitriolic Twitter trolls – writing them a job reference.
The Cambridge University professor, one of the country's foremost classicists who has fought a very public battle about online etiquette after receiving a torrent of abuse on Twitter, said she has taken to befriending her vilifiers.
They include the university student Oliver Rawlings, whom she publicly named and shamed in July last year after he sent her an abusive message. Speaking in an interview with the New Yorker magazine, Beard revealed the pair had remained in touch after he took her to lunch to apologise for sending her a tweet that read: "You filthy old slut" followed by a derogatory comment about her genitalia.
Beard retweeted it to her 47,000 followers to out her abuser, but said she had now taken to writing job recommendations for Rawlings so he didn't suffer in the long term for "one moment of idiocy".
"He is going to find it hard to get a job, because as soon as you Google his name that is what comes up," she said. "And although he was a very silly, injudicious, and at that moment not very pleasant young guy, I don't actually think one tweet should ruin your job prospects."
She added: "In general, I am more concerned to be sure that people don't use the internet in this way (or don't do so again) than to seek 'punishment'."
Beard's tactic of naming-and-shaming also prompted Rawlings to make a public apology on his own Twitter account, writing: "I sincerely apologise for my trolling. I was wrong and very rude. Hope this can be forgotten and forgiven. I feel this had been a good lesson for me. Thanks 4 showing me the error of my ways."
The 59-year-old has been one of the most outspoken voices on trolls, condemning their behaviour as "vile playground bullying" and "generic, violent misogyny" after an appearance on BBC Question Time last year led to a torrent of vile sexual taunts and abuse directed at her on social media.
Beard told the New Yorker she had taken a similarly benevolent approach with another internet abuser who called her evil following her Question Time appearance. After an exchange of emails she discovered the troll was in fact upset about a problem with his healthcare. Beard then stepped in to lend assistance to him.
She said: "It took two minutes on Google to discover the reciprocal healthcare agreement, so I sent it to him. Now when I have a bit of internet trouble, I get an email from him saying: 'Mary, are you all right? I was worried about you.'"
Beard said she had also received an apology for another man who had doctored an image of her with genitalia on her face, who then revealed himself to be a married father of two. He had sent her a letter, she said, that described "how he should never have done it, in a way that was very eloquent".
Describing her constructive approach, Beard said she did not simply want to be perceived as a "long-suffering female parent" scolding her errant teenager, adding: "If being a decent soul is being maternal, then fine. I'll call it human."
A 2013 report from the organisation Working to Halt Abuse Online revealed that 72.5% of people who reported being abused on the internet in the last decade have been female. Speaking to the Guardian last year, Beard said that the ongoing trend of online harassment directed at women was nothing more than "misogyny, but it is also alienation and resentment, understandably, about the voice and the right to speak".
She added: "The web is democratising and also the voice of people who don't think they have another outlet. And that voice can be punitive."
On her personal blog, A Don's Life, which she has kept since 2006, Beard expressed further concerns on the destructive nature of internet trolling, adding: "It would be quite enough to put many women off appearing in public, contributing to political debate."
Charles Leadbeater, a former policy adviser to the Labour government, recently advocated a prize in the classicist's name to recognise those who tackled such online misogyny. "I'd love to create something like the Mary Beard prize for women online to support people who are supporting women to be able to use the internet safely," he said.
Quote from: mongers on September 29, 2014, 10:54:16 AM
So the films exaggerate the SS badassery a bit? :unsure:
But, but, they get the cool white on black counters!
:)
Quote from: Richard Hakluyt on November 05, 2014, 06:29:14 PM
The level of security is shockingly high compared to the old days. Back in the 1970s any drunken fool could stroll down Downing Street any old time of day or night and exchange badinage with the copper outside number 10 :bowler:
In general I don't think that the political classes should be protected any more than the general public. Clearly some allowances have to be made for people like the PM who are vulnerable to the attention of nutters.
I'm kind of put off about our modern sense of "hyper-security". On one hand, I understand the need, as our greater population means more potential nutters in general (and more lethal means these days), but also even in the more widespread sense, with Homeland Security, there are way more "OMG WE NEED SAFETY AND SECURITY!!!!111" nutters out there. And we're way too obsessed in being protected from any possible, or theoretical danger.
I mean hell, do we all want to live forever?
Quote from: Richard Hakluyt on November 05, 2014, 06:29:14 PM
The level of security is shockingly high compared to the old days. Back in the 1970s any drunken fool could stroll down Downing Street any old time of day or night and exchange badinage with the copper outside number 10 :bowler:
In general I don't think that the political classes should be protected any more than the general public. Clearly some allowances have to be made for people like the PM who are vulnerable to the attention of nutters.
I remember as a kid in the early 90s visiting washington DC and having Pres. Bush go by while he was out jogging. He had security, but still that would never happen now.
Quote from: alfred russel on November 05, 2014, 10:02:38 PM
Quote from: Richard Hakluyt on November 05, 2014, 06:29:14 PM
The level of security is shockingly high compared to the old days. Back in the 1970s any drunken fool could stroll down Downing Street any old time of day or night and exchange badinage with the copper outside number 10 :bowler:
In general I don't think that the political classes should be protected any more than the general public. Clearly some allowances have to be made for people like the PM who are vulnerable to the attention of nutters.
I remember as a kid in the early 90s visiting washington DC and having Pres. Bush go by while he was out jogging. He had security, but still that would never happen now.
Of course not--he hasn't been President for over 20 years. ;)
Quote from: Tonitrus on November 05, 2014, 09:56:56 PM
I'm kind of put off about our modern sense of "hyper-security". On one hand, I understand the need, as our greater population means more potential nutters in general (and more lethal means these days), but also even in the more widespread sense, with Homeland Security, there are way more "OMG WE NEED SAFETY AND SECURITY!!!!111" nutters out there. And we're way too obsessed in being protected from any possible, or theoretical danger.
I mean hell, do we all want to live forever?
You'll never outvote the scared mommys. But I agree with you.
Quote from: Richard Hakluyt on November 05, 2014, 06:29:14 PM
The level of security is shockingly high compared to the old days. Back in the 1970s any drunken fool could stroll down Downing Street any old time of day or night and exchange badinage with the copper outside number 10 :bowler:
In general I don't think that the political classes should be protected any more than the general public. Clearly some allowances have to be made for people like the PM who are vulnerable to the attention of nutters.
And that was back when the IRA was killing anything that moved.