Are The Secret Service Guard Dogs Deadly

U.S. Hugger-mugger Service countersniper squad members stand on the roof of the White House on Monday. Flake Somodevilla/Getty Images hibernate caption

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Flake Somodevilla/Getty Images

U.S. Hole-and-corner Service countersniper team members stand up on the roof of the White House on Monday.

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

It turns out the Underground Service isn't too practiced at protecting the White Firm, and perhaps one reason is that we don't desire it to exist.

Secret Service agents are famously willing to sacrifice their own lives to protect the president and his family. They are also trained to take the lives of others in defense of their protectees.

But are they every bit prepared to do either of those things for the White House itself? Should information technology be policy for the armed agents effectually 1600 Pennsylvania Artery to use deadly strength whether the president or his family unit is present or not?

Most Americans meet the White Firm equally a symbol of the nation, like the Capitol or the flag. Nearly practise not realize how exposed the physical reality of that symbol is, situated in the center of a major urban metropolis with an antiquated security argue just yards from the front door.

Information technology is surely possible for the Hole-and-corner Service to shoot anyone who jumps or squeezes through that fence, but in recent months that would accept included at least one errant toddler — whose story was told in the media as a cute dorsum-page "bright."

It is also surely possible to electrify the argue or its immediate vicinity, merely that would very likely lead to incidents of an unpleasant nature — and all the predictable reaction in the media and beyond.

In either outcome, the Clandestine Service would be pilloried as either inept or tearing. The president would exist portrayed as besieged, unfeeling, remote. Even the signs on the argue alert of lethal consequences would be a ghastly epitome.

In 1995, a truck bomber in Oklahoma City killed 168 people and leveled a major federal building. In response, the Clandestine Service succeeded in closing Pennsylvania Avenue to vehicles, lest a copycat park a truck within yards of the North Portico of the White Business firm.

But even now, information technology is possible for pedestrians to go close enough that a sprinter can cross the grass and enter the building. That is what 42-yr-old Omar Gonzalez was able to do on a Fri night. The Washington Post revealed this calendar week that Gonzalez got to the Dark-green Room on the footing floor before being subdued. That contradicted earlier reports of his being stopped in the entryway.

All this led to the resignation of Surreptitious Service Managing director Julia Pierson, following an animated House hearing Tuesday on the incident. Member after member denounced the officials of the agency, proclaiming their stupor and dismay. Surely they spoke for millions of their constituents, who usually rank the Hush-hush Service among the federal agencies they are nigh inclined to trust.

Yes, the agents could have shot him. They also could have released trained dogs that might have taken him down. But that would have meant an ugly story about the treatment of a man carrying cipher more threatening than a pocketknife, equally was noted at the hearing past former Secret Service Director West. Ralph Basham.

"Nosotros could be here having a very different conversation," said Basham, making the point that decisions about security at the White House were not and had never been the province of his bureau alone.

The Secret Service has never been able to guarantee the safety of the president. That indicate has been stated and restated endless times. Anyone willing to substitution his own life for that of the president has always had, and nevertheless has, at least a theoretical chance of succeeding.

The recent revelations about the jumper and of an unknown gunman hitting the White House in November 2011 are disturbing and should prompt a review of agency policy and practice — and some soul-searching on the role of all concerned.

But there are as well audio reasons behind the reluctance to build an impregnable White Firm. Draconian measures such as closing Pennsylvania Avenue to pedestrians or barricading Lafayette Square park across the street would be undesirable and unattractive — offensive to the national mental attitude toward the White Business firm as "the people's firm."

The president plain must exist protected. Just what politician wants to be seen as living within a fortress in a state of siege?

In aboriginal Roman times, top generals mitt-picked a few legionnaires to baby-sit their own personal headquarters. The HQ was chosen a praetor, and the protectors became known equally praetorian guards. These elite units grew in size and importance until Caesar Augustus made them his official protectors.

Over the next three centuries the praetorians became a key chemical element in Rome's recurring ability struggles, sometimes protecting emperors and sometimes assassinating them. Since then the term praetorian has been used to connote a protective inner circumvolve that either grows also powerful or otherwise becomes a trouble.

The Underground Service is surely a far cry from such a force. But allowing armed guards all the elbowroom they might crave to do their chore perfectly tin can accept unintended consequences besides.

Are The Secret Service Guard Dogs Deadly,

Source: https://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2014/10/01/353045573/the-white-house-could-be-made-a-fortress-but-should-it

Posted by: johnsonexaled1944.blogspot.com

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