It’s not easy being the perfect federal agency, but the U.S. Secret Service really has no other choice. One screw-up and the whole government could come crashing down.
Considering the new threats coming at the agency charged with protecting the president, vice president, and visiting leaders, the latest score sheet looks even more amazing. According to Secret Service Director Mark Sullivan, who’s been on Capitol Hill pitching his fiscal 2013 budget of $1.6 billion, the agency has a “100 percent incident-free” record for 5,616 domestic and 399 international travel stops, mostly for the president and vice president.
And this year those numbers are expected to soar as the presidential campaign coverage expands, he said. One added highlight expected to sap the agency: Obama’s plan to give his Democratic National Convention acceptance speech at Bank of America Stadium, home to the [Charlotte, North] Carolina Panthers.
Campaigns, are expensive for the Secret Service. Just the last month of candidate protection, the debates and Presidential Inauguration will cost $58 million, said the agency.
And potential attackers are getting more sophisticated, according to Sullivan. “These threats include domestic and international terrorist groups, homegrown violent extremists, and lone offenders,” he said.
While most of his testimony is being given behind closed doors, Sullivan hinted that the threats are everywhere, even in the air potentially against Air Force One, making it hard to keep that 1.000 batting average. As the bad guys have smartened up, he said, the agency has too using “such tools as airspace interdiction systems and chemical, biological, radiological, and explosive detections systems.”
