With reports circulating that the White House party crashers, Michaele and Tareq Salahi, shook hands with President Obama, and more reports (which I can confirm through independent reporting) coming out about high-level White House anger at the Secret Service, the agency today issued the following, fairly extraordinarily public statement today, in the words of director Mark Sullivan:
"The Secret Service is deeply concerned and embarrassed by the circumstances surrounding the State Dinner on Tuesday, November 24. The preliminary findings of our internal investigation have determined established protocols were not followed at an initial checkpoint, verifying that two individuals were on the guest list.
Although these individuals went through magnetometers and other levels of screening, they should have been prohibited from entering the event entirely. That failing is ours.
The Secret Service safely processed more than 1.2 million visitors last year to the White House complex. In the last several years, the agency has successfully protected more than 10,000 sites for the President, Vice President and other Secret Service protectees, screening more than 7 million people through magnetometers at campaign related events, with more than 1 million during the Inauguration alone.
Even with these successes, we need to be right 100% of the time. While we have protocols in place to address these situations, we must ensure that they are followed each and every time.
As our investigation continues, appropriate measures have been taken to ensure this is not repeated.
The men and women of the U.S. Secret Service are committed to providing the highest level of security for those we are charged to protect, and we will do whatever is necessary to accomplish this mission."
This happens all the time to Homeland "Security". It is not new.
When congressional investigators tested the goodness of security by Homeland Security (Secret Service is a part of Homeland Security) they were able to take bombs into any federal building within 27 seconds.
It is so easy even an caveman can do it desperadoes.
Good thing that the greater part of that terrorism fear is propaganda.
So unlax a bit and smile at a foreigner for heaven sake.
I think I now understand why this force was named "Secret"...they have plenty to hide.
Frankly, I like seeing Fortress Washington penetrated in this way - while alas, it will probably cause a further layer of paranoid armor to be added to the existing security theatre, it is good to see it taking down a peg. Perhaps for an encore we can get Mathias Rust to land a light plane on the Mall or the South Lawn.
There really is no further link that is needed. Just someone to pay attention to what was done in the past. Google the name Cathy Hargraves and you will see what I mean.
I know it's Thanksgiving, but there were so many typos in this that it was hard to understand... Does the Atlantic have an online editor?
FYI - the Secret Service is part of the Treasury Department, not Homeland Security.
Very funny picture of our doofus (and drunk looking) vice president with his arms around the uninvited guests.
There's an extraordinary review of a new book on NSA by James Bamford at NYRB which describes the costly lengths we go to in "protecting" Americans while screwing up on a regular basis. It all looks a little like the way we conduct our wars of choice: a great deal of money to private contractors, very little in the way of relevant security. It's hard not to resent the money spent even as we skimp and grumble our way through health care.
Still, I share with Rick Jones (above) a certain delight at seeing a fissure in the wall around official (and media) Washington. The notion of the White House as being everyone's house gets lost behind the pomposity which has taken a firm hold of The Village.
Thats not much of a public apology. I imagine the private one was quite redfaced and some folks were demoted.
Seems to me that the protocol that was missed was the placement of someone from the East Wing there to verify the address. That was because the person who used to do it was demoted and deemed not really necessary.