Discussion for article #242079
Man, I used to love the Secret Service when Clint Eastwood was in it.
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They protect 24/7 but, as we’ve heard today, Congressional nonsense puts budgets in doubt or, by law, low-bid-equipped that must make adequate staffing a complete nightmare.
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These guys didn’t join The Hive, did they? I always thought The Hive was full of dynamism.
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Except for that one time he screwed up…
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Man, the SS is a mess. At least now we know how all of Obama’s fucks escaped…
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“Secret Service Officers Found Sleeping On The Job At White House.”
Hey, you try maintaining consciousness when POTUS tunes into a Jeb!? speech.
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All that Jebba Jabba…it’s like aural Ambien…
two Secret Service officers were found asleep at their posts
Were they discovered by Clarence Thomas during one of his inception dream invasions? Check the Coke cans.
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Analogous to pro sports: As the franchise expands the quality of players deteriorates.
There’s not a dime’s worth of difference between these guys and some cop walking a beat in Times Sq.
In fairness, they were protecting Ben Carson.
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Unwind Homeland Security. The whole manticore mess. Break it up, send all of the agencies back where they came from, park the new ones in the agency they should be in (like, say, putting TSA in Transportation), and watch things get better in all of them in a hurry.
When they were in separate departments, each of these agencies were the glamorous sexy crown jewels of the departments they were in, with direct access to a cabinet secretary anxious to make them, and him/her self look good. Secret Service was that to Treasury, Diplomatic Protection was that to State (though admittedly INS was the red-headed stepchild), FEMA was that to Interior, and God knows that the Coast Guard was closest thing to a sexy agency in the Department of Transportation.
Folding all of these agencies into FEMA means they have to compete against each other for cabinet level attention and resources which necessarily results in the prioritization turf-battling bureaucracy rather than mission. Break it up!
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I’d put Sarah Palin in charge of these guys in a heart beat. She understands them.
Fits her, much better assignment than Secretary of Energy
It’s not a systemic problem in the Secret Service. It’s a systemic problem in the security industry as a whole.
Since I retired from the Postal Service about seven years ago, I’ve been working as a security guard for several companies, at shopping/office centers and for the last several years at a large sports-equipment manufacturer’s facility.
Folks, security can be an extraordinarily boring job. Even on the day shifts, a large majority of one’s time is spent just standing around, or going from Point A to Point B and back again and back again and back again. Security is largely about having someone on hand to respond to those (infrequent to rare) moments when it’s NOT mind-numbing routine.
On the night shifts, when nothing at all is happening, it’s even harder to stay alert or awake. In the wee hours, you can feel your brain slowing down and trying to stop. If you’re the roving guard, you at least get to move around as you check doors and buildings. The guy in the gate shack gets to stare at an empty parking lot for eight hours, punctuated only by sporadic radio calls from the rover. It is HARD to stay awake sometimes, even if you’re a responsible employee. (My employer lets the graveyard guys listen to audiobooks or music on an earbud, or it would be even harder.) There have been a few times when I’ve started to fall asleep while walking.
Yeah, the Secret Service has a greater responsibility than most security guards, with greater chances of catastrophe if they fall down on the job. That doesn’t keep their job from being boring. I would hazard a guess that 90% of their time is spent standing around in a hallway while their assignment is taking meetings (or a nap).
(Yes, there is deliberate abuse sometimes. I got posted to one shopping center after the two night guards there failed to answer a welfare check from the home base; police were sent to check, and found both asleep. I was told the exit interview for one of the guards went about like this: “I’m really sorry, boss. I just couldn’t stay awake. It won’t happen again.” “The police said both of you had pillows and blankets. Get out of my office.”)
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So much of this top-down institutionalization was introduced during Republican administrations. It is the way big business thinks and stifles initiative from within the ranks. How to un-do?