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GOP Rep: ‘Politically Correct’ Secret Service Has Allowed 1,000 Security Lapses
nationalreview.com ^ | 9-29-2014 | Joel Gehrke

Posted on 09/30/2014 7:38:36 AM PDT by servo1969

An internal Secret Service report revealed more than “1,000 security breaches and vulnerabilities,” according to a House investigator who said that a “politically correct” culture is endangering President Obama.

“There are new details that will come out that — you really have to question if security is their number one objective,” Representative Jason Chaffetz (R., Utah), who sits on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee that is holding a Tuesday hearing on the Secret Service, tells National Review Online. “They want to be politically correct.”

Chaffetz backs that up by reference to the Secret Service’s statement on the most recent security breach, when a man jumped the White House fence and entered the building before being stopped.

“Although last night the officers showed tremendous restraint and discipline in dealing with this subject, the location of Gonzalez’s arrest is not acceptable,” the Secret Service press release said. (That statement was issued before whistleblowers revealed that the fence-jumper made it all the way to the East Room of the White House, on the second floor.)

“When is that the goal and objective of the Secret Service? ‘Restraint?’ Because he had no apparent weapons?” Chaffetz points out. “In this day and age of ISIS and suicide bombers, we don’t know what he has underneath of his clothing. He could have a dirty bomb or improvised explosive device. You just don’t know. It’s totally unfair for an agent to have to make a split second decision on whether or not to use lethal force. If you can’t get a dog or a person in between the person rushing the White House and the White House itself, you may have to use a more lethal weapon.”

Chaffetz emphasizes that “there are a lot of very good men and women” at the Secret Service, but he said that the leadership of the Secret Service has been politicized since the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

“When 9/11 happened and they reconfigure the Secret Service — took it out of Treasury; put it in Homeland Security — and made the director a Senate-confirmed position, it seems to me it became much more of a political appointee as opposed to a director who is a career servant person,” the congressman says.

The result has been a major breakdown in the morale and effectiveness of the people tasked with protecting the First Family.

“I want to hear out the director, I want to give her a chance to try to explain herself, but I’m going into the hearing with the strong impression that there is a total failure in leadership and questionable protocol,” Chaffetz says.

That concern springs in part from an internal report that surveyed 6,500 Secret Service agents, asking if they had observed any vulnerabilities or security breaches.

“And they had all these different boxes you could check. More than 1,000 of these boxes were checked,” Chaffetz says. “Now, that doesn’t mean a thousand of the 6,500 agents saw something, but there were enough agents to highlight more than 1,000 security vulnerabilities and breaches that really, really scare me.”


TOPICS: Government
KEYWORDS: obama; scandals; secret; secretservice; service; sslapes; whbreach; whitehousebreach
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1 posted on 09/30/2014 7:38:36 AM PDT by servo1969
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To: servo1969

Am I the only guy that thought a small unit of highly trained men would suddenly appear if a threat to the president were to take place?

We have men on the roof of the White House 24/7. What are they there for?

Isn’t watching the outer fence of the complex part of the their job?

Am I the only person who thinks they’d be dropped within twenty feet if I jumped that fence?


2 posted on 09/30/2014 7:45:29 AM PDT by DoughtyOne (Obama and the Left are maggots feeding off the flesh of the United States.)
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To: servo1969

I think that they’re doing just fine...;’)


3 posted on 09/30/2014 7:46:18 AM PDT by rockrr (Everything is different now...)
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To: servo1969

Cummings was bemoaning the fact that SS agents were “hesitating” to stop these interlopers.

That’s the New Barackian Way, though.


4 posted on 09/30/2014 7:46:50 AM PDT by moovova
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To: servo1969

A House investigator said that “a politically correct culture is endangering President Obama.”

Some people don’t know when to leave things alone.


5 posted on 09/30/2014 7:47:44 AM PDT by Iron Munro (We can make it work with only one square per restroom visit -- Sheryl Crow)
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To: servo1969

Shhhhhhhhh... It can be fixed after Jan 2017.


6 posted on 09/30/2014 7:50:05 AM PDT by Temujinshordes
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To: servo1969

Detroit governance has come to the Washington.


7 posted on 09/30/2014 7:56:25 AM PDT by AEMILIUS PAULUS (It is a shame that when these people give a riot)
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To: Iron Munro

We’d all like to see leftists suffer “just enough” of the consequences of their ideology to allow them to see the light -

but they won’t.

The hut scene in CS Lewis’ “Final Battle” comes to mind:

“Aslan,” said Lucy through her tears, “could you - will you - do something for these poor Dwarfs?”

“You see, “ said Aslan. “They will not let us help them. They have chosen cunning instead of belief. Their prison is only in their own minds, yet they are in that prison; and so afraid of being taken in that they cannot be taken out. But come, children. I have other work to do.”


8 posted on 09/30/2014 7:56:46 AM PDT by MrB (The difference between a Humanist and a Satanist - the latter admits whom he's working for)
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To: servo1969

Julia needs to check out the truth in advertising clause about her picture in Wikipedia vs. now.

I said yesterday that the failure was motivated by political correctness run amok.

Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julia_Pierson

Now
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2300168/Julia-Pierson-sworn-female-director-Secret-Service-male-dominated-field-marred-Columbia-prostitute-scandal.html

We all age but.... geeeesh.


9 posted on 09/30/2014 7:56:51 AM PDT by Sequoyah101 (Adversity does not build character so much as expose it.)
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To: servo1969
GOP Rep: ‘Politically Correct’ Secret Service Has Allowed 1,000 Security Lapses

A MUCH more important point is:
How many service men and women have been killed already by "Political Correctness and asinine Rules of Engagement"?

10 posted on 09/30/2014 8:00:06 AM PDT by The Sons of Liberty (I want a Speaker who'll stick that pen and phone where no one but Reggie Love can find it!)
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To: servo1969

As much as I cannot stand the current Present_dent I pray to God that nothing ever happens to him while he is in office, ever...Can you imagine, every state in the country would have 100 things named after him...”In memory of of.”

No, no, as much as I detest the man I hope he finishes out his term and moves along into obscurity and stays quiet (I can dream can’t I).


11 posted on 09/30/2014 8:02:45 AM PDT by areukiddingme1 (areukiddingme1 is a synonym for a Retired U.S. Navy Chief Petty Officer and tired of liberal BS.))
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To: moovova

ISIS claims they will plant their flag at the White House is not so far-fetched after all.


12 posted on 09/30/2014 8:02:55 AM PDT by hdstmf
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To: DoughtyOne

Obama wasn’t there when this breach occurred, so possibly they weren’t really on their toes - also, I think morale probably sucks, since Obama is supposedly very difficult to work with, and he’s obviously highly political, probably right down to the SS people he permits to be around him.

Furthermore, they are probably all reluctant to shoot or even arrest or do anything that might look like “the police acting stupid,” in the immortal words of one Barack Obama.


13 posted on 09/30/2014 8:03:22 AM PDT by livius
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To: servo1969

It’s a government what do you expect?.


14 posted on 09/30/2014 8:05:07 AM PDT by Vaduz
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To: DoughtyOne

No, you are not. I always thought so, too. Of course, ‘change’ has impacted every facet of our time. Being snarky, I could postulate that personnel were attending a mandatory ‘diversity’ training at the time.

But this is serious. The Secret Service was the last place I’d expect complacency, most especially, at THE one place where we would expect our leaders to be safe. Dan Bongino spoke briefly today that there are (4) agencies that have some level of jurisdiction on the grounds..the Secret Service, park police, National Park Service and one other. Sounds like the “Wall” and the difficulty of communications under those circumstances. Have we learned nothing??? Watching the hearings now.


15 posted on 09/30/2014 8:06:20 AM PDT by SueRae (It isn't over. In God We Trust.)
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To: servo1969

Obama could be dead because the Affirmative Action hires by the Secret Service aren’t up to the task.

Irony: The Mark of Quality Literature


16 posted on 09/30/2014 8:06:37 AM PDT by Buckeye McFrog
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To: Vaduz
From Ronald Kessler's latest book :

"A female Secret Service agent on the president’s detail is so out of shape that she literally cannot open the heavy doors to exit the president’s limousine(the Beast.) Instead of removing her from protecting the president and requiring her to pass the physical fitness tests that all agents are supposed to take every three months, Secret Service management told drivers to try to park the Beast so it would be easier for the vehicle door to swing open for her.

If the president were shot, she could not help carry him to safety, an agent notes. Agents know there is no point in complaining to a supervisor: The overweight female agent is a supervisor."

*******

I only have one comment- "A fish rots from the head down."

17 posted on 09/30/2014 8:07:30 AM PDT by servo1969
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To: Iron Munro

And here I thought Political Correctness was all bad.

Silly me. It DOES have its advantages.


18 posted on 09/30/2014 8:09:32 AM PDT by Responsibility2nd (NO LIBS. This Means Liberals and (L)libertarians! Same Thing. NO LIBS!!)
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To: SueRae

Isn’t the Secret Service supposed to be ready to “take a bullet” to protect the president? I wouldn’t even take a sharp comment for him.


19 posted on 09/30/2014 8:09:37 AM PDT by trisham (Zen is not easy. It takes effort to attain nothingness. And then what do you have? Bupkis.)
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To: livius

Those could all be true.

I am reminded how shocked I was to find out there was no national defense plan in place to protect New York or our Nation’s capital.

Honestly, nothing surprises me any longer.

We are allowing our nation to become an open borders international dumping ground.

The signs of moral decay are there. The lights are on, there’s just nobody at the helm any longer.


20 posted on 09/30/2014 8:13:30 AM PDT by DoughtyOne (Obama and the Left are maggots feeding off the flesh of the United States.)
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