United States Secret Service

“ I am an official in the United States Secret Service. I, and others like me, try to guard the welfare of our country and to expose or thwart persons who are that country's enemies or who are working to injure its interests. ”

“ No person shall be appointed a member of the United States Secret Service Uniformed Division at a grade lower than the grade held by him as a member of the Metropolitan Police force or of the United States Park Police force at the time of his appointment. ”

“ As our Government has become more complex, agencies other than the Secret Service have become involved in phases of the overall problem of protecting our national leaders. The FBI is the major domestic investigating agency of the United States, while the CIA has the primary responsibility for collecting intelligence overseas to supplement information acquired by the Department of State. The Secret Service must rely in large part upon the investigating capacity and experience of these and other agencies for much of its information regarding possible dangers to the President. ”

“ The occasional use of personnel from other Federal agencies to assist in protecting the President has a further advantage. It symbolizes the reality that the job of protecting the President has not been and cannot be exclusively the responsibility of the Secret Service. The Secret Service in the past has sometimes guarded its right to be acknowledged as the sole protector of the Chief Executive. ”

“ All of which goes to prove how futile is the attempt of one mind to reason as another would. For there had been several reasons why Dixie Mason concealed her connection with the Secret Service. The first and biggest was her order from the Chief that she work herself into the confidence of those highest in Germany's spy system in the United States, and that she tell no one of her connection with the Secret Service. ”

“ His colleagues held him in high esteem. His methods were quiet and successful, and his participation in the offences against America's peace might have passed unproven had he not been engaged in a too-absorbing conversation one day in August, 1915, upon a Sixth Avenue elevated train. He started up to leave the train at Fiftieth Street, and carelessly left his portfolio behind him—to the tender care of a United States Secret Service man. It contained documents revealing his complicity in enterprises the magnitude of which beggars the imagination. ”

“ In attempting to identify those individuals who might prove a danger to the President, the Secret Service has largely been the passive recipient of threatening communications to the President and reports from other agencies which independently evaluate their information for potential sources of danger. ”

“ But on out-of-town trips where the route is decided on and made public only a few days in advance, buildings are not checked either by Secret Service agents or by any other law enforcement officers at the request of the Secret Service. With the number of men available to the Secret Service and the time available, surveys of hundreds of buildings and thousands of windows is not practical. ”

“ Such risks can be lessened when the President recognizes the security problem, has confidence in the dedicated Secret Service men who are ready to lay down their lives for him and accepts the necessary security precautions which they recommend. Many Presidents have been understandably impatient with the security precautions which many years of experience dictate because these precautions reduce the President’s privacy and the access to him of the people of the country. ”

“ It is customary for Americans to declare that they possess no system of espionage in their country, and as a rule this is true of American life under normal conditions. Putting aside the questions of purely detective work and criminal investigation, and in these spheres of police activity America is probably served as well as any other country in the world, we may safely say that there is too much individual or social freedom in the United States to warrant the permanent existence of anything like organised espionage. ”

“ With the present lively activity of the ‘Secret Service’ it must be avoided, not only in the interest of our Firm but also in the interest of Germany as a whole, that our agents in neutral foreign countries would come through improper handling to the attention of the ‘Secret Service’ and economically ruined by it within a short time. ”

“ The Subcommittee will continue to conduct oversight on the Department of Homeland Security=s role in securing the Nation against terrorism, including the operations of all law enforcement functions transferred to the Department and coordination with federal, state, and local law enforcement.
A. Secret Service. The Subcommittee will monitor the Secret Service=s ability to combat the cyber criminals and terrorists who attempt to use identity theft, telecommunications fraud, and other technology-based crimes to defraud and undermine American consumers and industry. ”

“ This kind of political espionage is, it may be said, quite as common in England, or Canada, or Australia, or France, or Germany as in the United States, for as it has been said: "So long as there are governments so long will there be political spies, and so long as there are attempts being made to overturn governments by force, so long will political espionage remain a necessity." ”

“ This is especially necessary with regard to the FBI and CIA, which carry the major responsibility for supplying information about potential threats, particularly those arising from organized groups, within their special jurisdiction. Since these agencies are already obliged constantly to evaluate the activities of such groups, they should be responsible for advising the Secret Service if information develops indicating the existence of an assassination plot and for reporting such events as a change in leadership or dogma which indicate that the group may present a danger to the President. ”

“ In 1894, while investigating a plot to assassinate President Cleveland, the Service assigned a small protective detail of agents to the White House. Secret Service men accompanied the President and his family to their vacation home in Massachusetts and special details protected him in Washington, on trips, and at special functions. These informal and part-time arrangements led to more systematic protection in 1902, after the assassination of President McKinley; the Secret Service, then the only Federal investigative agency, assumed full-time responsibility for the safety of the President. ”

“ Benson," I returned, shaking him loose as I would a feather, "this is all very well; but in your haste and surprise you have made a slight mistake. You call me a spy; so I am; but a spy backed by the United States Government is not a man to be put lightly into prison. I am a detective, sir, connected at present with the Secret Service at Washington. My business is to ferret out crime and recognize a rogue under any disguise and in the exercise of any vile or deceptive practices." ”

“ Agents are instructed that it is not their responsibility to investigate or evaluate a present danger, but to consider any untoward circumstances as serious and to afford the President maximum protection at all times. No responsibility rests upon those agents near the President for the identification or arrest of any assassin or an attacker. Their primary responsibility is to stay with and protect the President.
Beyond these two principles the Secret Service believes a detailed contingency or emergency plan is not feasible because the variations possible preclude effective planning. ”

“ With two Federal agencies operating in the same general field of preventive investigation, questions inevitably arise as to the scope of each agency’s authority and responsibility. As the testimony of J. Edgar Hoover and other Bureau officials revealed, the FBI did not believe that its directive required the Bureau to notify the Secret Service of the substantial information about Lee Harvey Oswald which the FBI had accumulated before the President reached Dallas. ”

“ The plan provides for an additional 205 agents for the Secret Service. Seventeen of this number are proposed for the Protective Research Section; 145 are proposed for the field offices to handle the increased volume of security investigations and be available to protect the President or Vice President when they travel; 18 agents are proposed for a rotating pool which will go through an intensive training cycle and also be available to supplement the White House detail in case of unexpected need; and 25 additional agents are recommended to provide the Vice President full protection. ”

“ Various departments of governments have also their own departmental secret service, for the better guarding against frauds, such as in the United States, the Treasury Department and the Post Office.
The various European codes generally have dealt with breach of secrecy, e.g. s. 300 of the German Penal Code imposes a fine up to 1500 marks and imprisonment up to three months on doctors, attorneys and other professional persons who reveal a secret entrusted to them in their professional capacity. ”