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Secret Service
The United States Secret Service
by Kevin Gordon
The United States Secret Service is an agency known by officers around the world as the agency that protects the President of the United States. But the Secret Service does much more than that and has a long and interesting history. Hollywood has made numerous movies about the Secret Service such as Absolute Power (1997), Air Force One (1997), Dave (1993), First Kid (1996), Guarding Tess (1994), In the Line of Fire (1993), and Murder at 1600 (1997). While these were certainly entertaining, like most Hollywood police movies, they were not very accurate!
The Secret Service as an agency was formed just after the American Civil War. It has been estimated that at the end of this war, about one half of all the paper money in America was counterfeit. The phony money was hurting the American economy and the US Congress created the Secret Service to combat the counterfeiting. Formed in July 1865, the agency was part of the Treasury Department. Within a decade the efforts of the agency had paid off, as there was very little counterfeit money left in the US.
President Lincoln had been assassinated in April 1865, just a few months prior to the formation of the Secret Service. A few years later in 1881, President Garfield was assassinated and then in 1901, President McKinley was assassinated. Members of Congress believed it was time to begin protecting the President and that duty was assigned to the Secret Service. Protecting the President became an official duty after 1906 legislation.
While initially only the President was provided protection, this expanded and evolved over the years as others were added as protectees in addition to the President. In 1913, the President-elect was added, in 1917, the President's immediate family was added and it became a federal crime to make threats toward the President. In 1961, the agency was authorized to protect former presidents and in 1962, the protection coverage was added to the Vice President and the Vice President elect.
After President Kennedy was killed in 1963, Congress approved the protection of Mrs. Kennedy and her children for two years. Prior to this only former Presidents were protected. In 1965, Congress decided we should protect not only former presidents but also their spouses for life and their minor children up to the age of 16. Anyone watching the US president race this year is aware of the Secret Service protection of the candidates. This protection wasn't provided until 1968, and was a direct result of the assassination of Senator Robert Kennedy. The Secret Service was charged with the protection of major president and vice president candidates.
In 1971, the Secret Service was authorized to begin protecting the visiting heads of foreign state and other official guests. While former Presidents receive lifetime protection, partly in response to financial issues, Congress decided in 1997, that Presidents elected from January 1997 on will only receive protection for 10 years after they leave office. There are presently about 3,200 special agents in the agency and about 2,000 other support and technical personnel.
The uniform branch of the Secret Service is not as well known but has about 1,300 officers and was formed in October of 1922, as the White House Police Force. It was placed under the supervision of the Secret Service in 1930. In 1970, it was given a new name, the Executive Protective Service. In addition to protecting the White House, the Force began protecting the various Washington DC area diplomatic missions. This was expanded in 1975, to include the protection of diplomatic missions beyond Washington DC, located around America. Another name change came in 1977, the Executive Protective Service became the Secret Service Uniformed Division. In 1986, the Treasury Police Force was merged into the Secret Service Uniformed Division.
As evidenced by the Agency Mission Statement, the US Secret Service does more than protect people. According to the Agency, “The mission of the United States Secret Service is to safeguard the nation's financial infrastructure and payment systems to preserve the integrity of the economy, and to protect national leaders, visiting heads of state and government, designated sites and National Special Security Events.
The protection of individuals and investigating counterfeit money may be the most well know task of the agency, but not the only tasks. The Secret Service investigates counterfeiting of other US Government obligations and the theft or forgery of Treasury checks, bonds and other securities. Their jurisdiction also covers a variety of fraud including credit card, computer, identify and telecommunications. In response to counterfeiting of American currency on foreign soil, Congress passed a bill in 1994, that permits the US to prosecute anyone who manufactures, traffics or possesses counterfeit US currency abroad, just as if the crime was committed inside the US borders.
In response to the World Trade Center attack of 2001, the United States Congress established The Department of Homeland Security and about twenty agencies were moved to that new Department. The Secret Service was transferred to the Department of Homeland Security from the Department of Treasury in March of 2003. This year is the fifth anniversary of this move.
