I am often asked if being a Secret Service special agent was like the 1993 Clint Eastwood movie “In the Line of Fire.” I always reply, no it was more like the 1994 Nicolas Cage movie, “Guarding Tess.”
During my time as a special agent, there were moments of adrenaline and focus where history and major geopolitical implications hung in the balance — for example when a sniper was discovered looking at President Obama through a rifle scope, or the time someone crashed their car into President George W. Bush’s front yard.
There were also other times that were not so glamorous.
I once had to take a shovel from a pregnant Secret Service protectee trying to shovel snow in front of her house. I cleared the sidewalk as her significant other, for whatever reason, watched it all from the front window. You won’t see that scene in the movies.
The Eastwood movie also didn’t quite capture the plight of agents who have to clean up their protectees after they soil themselves in transit — and yes, I was once on a flight where another agent had to do this.
Despite the hard work of agents, there have been two assassination attempts on former President Trump since July. The public has lost confidence in the agency’s ability to protect members of the executive branch and their families. Members of Congress from both sides of the political aisle and others have strongly criticized the Secret Service.
Most of those criticizing the Secret Service have no professional experience in conducting complex protective operations at the presidential level. The masses have suddenly become experts on what it takes to protect America’s elected (or former) leaders.
What do their criticisms get wrong?
U.S. Secret Service protective operations do not just happen. Most take weeks of planning and involve multiple components of the agency.
For example, an in-and-out visit to the Washington Hilton (commonly called the “Hinkley Hilton by the Secret Service) for a 10–15-minute speech by the president requires approximately 100 agents or more. Motorcade routes must be determined, and the route is coordinated with multiple local and federal agencies ensuring that traffic is blocked. The building is surveyed, protective intelligence checks are conducted and a hospital is designated and staffed. The list of tasks goes on and on.
Other small logistical details also need to be worked out. Agents assigned to the motorcade must check that the president’s limo is fully gassed up. Other agents coordinate with presidential staff to determine who will ride with the president. Some agents at the hotel determine if the stairwells are pressurized in the event of a fire and how many stories a Washington D.C. Fire Department ladder truck can reach.
A million other small logistical details that require attention are often overlooked and unnoticed by outsiders. Most focus only on the agents immediately around a Secret Service protectee. Complex protective operations require professionals. Hard skills such as shooting, protective driving and defensive tactics are important to agents. But without first accomplishing the small logistical details, those skills are meaningless.
During my time as a special agent, I worked with multiple foreign and U.S. law enforcement and elite special operations units. What always separated the Secret Service was its ability to also focus on the importance of logistics.
One example is a discussion I had once with a U.S. Navy Seal officer on an African airport tarmac. The officer, whose SEAL team had been assigned to assist us on a protective mission, had neglected to obtain the necessary U.S. embassy clearances and visas and his team almost wasn’t able to join us.
We live in a free democracy. And contrary to some Libertarian opinions, America is not a surveillance state like China or Russia. Americans come and go in this country with little to no interruption or intrusion from the government.
In Russia or China, a person like Thomas Crooks, who fired an assault-style rifle at President Trump during a July rally in Pennsylvania, or Ryan Routh, who was arrested earlier this month in another likely assassination attempt on Trump, would have been jailed indefinitely months or years ago for publicly expressing any criticism of the government.
In America, we do not jail anyone without probable cause that they have committed a crime. Publicly expressing an interest in assassinating a politician or elected leader in the U.S. may or not be a crime depending on the level of the interest and if the person has taken proactive steps to carry out their plan.
Because of our free democratic system, anyone willing to trade his life to assassinate a political figure will probably have a good opportunity. Protecting America’s elected leaders is hard. The Secret Service must balance the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights during protective missions.
The U.S. is a country of approximately 337 million residents. The Secret Service cannot keep tabs on everyone.
The Secret Service has a no-fail mission. In a perfect world, it would shut down every business and roadway within miles of the president and establish a no-move corridor. Every person within 1,000 yards or more would be name-checked and their DNA would be run through international databases to confirm any links to international terrorism. But this just isn’t the world we live in.
If the Secret Service had its way, the president would live in an Elon Musk-designed bullet and bomb-proof bunker for 365 days a year. The Secret Service would bring out the president one day a year to wave at a crowd from behind bulletproof glass, only to go back immediately into the bunker.
But presidents and those running for president must get out and meet the public. This is how a democracy functions.
The Secret Service in the past several years adopted a robust drone program to conduct overhead surveillance and provide overwatch for events. However, technology has limits. According to reports, the Secret Service drones were grounded during the July 13 event in Butler, Pa. due to technological problems. Additionally, there is no available advance team to conduct a 100 percent security screen for every person within 1,000 yards of a president or former president.
There can be improvements made to the agency. It should create a partnership with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which has created just about every major modern technology for the U.S. military, including stealth technology and drones. DARPA could assist in solving technological gaps, particularly for better screening for large crowds and better radio communications, which we now know was a serious issue during the Butler incident.
Additionally, the Secret Service’s budget should be increased so that it can hire more special agents. This will allow agents more time away from the protective mission to spend with their families and train on hard skills like driving, shooting and jujitsu.
However, even with these improvements it still won’t be like the movies.
Bill Gage is a former U.S. Secret Service special agent. He was in the Washington field office from 2002 to 2007 and was on the counter assault team from 2007 to 2013. He served from 2002 to 2013 during the George W. Bush and Obama presidencies.
