Abby Callery, Staff Writer
Two recent security breaches within the White House have resulted in the resignation of the head of the Secret Service. The Secret Service has been under the spotlight due to a collection of past and recent breaches in security. Beginning in 2009 with Tareq and Michaele Salahi intruding on President Obama’s first state dinner, the downfall of the Secret Service is apparent with the many breaches within the past couple of months.
The Secret Service is the branch of the Department of Homeland Security responsible for providing protection to the president and investigating certain types of financial crime. The Secret Service’s duties are to protect the White House and its inhabitants, which were not shown within the past month.
On September 16, a White House contractor, armed with a gun, stepped into an elevator with Obama himself. The Secret Service was unaware of the gun until he was fired, and turned it over to the security. Julia Pierson, the director of the Secret Service ordered for the head of an agency to look into the matter, rather than handing it over to an investigative unit.
Three days later, on September 19, a war veteran, armed with a knife jumped the White House Fence and got as far as the East Room before being stopped by an off-duty member of the Secret Service.
“It’s clear that our security plan was not properly executed. This is unacceptable and I take full responsibility and I will make sure that it does not happen again,” Pierson stated at a hearing regarding the incident posted on the Washington Post.
Pierson also addressed the reduction of Secret Service members within the past year. The Secret Service is 550 employees below their “optimal level.” With the Secret Service being down 550 people, is the president in danger?
”Originally I don’t think anyone ever thought that they would have to question the security of the White House. I do think that it’s safe now because they are taking more precautions and making everything more secure,” NHS senior Victoria Madden said. Now with the spot light on the security of the White House, hopefully there is more reassurance that President Obama is in good hands.
“Overall, I do think the President is in safe hands. Of course from time to time there is going to be some sort of lapse and in a free society no matter what our security level is there could be the potential for someone to slip like this. The good thing is they caught him before he endangered the president,” NHS history teacher Jason Edwards said.
While these breaches had serious consequences, Obama is indeed safe in his home tonight. “If anything it was just a fluke,” NHS senior Kyle Watkins said.
The head of a house subcommittee supervising the Secret Service, Jason Chaffetz said in a recent interview with The Washington Post that “[President Obama’s] life was in danger. This country would be a different world today if he had pulled out his gun.”
“I think that the breaches themselves are pretty serious,” NHS English teacher Jacob Thomas said. “I don’t know if a president is ever going to be safe. I think that’s part of the job but there are certainly some things the Secret Service could’ve done in that instance.”
Being in the eye of the media and essentially the whole country, Pierson stepped down from the head of the Secret Service. "Congress has lost confidence in my ability to run the agency," Pierson said in an interview with Bloomberg News. "I can be pretty stoic about it, but not really. It's painful to leave as the agency is reeling from a significant security breach."
