United States Secret Service

Sartre ~ State Sponsored Assassination Culture

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“Sorrowfully, government officials are locked into a denial mindset that disassociates any relationship and connection between increased levels of risks to officials and the sanctioned killings approved by their governments.” – Sartre

Obama_US_DronesThe ongoing failures of the Secret Service to provide proper protection for the President have political careerists in a tizzy. Scares that harm could come to the commander-in-chief, also worries the press. Ordinary citizens on principle, accept that the White House should be secure grounds. Rotating blame usually means that the buck does not stop on the oval office desk. Indeed, who could expect any President to be responsible for their own safety? Surely, policy decisions made as a government could not possibly have any bearing on the lunatics that harbor ill will towards our fearless leaders.

Refreshing your memory, Abraham Lincoln, James Garfield, William McKinley and John F. Kennedy got whacked. Andrew Jackson, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan were targets of serious assassination attempts.

With all the Secret Service trial and tribulations experienced in the last years, the popular assessment is that the Praetorian Guard bodyguards have become a dysfunctional band of self-indulgent thrill seekers.

How much money is enough to spend on Presidential security? Some like ousted Secret Service Director Julia Pierson presumably would say a price tag cannot be placed on keeping the leader alive and safe from assassination. Though, Pierson failed to provide fresh start for Secret Service that administration wanted, proves that the culture of political privilege deems their importance to be most costly. Continue reading →

President Signs Law Placing Prior Restraint on Free Speech

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Joe Wolverton II | The New American | March 12 2012

Daniel Webster warned: “It is hardly too strong to say that the Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions. There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters.”

Without fanfare, on March 8, 2012, President Barack Obama signed into law H.R. 347 the Federal Restricted Buildings and Grounds Improvement Act of 2011.

Readers may assume that there was no grand announcement of this law’s enactment as its name sounds like something to do with giving gardeners guidelines for sprucing up the lawns around government buildings in Washington.

Alternatively, perhaps one could see some of those “good intentions” that Daniel Webster described. Most media coverage of this bill paints it as a beefed up effort to protect the President and other top-rank government officials from assassination attempts and other threats of violence.

As readers of The New American will suspect, there is much more to this law than mainstream media reports or President Obama’s brief announcement of his signing of it would indicate.

For example, in one section of this new legislation, individuals are expressly forbidden under penalty of law from trespassing onto the grounds of the White House. Of course, such an encroachment was already illegal, so why the new provision?

There is already a D.C. ordinance that prosecutes White House trespassers. Violation of this provision of the city code was a misdemeanor.

The penalties for such trespass are much more severe, now, however. Under H.R. 347, Congress may at its discretion impose federal criminal charges on not only those who enter the White House grounds without prior permission, but on anyone who participates in protests at or near a location falling within the greatly enlarged scope of this new prohibited zone.

In addition to the increased legal ramifications for trespassing on White House grounds, the penalty for protesting within the shifting high security zone is enough to give pause to those contemplating participation in a protest against a government official or policy.

One example of how H.R. 347 imposes an unconstitutional prior restraint on political speech and assembly is found in Section (c) of the act. This paragraph defines the key phrase “restricted buildings” as follows:

“[R]estricted buildings or grounds” means any posted, cordoned off, or otherwise restricted area —

(A) of the White House or its grounds, or the Vice President’s official residence or its grounds;

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