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Musicmystery -> RE: I have a really bad feeling.................. (11/6/2008 7:53:28 AM)
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quote:
In fact, the secret service did not begin protecting presidents until 1901. Even then, it was it's second tier mission.
from the US History Encyclopedia: Secret Service
On 5 July 1865, the Secret Service was established as a division of the Department of the Treasury to combat the widespread counterfeiting of United States currency. At the time, a loosely organized monetary system contributed greatly to the instability of the nation's currency. State governments issued their own bank notes through private banks. During the early 1860s, more than 1,600 of these banks designed and printed their own bills. Efforts to adopt a national currency were also hampered by counterfeiters. The result was that during the Civil War, as much as one-third of American currency was counterfeit.
With the appointment of William P. Wood as its first chief, the Treasury Department's Secret Service used organized investigative efforts that produced a considerable impact in suppressing counterfeiting. The Secret Service also was asked to investigate other crimes that, in time, would be tasked to other government agencies. These included mail fraud, armed robberies, Ku Klux Klan activities, drug smuggling, naturalization scams, peonage cases, fraud involving land and oil reserves, and counter-espionage during the Spanish-American War and World Wars I and II.
After President William McKinley was assassinated in 1901, presidential protection of Theodore Roosevelt became part of the Secret Service mission. In 1906, Congress passed legislation that officially delegated the Secret Service to provide Presidential protection. This was extended to the President-elect in 1913, and for members of the President's immediate family beginning in 1917. In that same year, Congress enacted legislation making it a crime to threaten the President by mail or by any other manner.
The Secret Service is now authorized to protect the president, vice president, president-elect, vice president-elect; the immediate families of these individuals; former presidents and their spouses (presidents taking office after 1996 receive protection for ten years following the end of their term); children of former presidents until age sixteen; visiting heads of foreign state or governments and their spouses; major presidential and vice presidential candidates; and other individuals as directed by the president.
The United States Secret Service Uniformed Division assists in the organization's protective mission. Its mission includes providing protection at the White House and surrounding buildings; numerous embassies and missions in the Washington, D.C., area; and the vice president's residence. This is accomplished through a series of fixed posts, vehicular and foot patrols, and specialized support units.
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