Obama's Secret Service: Publiekelijk zeggen dat beveiliging niet 100% is?

[Cees Binkhorst]

REPLY TO: D66 at nic.surfnet.nl

En ik altijd maar denken dat als je zegt dat iets geheim is, je al te veel
verteld :)

Groet / Cees

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=7644369&page=1
Obama at Risk? Secret Service Disputes Own Tech Worries
Documents Say IT Woes Threaten USSS Mission; a Spokesman Says Otherwise
By JUSTIN ROOD

May 21, 2009—

The technology the U.S. Secret Service depends on to protect the president
and carry out other vital missions is woefully out of date, and could put
the life of President Obama or other White House protectees at risk, the
service said in a new document. But that's not the case at all, according
to a Secret Service spokesman.

First, the document a 2010 budget request: Without upgrades costing an
estimated $33 million, it says, the Secret Service faces the threat of a
"near-term mission failure."

In particular, the document claims, Secret Service communications systems
aren't compatible with the White House's own, leaving a "dangerous gap"
that, (it states in dire but carefully-worded bureaucratese) could
ultimately "prevent the attainment of the performance target of 100
percent protection."

Moreover, the request delivered to Congress earlier this month -- says
Secret Service servers, networking technology and software are in "a
degraded state" and are "adversely impacting critical operational
missions." The service's IT systems "cannot sustain the tempo of current
operations," it claims. Without the millions in upgrades, the Secret
Service could be unable to communicate during a crisis, or hacked by
foreign intruders.

"USSS' protective and investigative missions will be functionally unable
to respond to the increasing volume of threats without additional
investment," the service says in its budget request.

Now, the spokesman.

"Despite the challenges we are currently facing with an aging IT
infrastructure, this will not interfere with our ability to carry out our
protective and investigative missions at this time," Secret Service
spokesman Darren Blackford told ABC News, reading from a prepared
statement. "We are currently working with the Department of Homeland
Security to resolve our deficiencies."

Asked about the apparent discrepancies between his statement and the more
alarmist language in the Secret Service budget request, Blackford
demurred. "I'm just going to leave it at that statement," he said, "that
it's our opinion it's not affecting our protective or investigative
missions at this time."
"The Government Is Broken"

Scott Lilly, a former congressional appropriations aide, said the
situation looked to him like evidence that "the government is more broken,
generally, than has been appreciated."

The Secret Service may have technology problems, Lilly allowed -- but if
they were so dire, it would be unusual for the service to detail them in
an unclassified document.

"In my experience with the Secret Service," said Lilly, now at the liberal
think tank Center for American Progress, "if they had problems like that
they tended to communicate it verbally, rather than make a big deal in a
public document about it. I don't know why they'd do that."

Lilly noted that before such requests go to Congress, they're vetted and
approved by aides reporting to the head of the Secret Service, the
Department of Homeland Security, and the head of Obama's Office of
Management and Budget. "It's gone all the way up the chain."

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