Back to Departments Back to Department of Homeland Security

United States Secret Service (USSS)

Bookmark and Share
Overview:

The United States Secret Service (USSS) is a federal law enforcement agency headquartered in Washington, D.C. Established in the mid-19th century to fight counterfeiting, the Secret Service has evolved to serve a dual mission of investigating financial crimes and providing protection for the president, vice president, their families, and other political figures, both U.S. and foreign. Criminal investigations covered by the Service include computer and telecom fraud, identity theft and financial institution fraud - and recently, investigations into computer-based attacks on the nation’s financial and informational infrastructure, often under the auspice of anti-terrorist activities.

more
History:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Created in 1865 to suppress counterfeit currency, the Secret Service division was expanded two years later to include responsibility for “detecting persons perpetrating frauds against the government.” Subsequent investigations were launched into activities of the Ku Klux Klan, “non-conforming distillers, smugglers, mail robbers, land frauds, and a number of other infractions against the federal laws.” In 1883 the agency was officially acknowledged as a distinct organization within the Treasury Department. The following year, it began part-time, informal protection of President Grover Cleveland. Following the assassination of President William McKinley in 1901, Congress requested informal presidential protection, which the agency assumed full-time the following year, assigning two operatives to the White House. In 1906 the agency began investigations into western land frauds, resulting in the return of millions of acres of government land. In 1908, Service agents were transferred to the Department of Justice, forming the beginnings of the FBI. Over the next several decades, the Service was expanded to provide full-time protection for the president, his family, the vice president and president-elects - as well as a White House counter-espionage and police force. (Scope was again expanded to protect former presidents and their families, vice-presidential candidates and nominees, diplomatic missions in the capitol, visiting heads of state and other foreign officials).
 
Over the years the agency’s mission to counter fraud has also been expanded, notably through legislation granting authority to conduct civil and criminal investigations relating to federally insured financial institutions, and new kinds of fraud (computer, telemarketing, identity, etc.). In 2001, the US Patriot Act further expanded the agency’s role in countering computer fraud, authorizing the Director to establish “nationwide electronic crimes taskforces to assist the law enforcement, private sector and academia in detecting and suppressing computer-based crime.” It also increased statutory penalties for counterfeit crimes and allowed “enforcement action to be taken to protect our financial payment systems while combating transnational financial crimes directed by terrorists or other criminals.” As a result of the Homeland Security Act, the Treasury Department was gutted in 2003, losing its law enforcement divisions (Secret Service; Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms; and the Customs Service), and the Secret Service was transferred to the newly formed Department of Homeland Security.

 

Secret Service History Timeline

 

more
What it Does:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To carry out its dual mission of protection and investigation, the agency employs special agents and Uniformed Division officers. USSS special agents are responsible for both functions, and their investigative duties include various financial crimes such as counterfeiting; id, credit and debit fraud; computer fraud; federal forgery or theft; telecom fraud, etc. The USSS Uniformed Division is likened to a “specialized police force,” with officers on White House and other major details, the official residence of the vice president and foreign diplomatic missions in the Washington, D.C. area. Uniformed Division officers have support units (including Countersniper, Canine Explosive Detection Team, Emergency Response Team, Crime Scene Search Technicians and Special Operations) and a network of security posts as well as mobile patrol units.
 
Authority/ Statutory Mandate
By law, the Secret Service is authorized to protect:
  • The president, the vice president, (or other individuals next in order of succession to the Office of the President), the president-elect and vice president-elect
  • The immediate families of the above individuals
  • Former presidents, their spouses, except when the spouse re-marries
  • Children of former presidents until age 16
  • Visiting heads of foreign states or governments and their spouses traveling with them, other distinguished foreign visitors to the United States, and official representatives of the United States performing special missions abroad
  • Major presidential and vice presidential candidates, and their spouses within 120 days of a general presidential election
  • Other individuals as designated per Executive Order of the President
  • National Special Security Events, when designated as such by the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security
 
Under Title 18, Section 3056, of the United States Code, agents and officers of the United States Secret Service can:
·         Carry firearms
·         Execute warrants issued under the laws of the United States
·         Make arrests without warrants for any offense against the United States committed in their presence, or for any felony recognizable under the laws of the United States if they have reasonable grounds to believe that the person to be arrested has committed such felony
·         Offer and pay rewards for services and information leading to the apprehension of persons involved in the violation of the law that the Secret Service is authorized to enforce
·         Investigate fraud in connection with identification documents, fraudulent commerce, fictitious instruments and foreign securities and
·         Perform other functions and duties authorized by law
 
The Secret Service works closely with the United States Attorney's Office in both protective and investigative matters.
 
Investigations
 
Protection
 
Department of Homeland Security
 
Reports

Assassination in the United States: An Operational Study of Recent Asassins, Attackers, and Near Lethal Approaches

(PDF)

 

more
Where Does the Money Go:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Top 10 Contractors
Motorola, Inc.                                                              $68,309,824
Paradigm Holdings, Inc.                                                           $39,048,829
Prudential Financial, Inc.                                             $33,681,000
Government of the United States                                 $22,620,840
Dell Inc.                                                                       $21,880,950
Verizon Communications Inc.                                      $20,509,426
Bearingpoint, Inc.                                                        $14,963,912
Lockheed Martin Corporation                                      $13,255,518
Integrated Solutions, LLC                                            $12,880,222
General Motors Corporation                                        $11,566,441
Motorola Inc. provides surveillance, identity management, information services, and executive protection for the Secret Service.
 
Dell Inc. provides the Secret Service with software-related services including asset management, installation, implementation, customization, training, support and maintenance.
 
Verizon Communications won a 10-year contract with the US Department of Homeland Security to create a consolidated backbone network and a secure Internet Protocol-based network that supports all Department of Homeland Security offices, including the Secret Service.
 
General Motors Corporation was awarded contracts to provide the Secret Service with armored and unarmored vehicles, including presidential limos.
 

House Hearing on FY 2008 USSS Budget

(AOL video)

 

more
Controversies:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Arrested for Approaching Dick Cheney
A scandal erupted in the agency after the 2006 arrest of a man who approached Vice President Dick Cheney in a public setting to denounce the war in Iraq. The man in question filed a lawsuit against five Secret Service agents for free speech and civil rights violations. USSS agents, called to testify under oath in court depositions, began leveling accusations of unethical and possibly illegal conduct at one another over the case, giving what reporters called a rare glimpse into the inner workings of a normally opaque federal agency.
Secret Service: Detailed Look at ’06 Turmoil (by Kirk Johnson, New York Times)
 
Interrogated for Asking Jesus to Smite George Bush
Protest Letter to the Secret Service (Reporters’ Committee for Freedom of the Press)
 
Secret Service and Monica Lewinsky
NBC Report Spins Into a Controversy (by Lloyd Grove, Washington Post)
 
Hiding the Names of Who Visited Bush and Cheney
White House challenges release of visitor logs (by Matt Apuzzo, Associated Press)
 
Controversial Domestic Surveillance

 

more
Suggested Reforms:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

From the Left
According to the ACLU, pending Patriot Act reform will, in part, “expand the power of the Secret Service to limit access to so-called ‘national security events,’ whether or not security is needed to protect the president. And anyone who uses false credentials or violates a Secret Service perimeter can now be charged with a federal crime.”
 
From the Right
Reforming the Homeland Security Department Is Unlikely (by Ivan Eland, Independent Institute)

Homeland Security Grant Reform: Congressional Inaction Must End

(by James Jay Carafano and Jamie Metzl, Heritage Foundation)

 

more
Debate:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Debate over the USSS tends to focus on the PATRIOT Act and the Department of Homeland Security and issues surrounding the Bush Administration’s new anti-crime and anti-terrorist activities. The PATRIOT Act mandated the creation of a nationwide network of Electronic Crimes Task Forces to investigate and prosecute cyber- and other “new” crimes.
 
See organizations such as the ACLU for information on the threat to civil liberties posed by this new legislation, right wing groups for justification, and Libertarian organizations (e.g., Heritage, as in “Reforms” section) for criticism of spending.
 
Cyberstalking law opens debate on what's annoying (by Richard Willing, USA Today)
Hackers and the U.S. Secret Service (by Benjamin J. Fox, UCLA Online Institute for Cyberspace Law and Policy)

Secret Service Data Compromised in T-Mobile Hack: Hack exposed information on 400 customers, including a U.S. Secret Service agent

(by Paul Roberts, PC World)

 

more

Comments

Rene Vazquez 6 years ago
I would like to know how to email the Secret Service, I was a victim of Fraud I called the Secret Service office but they haven't contacted me, i was trying to email them the information about the fraud but their website doesn't have an address.
Gill 9 years ago
Instead of building a "fake" White House for training purposes, how about getting rid of the fake in the White House and using it for training of a valid president.
Harry Fischer 10 years ago
Hello I believe that we are being hacked and fraud is being commenced against us. Can you please let me know where I can possibly report that or seek help? Thanks
Marylee Raymond Diamond 11 years ago
I would like to make a secondary report (after my local police precinct) to the Secret Service regarding telecom fraud. How do I do this?
This Guy 14 years ago
If you've been contacted by Astrology.com and their "forecasts" have offered you a "terrifying" detailed description of your life (aka- your "profile"), then you've been targeted by a USSS covert investigation and been subsequently PSYOPS'ed by these goons. They obviously didn't like the fact that I had caught, red-handed, the Bush Family lawyer, one Alan Shapiro, both stealing and then subsequently ERASING my identity. How do you like me now, Shappy? I think that it's time that you...
John D Oliver private man 14 years ago
Please investigate the money laundering scheme the secretary of U.S.treasury and State of Hawaii has been commiting by alowing the open bonded probate accounts of thousands of hawaiian families to used in order to creat public tax liabilities from private assets held in a forign probate trust accounts.The heirs and judicial devisees have notified senator Daniel Inouye many times and he has continued use public tax funds derived from private estates in probates without notification t...

Leave a comment

Founded: 1865
Annual Budget: $1.4 billion
Employees: 3,200 special agents, 1,300 Uniformed Division officers, and more than 2,000 other technical, professional and administrative support personnel.
Official Website: http://www.secretservice.gov/
United States Secret Service (USSS)
Alles, Randolph
Director

President Donald Trump’s love affair with generals continued on April 25, 2017, when he appointed Randolph D. “Tex” Alles, a former Marine Corps aviator who retired in 2011 as a major general, to lead the U.S. Secret Service. Alles is the first Secret Service director in more than one hundred years who did not come from within the Secret Service ranks.

 

Alles is from San Antonio, Texas, graduating from MacArthur High School in 1972. He went on to Texas A&M University, where he was in the Corps of Cadets and Campus Crusade for Christ. He was commissioned a second lieutenant in the Marine Corps upon graduation with a bachelor’s degree in accounting and went to flight school. Alles in 1999 earned an M.A. in national security and strategic studies at the Naval War College.

 

Alles flew several types of fighter and attack planes—logging more than 300 combat hours—and was an instructor at the Navy Fighter Weapons School, better known as Top Gun.

 

Alles was commander officer of Marine Aircraft Group 11 on January 9, 2002, when one of its planes, a KC-130 not equipped with night-vision equipment, crashed on landing in Pakistan, killing seven Marines. It was the greatest loss of life in the war to that point. The crash was later found to have been due to pilot error. The following year, after it was found that U.S. forces were using a napalm-like substance in the war in Iraq, Alles defended it, saying, “The generals love napalm. It has a big psychological effect.” U.S. officials had previously denied using napalm, splitting hairs on a difference in the compound of what was used in Iraq and what was previously used in Vietnam and other conflicts. Napalm was banned in 1980, but the United States government refused to sign the international agreement.

 

In 2005, Alles was named commanding general at the Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory and vice chief of naval research. He moved on in 2008 to lead the Third Marine Aircraft Wing during the Iraq War, as well as serving as commanding general of Al Asad Air Base in Iraq. The following year, Alles was made director of strategic planning and policy in the U.S. Pacific Command. In that role, he led a 2010 delegation to Chinese-U.S. maritime safety talks.

 

After his Marine Corps retirement, Alles moved to U.S. Customs and Border Protection in March 2012 as deputy assistant commissioner for the Office of Air and Marine Operations. The following January, Alles was made assistant commissioner leading that office. He took the air part of the job so seriously that he often wore a flight suit to work at his office. Alles had to defend the use of $18 million Predator drones, costing more than $12,000 an hour to operate, for drug interdictions when other, cheaper platforms were available. His job included attacking the marijuana trade in the Bahamas. Alles was made acting deputy commissioner of CBP upon Trump’s inauguration, a post he held until taking over the Secret Service.

 

Alles and his wife, Sarah, have two children, Joe and Ellen.

-Steve Straehley

 

To Learn More:

Officials Confirm Dropping Firebombs on Iraqi Troops (by James W. Crawley, San Diego Union-Tribune)

Official Biography (Customs and Border Protection)

Official Announcement

more
Callahan, William
Previous Acting Director

William J. Callahan, a career member of the United States Secret Service, took over as acting head of the agency after the March 4, 2017, retirement of Joseph Clancy.

 

Callahan is from New York. His father, William L. Callahan, was a New York City Police captain and his mother, Ann Marie, was an office manager.

 

After graduating from Manhattan College, Callahan joined the Secret Service in 1991 as a special agent in the New York field office.  He subsequently held positions including assistant to the special agent in charge (ATSAIC) of the Presidential Protective Division; ATSAIC for the Office of Homeland Security; and assistant inspector within the Inspection Division.

 

He was assistant special agent in charge at the Detroit Field Office, and was ultimately promoted to the special agent in charge. In 2009, Callahan led an investigation that helped break up a $6.2 million mortgage fraud case.

 

In 2011, Callahan was named deputy assistant director in the Office of Administration and in 2013 he assumed a similar role in the Office of Protective Services. Callahan was made assistant director in that office in 2015. In December 2016, he was promoted to deputy director of the Secret Service.

 

It didn’t take long for Callahan to encounter controversy as acting director. On March 10, 2017, 26-year-old Jonathan Tuan-Anh Tran entered the White House grounds and was not detected for 16 minutes. On March 16, it was discovered that an agency laptop was stolen from an agent’s car in New York. The laptop was said to have had security plans for Trump Tower and other sensitive information on it.

 

Callahan and his wife, Kara, whom he married in 1994, have two children.

-Steve Straehley

 

To Learn More

Official Biography

Weddings; Kara A. Dolan, William Callahan (New York Times)

more

Table of Contents
Bookmark and Share
Overview:

The United States Secret Service (USSS) is a federal law enforcement agency headquartered in Washington, D.C. Established in the mid-19th century to fight counterfeiting, the Secret Service has evolved to serve a dual mission of investigating financial crimes and providing protection for the president, vice president, their families, and other political figures, both U.S. and foreign. Criminal investigations covered by the Service include computer and telecom fraud, identity theft and financial institution fraud - and recently, investigations into computer-based attacks on the nation’s financial and informational infrastructure, often under the auspice of anti-terrorist activities.

more
History:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Created in 1865 to suppress counterfeit currency, the Secret Service division was expanded two years later to include responsibility for “detecting persons perpetrating frauds against the government.” Subsequent investigations were launched into activities of the Ku Klux Klan, “non-conforming distillers, smugglers, mail robbers, land frauds, and a number of other infractions against the federal laws.” In 1883 the agency was officially acknowledged as a distinct organization within the Treasury Department. The following year, it began part-time, informal protection of President Grover Cleveland. Following the assassination of President William McKinley in 1901, Congress requested informal presidential protection, which the agency assumed full-time the following year, assigning two operatives to the White House. In 1906 the agency began investigations into western land frauds, resulting in the return of millions of acres of government land. In 1908, Service agents were transferred to the Department of Justice, forming the beginnings of the FBI. Over the next several decades, the Service was expanded to provide full-time protection for the president, his family, the vice president and president-elects - as well as a White House counter-espionage and police force. (Scope was again expanded to protect former presidents and their families, vice-presidential candidates and nominees, diplomatic missions in the capitol, visiting heads of state and other foreign officials).
 
Over the years the agency’s mission to counter fraud has also been expanded, notably through legislation granting authority to conduct civil and criminal investigations relating to federally insured financial institutions, and new kinds of fraud (computer, telemarketing, identity, etc.). In 2001, the US Patriot Act further expanded the agency’s role in countering computer fraud, authorizing the Director to establish “nationwide electronic crimes taskforces to assist the law enforcement, private sector and academia in detecting and suppressing computer-based crime.” It also increased statutory penalties for counterfeit crimes and allowed “enforcement action to be taken to protect our financial payment systems while combating transnational financial crimes directed by terrorists or other criminals.” As a result of the Homeland Security Act, the Treasury Department was gutted in 2003, losing its law enforcement divisions (Secret Service; Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms; and the Customs Service), and the Secret Service was transferred to the newly formed Department of Homeland Security.

 

Secret Service History Timeline

 

more
What it Does:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To carry out its dual mission of protection and investigation, the agency employs special agents and Uniformed Division officers. USSS special agents are responsible for both functions, and their investigative duties include various financial crimes such as counterfeiting; id, credit and debit fraud; computer fraud; federal forgery or theft; telecom fraud, etc. The USSS Uniformed Division is likened to a “specialized police force,” with officers on White House and other major details, the official residence of the vice president and foreign diplomatic missions in the Washington, D.C. area. Uniformed Division officers have support units (including Countersniper, Canine Explosive Detection Team, Emergency Response Team, Crime Scene Search Technicians and Special Operations) and a network of security posts as well as mobile patrol units.
 
Authority/ Statutory Mandate
By law, the Secret Service is authorized to protect:
  • The president, the vice president, (or other individuals next in order of succession to the Office of the President), the president-elect and vice president-elect
  • The immediate families of the above individuals
  • Former presidents, their spouses, except when the spouse re-marries
  • Children of former presidents until age 16
  • Visiting heads of foreign states or governments and their spouses traveling with them, other distinguished foreign visitors to the United States, and official representatives of the United States performing special missions abroad
  • Major presidential and vice presidential candidates, and their spouses within 120 days of a general presidential election
  • Other individuals as designated per Executive Order of the President
  • National Special Security Events, when designated as such by the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security
 
Under Title 18, Section 3056, of the United States Code, agents and officers of the United States Secret Service can:
·         Carry firearms
·         Execute warrants issued under the laws of the United States
·         Make arrests without warrants for any offense against the United States committed in their presence, or for any felony recognizable under the laws of the United States if they have reasonable grounds to believe that the person to be arrested has committed such felony
·         Offer and pay rewards for services and information leading to the apprehension of persons involved in the violation of the law that the Secret Service is authorized to enforce
·         Investigate fraud in connection with identification documents, fraudulent commerce, fictitious instruments and foreign securities and
·         Perform other functions and duties authorized by law
 
The Secret Service works closely with the United States Attorney's Office in both protective and investigative matters.
 
Investigations
 
Protection
 
Department of Homeland Security
 
Reports

Assassination in the United States: An Operational Study of Recent Asassins, Attackers, and Near Lethal Approaches

(PDF)

 

more
Where Does the Money Go:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Top 10 Contractors
Motorola, Inc.                                                              $68,309,824
Paradigm Holdings, Inc.                                                           $39,048,829
Prudential Financial, Inc.                                             $33,681,000
Government of the United States                                 $22,620,840
Dell Inc.                                                                       $21,880,950
Verizon Communications Inc.                                      $20,509,426
Bearingpoint, Inc.                                                        $14,963,912
Lockheed Martin Corporation                                      $13,255,518
Integrated Solutions, LLC                                            $12,880,222
General Motors Corporation                                        $11,566,441
Motorola Inc. provides surveillance, identity management, information services, and executive protection for the Secret Service.
 
Dell Inc. provides the Secret Service with software-related services including asset management, installation, implementation, customization, training, support and maintenance.
 
Verizon Communications won a 10-year contract with the US Department of Homeland Security to create a consolidated backbone network and a secure Internet Protocol-based network that supports all Department of Homeland Security offices, including the Secret Service.
 
General Motors Corporation was awarded contracts to provide the Secret Service with armored and unarmored vehicles, including presidential limos.
 

House Hearing on FY 2008 USSS Budget

(AOL video)

 

more
Controversies:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Arrested for Approaching Dick Cheney
A scandal erupted in the agency after the 2006 arrest of a man who approached Vice President Dick Cheney in a public setting to denounce the war in Iraq. The man in question filed a lawsuit against five Secret Service agents for free speech and civil rights violations. USSS agents, called to testify under oath in court depositions, began leveling accusations of unethical and possibly illegal conduct at one another over the case, giving what reporters called a rare glimpse into the inner workings of a normally opaque federal agency.
Secret Service: Detailed Look at ’06 Turmoil (by Kirk Johnson, New York Times)
 
Interrogated for Asking Jesus to Smite George Bush
Protest Letter to the Secret Service (Reporters’ Committee for Freedom of the Press)
 
Secret Service and Monica Lewinsky
NBC Report Spins Into a Controversy (by Lloyd Grove, Washington Post)
 
Hiding the Names of Who Visited Bush and Cheney
White House challenges release of visitor logs (by Matt Apuzzo, Associated Press)
 
Controversial Domestic Surveillance

 

more
Suggested Reforms:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

From the Left
According to the ACLU, pending Patriot Act reform will, in part, “expand the power of the Secret Service to limit access to so-called ‘national security events,’ whether or not security is needed to protect the president. And anyone who uses false credentials or violates a Secret Service perimeter can now be charged with a federal crime.”
 
From the Right
Reforming the Homeland Security Department Is Unlikely (by Ivan Eland, Independent Institute)

Homeland Security Grant Reform: Congressional Inaction Must End

(by James Jay Carafano and Jamie Metzl, Heritage Foundation)

 

more
Debate:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Debate over the USSS tends to focus on the PATRIOT Act and the Department of Homeland Security and issues surrounding the Bush Administration’s new anti-crime and anti-terrorist activities. The PATRIOT Act mandated the creation of a nationwide network of Electronic Crimes Task Forces to investigate and prosecute cyber- and other “new” crimes.
 
See organizations such as the ACLU for information on the threat to civil liberties posed by this new legislation, right wing groups for justification, and Libertarian organizations (e.g., Heritage, as in “Reforms” section) for criticism of spending.
 
Cyberstalking law opens debate on what's annoying (by Richard Willing, USA Today)
Hackers and the U.S. Secret Service (by Benjamin J. Fox, UCLA Online Institute for Cyberspace Law and Policy)

Secret Service Data Compromised in T-Mobile Hack: Hack exposed information on 400 customers, including a U.S. Secret Service agent

(by Paul Roberts, PC World)

 

more

Comments

Rene Vazquez 6 years ago
I would like to know how to email the Secret Service, I was a victim of Fraud I called the Secret Service office but they haven't contacted me, i was trying to email them the information about the fraud but their website doesn't have an address.
Gill 9 years ago
Instead of building a "fake" White House for training purposes, how about getting rid of the fake in the White House and using it for training of a valid president.
Harry Fischer 10 years ago
Hello I believe that we are being hacked and fraud is being commenced against us. Can you please let me know where I can possibly report that or seek help? Thanks
Marylee Raymond Diamond 11 years ago
I would like to make a secondary report (after my local police precinct) to the Secret Service regarding telecom fraud. How do I do this?
This Guy 14 years ago
If you've been contacted by Astrology.com and their "forecasts" have offered you a "terrifying" detailed description of your life (aka- your "profile"), then you've been targeted by a USSS covert investigation and been subsequently PSYOPS'ed by these goons. They obviously didn't like the fact that I had caught, red-handed, the Bush Family lawyer, one Alan Shapiro, both stealing and then subsequently ERASING my identity. How do you like me now, Shappy? I think that it's time that you...
John D Oliver private man 14 years ago
Please investigate the money laundering scheme the secretary of U.S.treasury and State of Hawaii has been commiting by alowing the open bonded probate accounts of thousands of hawaiian families to used in order to creat public tax liabilities from private assets held in a forign probate trust accounts.The heirs and judicial devisees have notified senator Daniel Inouye many times and he has continued use public tax funds derived from private estates in probates without notification t...

Leave a comment

Founded: 1865
Annual Budget: $1.4 billion
Employees: 3,200 special agents, 1,300 Uniformed Division officers, and more than 2,000 other technical, professional and administrative support personnel.
Official Website: http://www.secretservice.gov/
United States Secret Service (USSS)
Alles, Randolph
Director

President Donald Trump’s love affair with generals continued on April 25, 2017, when he appointed Randolph D. “Tex” Alles, a former Marine Corps aviator who retired in 2011 as a major general, to lead the U.S. Secret Service. Alles is the first Secret Service director in more than one hundred years who did not come from within the Secret Service ranks.

 

Alles is from San Antonio, Texas, graduating from MacArthur High School in 1972. He went on to Texas A&M University, where he was in the Corps of Cadets and Campus Crusade for Christ. He was commissioned a second lieutenant in the Marine Corps upon graduation with a bachelor’s degree in accounting and went to flight school. Alles in 1999 earned an M.A. in national security and strategic studies at the Naval War College.

 

Alles flew several types of fighter and attack planes—logging more than 300 combat hours—and was an instructor at the Navy Fighter Weapons School, better known as Top Gun.

 

Alles was commander officer of Marine Aircraft Group 11 on January 9, 2002, when one of its planes, a KC-130 not equipped with night-vision equipment, crashed on landing in Pakistan, killing seven Marines. It was the greatest loss of life in the war to that point. The crash was later found to have been due to pilot error. The following year, after it was found that U.S. forces were using a napalm-like substance in the war in Iraq, Alles defended it, saying, “The generals love napalm. It has a big psychological effect.” U.S. officials had previously denied using napalm, splitting hairs on a difference in the compound of what was used in Iraq and what was previously used in Vietnam and other conflicts. Napalm was banned in 1980, but the United States government refused to sign the international agreement.

 

In 2005, Alles was named commanding general at the Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory and vice chief of naval research. He moved on in 2008 to lead the Third Marine Aircraft Wing during the Iraq War, as well as serving as commanding general of Al Asad Air Base in Iraq. The following year, Alles was made director of strategic planning and policy in the U.S. Pacific Command. In that role, he led a 2010 delegation to Chinese-U.S. maritime safety talks.

 

After his Marine Corps retirement, Alles moved to U.S. Customs and Border Protection in March 2012 as deputy assistant commissioner for the Office of Air and Marine Operations. The following January, Alles was made assistant commissioner leading that office. He took the air part of the job so seriously that he often wore a flight suit to work at his office. Alles had to defend the use of $18 million Predator drones, costing more than $12,000 an hour to operate, for drug interdictions when other, cheaper platforms were available. His job included attacking the marijuana trade in the Bahamas. Alles was made acting deputy commissioner of CBP upon Trump’s inauguration, a post he held until taking over the Secret Service.

 

Alles and his wife, Sarah, have two children, Joe and Ellen.

-Steve Straehley

 

To Learn More:

Officials Confirm Dropping Firebombs on Iraqi Troops (by James W. Crawley, San Diego Union-Tribune)

Official Biography (Customs and Border Protection)

Official Announcement

more
Callahan, William
Previous Acting Director

William J. Callahan, a career member of the United States Secret Service, took over as acting head of the agency after the March 4, 2017, retirement of Joseph Clancy.

 

Callahan is from New York. His father, William L. Callahan, was a New York City Police captain and his mother, Ann Marie, was an office manager.

 

After graduating from Manhattan College, Callahan joined the Secret Service in 1991 as a special agent in the New York field office.  He subsequently held positions including assistant to the special agent in charge (ATSAIC) of the Presidential Protective Division; ATSAIC for the Office of Homeland Security; and assistant inspector within the Inspection Division.

 

He was assistant special agent in charge at the Detroit Field Office, and was ultimately promoted to the special agent in charge. In 2009, Callahan led an investigation that helped break up a $6.2 million mortgage fraud case.

 

In 2011, Callahan was named deputy assistant director in the Office of Administration and in 2013 he assumed a similar role in the Office of Protective Services. Callahan was made assistant director in that office in 2015. In December 2016, he was promoted to deputy director of the Secret Service.

 

It didn’t take long for Callahan to encounter controversy as acting director. On March 10, 2017, 26-year-old Jonathan Tuan-Anh Tran entered the White House grounds and was not detected for 16 minutes. On March 16, it was discovered that an agency laptop was stolen from an agent’s car in New York. The laptop was said to have had security plans for Trump Tower and other sensitive information on it.

 

Callahan and his wife, Kara, whom he married in 1994, have two children.

-Steve Straehley

 

To Learn More

Official Biography

Weddings; Kara A. Dolan, William Callahan (New York Times)

more

Footer Menu
Copyright © 2016 AllGov.com. All rights reserved
Created by David Wallechinsky
Developed by IT Labs