Tampa Tribune March 8, 2002
Guarding President Evolves With Threats
BY KEITH EPSTEIN
WASHINGTON - When President Bush arrives in St. Petersburg this morning to give brother Jeb a political boost and talk with workers at an electronics firm, his safety will be in the hands of a security force that has been radically reshaped - and stretched thin - since the terrorist attacks Sept. 11. Secret Service agents don't just stand at the president's side anymore, listening to earpieces, talking into their lapels, or surveying the crowd through dark sunglasses. They scan streets with digital cameras and predict assassination plots using databases. They check computer systems for cyberterrorists and use devices to recognize faces and license plates from previous events.
``We're not only concerned with what's above us, below us and around us - now we're concerned about the cyberworld as well,'' said Secret Service spokesman Marc Connolly.
The shift in strategy is a sign of the strain on the Secret Service, which is struggling to provide round-the-clock protection to twice as many people as it did six months ago. The agency's 39 assignments include first lady Laura Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, members of the Cabinet, former presidents and their families. The average agent's monthly overtime: about 80 hours.
``They're coping, but I'll tell you, they're wearing out their people,'' said St. Petersburg Republican C.W. Bill Young, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, which is likely to approve more money for the agency this year.
``Sept. 11 and the realization that we are under a serious and real threat from terrorism changed a lot of things. And one of those things is that a lot of people in our government are targets and we have to protect them,'' Young said.
In response to the pressures, the Secret Service is relying on countersurveillance - using technology to predict specific threats. That means that if you attend any of today's events or happen to spot Bush as the presidential motorcade whisks him from the airport, chances are good that the Secret Service has spotted you first - and perhaps even identified you.
Looking For Patterns
The high-tech strategy ``employs state-of-the-art technology in a cost-effective manner to enhance the threat assessment and countermeasure aspects of all protective operations,'' Secret Service Director Brian Stafford told a House Appropriations subcommittee last week. ``Utilizing assessment matrices, digital photography and other tools, the Counter-Surveillance Team assesses areas of vulnerability at all venues and motorcade routes from an `outside-in' perspective.''
Or, as Stafford likes to put it less formally around the office: ``If the guns have to come out, something's gone wrong.''
Though trained to respond with force, the president's guardians are more than burly bodyguards with good aim. Days or weeks before events such as today's Republican fundraiser at the Don CeSar Beach Resort and Spa in St. Pete Beach and a round-table discussion with employees at America II Electronics Inc. in St. Petersburg, agents comb routes and study locations for vulnerabilities.
They have always done that, but now they have a longer, more complicated checklist. With the help of local police and the cooperation of event hosts - the manager of a hotel, say, or political party officials - they must examine computer systems. Reason: Computers can be used to knock out elevators, fire-readout panels, and air-intake systems. Computers run utilities, electric generators and traffic control systems.
As the president moves seemingly effortlessly between photo ops, agents use computers, digital cameras and other devices to predict likely scenarios that could threaten the president - and then respond. Pocket computers and two- way pagers might soon be used as well.
Methods can be controversial. Facial-recognition technology was used at last year's Super Bowl, prompting an outcry from civil rights advocates. Possible use of the technology at this year's premier football event triggered criticism from the American Civil Liberties Union for being ``intrusive.''
John Pike, director of globalsecurity.org, a technology policy group in Washington, said Wednesday that he believes Stafford's testimony indicates the Secret Service is using automatic face recognition now ``to see if the same guy keeps showing up in crowds. They basically photograph the entire crowd and then see if they get matches from other venues.''
A source at the Secret Service, requesting that he not be identified, said the technology was still too flawed, and controversial, to be used. Asked whether the technology was being used, agency spokesman Connolly said ``we're constantly looking at new technologies.''
Cybercops
A broader effort involves a new collaboration with the Computer Emergency Response Team at Carnegie Mellon University that serves as a kind of Internet security police force, alerting companies and government agencies to worms, viruses, and other threats to the nation's electronic infrastructure.
The aim: to prevent a computer attack that could knock out water, gas, electricity or plumbing at a place the president visits, threaten the intake and quality of air and operation of elevators, backup generators, fire alarms or even, said Stafford, ``something seemingly inconsequential as a scoreboard.''
Congressman Young is supportive. ``We need to advance the state of the art on the technology the Secret Service uses,'' he said.
Reporter Keith Epstein can be reached at (202) 662-7673.
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