By Dan Bongino
The words “worthy of trust and confidence” are emblazoned across the halls of nearly every Secret Service office around the world. Recent security failures have damaged both the public’s trust and confidence in the agency, and politically driven fixes will do nothing but lay a foundation for yet more security breaches. To have confidence in security, one must have confidence in the organization that provides that security.
While the agents and officers of the Secret Service are the best security professionals in the world, the organizational system they work under institutionalizes mission creep, stifles operational feedback, creates bureaucracy and ignores their needs.
Fortunately, common-sense reforms do not come with partisan baggage and budget growth that stops initiative and problem-solving in Washington, D.C.
The administration and Congress can clarify its role, give greater say to agents and officers, reduce the bureaucracy and eliminate procedures that harm agents, and the institutional ideals of this agency can be restored. What is required is the will to review the agency from a management perspective, not a political one.
Legendary management guru Peter Drucker said, “[F]igure out what you should do and do it, (and) decide what you should not do.” The first priority to get the Secret Service focused on the business of security is to end the dual mandate of investigating financial crimes and executive protection, which have nothing to do with each other. This dual mission goes back to the founding of the Secret Service in 1865, when suppressing counterfeit currency was needed to improve the economy following the civil war. After the assassination of President William McKinley in 1901, Congress directed the Secret Service to protect the president of the United States.
Dan Bongino’s “Life Inside the Bubble” is available at the WND Superstore
With decades of jurisdiction over financial crimes, the Departments of Treasury and Justice can absorb these historical duties of the Secret Service. In terms of financial investigations, nobody foresaw the consequences of a permanent enactment of the income tax in 1913 and an IRS to enforce it. For better or worse, as long as there is an income tax, the IRS will have a role in financial crimes. The origins of the FBI in 1908 started with investigative expertise provided by the Secret Service. Likewise, nobody predicted the federalization of crimes, or the advent of interstate banking and the subsequent growth of the FBI. The fact that General Electric sold kitchen appliances for a century does not stop the corporation from shedding the division today to advance larger strategic objectives. The same flexibility to realign functions should apply in the public sector to focus on priorities.
One sure way to stifle much-needed feedback in any organization is to make it a career liability to provide it. Ill-defined management systems such as creating an Office of Integrity, as the Secret Service has done in recent years, require employees to publicly air concerns that management may dislike. Information in the wrong hands can lead to careers being sidetracked indefinitely, and the word gets out. Add to that the political atmosphere of the White House, for which the director of the Secret Service ultimately answers to, and security concerns in the field are easily trumped or dismissed altogether. The Secret Service is constantly dealing with the friction between the White House staff’s interest in positive exposure for the president and the rank-and-file agent’s security duties. A powerless internal office in the Secret Service is nothing more than a talking point for congressional hearings and is not going to adequately handle sensitive security issues going up the chain of command where action can be taken.
Long-established safeguards embodied in the 1978 Inspector General Act help prevent political interference and ensure technical competence. That means an inspector general at the Secret Service would be selected based on experience in management, security, intelligence and law enforcement. They are empowered to review operational security details, operate under discretion and initiate long-term improvements. The position would be further strengthened if U.S. Senate confirmation is required. Given its essential role in protecting the president and the conflicting agendas under which it operates, the Secret Service needs its own inspector general.
Over 10 years after its creation, the Department of Homeland Security is still more of an org chart than a cohesive operational entity where its components like the Coast Guard function largely on their own. The same is true with the Secret Service, which was transferred from Treasury to Homeland Security in 2003. It was a good fit on paper, but not in practice as the move created another layer of suffocating bureaucracy. Adding oversight layers of Homeland Security managers spawns additional incentives for weak Secret Service management, which, in turn, comprises core values and loses the trust of agents. Return the agency to Treasury, where it can function in a more unfettered manner.
Finally, an internal practice by Secret Service management has both infuriated and divided the agents. A relocation policy encourages agents to move from their original duty assignments to increase the likelihood of career advancement. This policy is always explained away by the management cabal as necessary to produce “a more well-rounded” employee. It does nothing of the sort. It has led to massive spikes in attrition as agents do not want to move their families to attain the mystical “well-roundedness” which no manager can adequately explain using metrics.
The agents and officers of the Secret Service are a proud, dedicated group, and despite the recent inexcusable failures, their mission is too valuable to subject to cheap, partisan talking points and politically driven fixes. They deserve a management system that works for them, not against them, and our nation depends on it.
Dan Bongino, author of “Life Inside the Bubble: Why a Top-Ranked Secret Service Agent Walked Away from It All,” served in the U.S. Secret Service for 12 years as a special agent investigating financial crimes and on the Presidential Protective Detail under the administrations of Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama.
