Reply #29: It's a new provision.

[Igel]

But the text is old.

The Sec. Service police business has been around since the '60s, I think, although that may have been a reorganization and not when it was established.

The events of national significance have been designated for at least the last decade. Clinton designated some. * has, I believe, designated them with greater frequency. Each designation must be summed up in a year-end report to congress, specifying the grounds for such a designation and the steps taken as a result.

The language stipulating the police force and declaration of such events is being copied from their current locations to the Patriot Act. From time to time lawmakers decide to group like laws in like acts, simultaneously rescinding the previous (frequently identically worded) legislation elsewhere.

I bothered to look this stuff up and cut/paste the current (and long-standing) legislative language into a thread a week or two ago that was repeating some of the same fear-mongering non-truths. As for the other points, I'm not going to bother to actually check. It's the author's job to make sure s/he's not reporting inaccuracies, not mine.

Findlaw and a couple of other legislative law sites are free, public, easy to use, and your friends.