Why the Secret Service and FBI Must Investigate Threats Against Obama

[Joanne98]

By Don Hazen, AlterNet
Posted on September 9, 2009, Printed on September 9, 2009
http://www.alternet.org/story/142510/

The right-wing hate speech polluting the debate over health care is generating more and more threats against President Barack Obama, some truly frightening.

Will you join AlterNet and Credo and sign a petition calling for the FBI to do everything necessary to confront threats to Obama and expand and fully fund efforts to protect the president of the United States?

CNN anchor Rick Sanchez reports that when Obama visited Phoenix on Aug. 17, local minister Steven Anderson of the Faithful World Baptist Church, who strongly expresses hatred for Obama in many of his sermons, told his congregation that he wished him dead.

In a disturbing twist, it was discovered that Chris Broughton, the man who brought an AR-15 assault rifle to the Phoenix rally where Obama spoke, had attended Anderson's sermon. In a later interview, Broughton said he concurred with his pastor's wish to see Obama "die and go to hell." As many as 12 men were seen walking around the Phoenix Convention Center with guns on that day.

Obama faces 30 death threats a day, a 400 percent increase over those against George W. Bush when he was president, according to Ronald Kessler, a veteran investigative journalist and conservative and author of the new book, In the President's Secret Service: Behind the Scenes with Agents in the Line of Fire and the Presidents They Protect.

Kessler notes that funding cutbacks have already left the first African American president in U.S. history particularly vulnerable. The book, which alleges that the cash-strapped Secret Service is endangering the president by cutting corners, has sent shockwaves through Washington.

"There's no question his life is in danger.

"Tomorrow, Obama could be assassinated ... simply because the Secret Service was not doing what it used to do," said Kessler.

"We have half the number of agents we need, but requests for more agents have fallen on deaf ears at headquarters," a Secret Service agent told Kessler.

And if ever the Secret Service needed to be at its best, that time is now. The threats against Obama are not confined to Phoenix. Delusional fringe characters are not the only ones spouting hateful, inflammatory rhetoric.

Last Tuesday, according to the Huffington Post, Idaho Republican gubernatorial hopeful, Rex Rammell, said he'd buy a license to hunt Obama.

Meanwhile, conservative lawmakers are riling up their right-wing followers with outright racism. Last week, Rep. Lynn Jenkins, R-Kan., expressed her wish that the Republican Party would find a "great white hope" to take on the president in the next election.

As CNN's Rick Sanchez said on the air, "This looks serious. This almost looks like this is coming to the point where we are even beyond maybe where this nation was on Nov. 22 of 1963, when JFK was assassinated, when there was also an environment of hate in this country."

As racist attacks increase and protesters continue to bring guns to presidential events, it is strikingly clear that Obama is vulnerable to harm. Are the Secret Service and FBI doing enough to protect him? Will they confront and investigate those who threaten our president so that they can be prosecuted and jailed?

We cannot allow funding problems to weaken the organizations charged with protecting the life of our nation's president.

In 2003, the Secret Service and FBI became part of the Department of Homeland Security and now must compete with 20 other agencies for oversight from their chief, Janet Napolitano. She must use her authority to ensure that the Secret Service and FBI put more agents on the ground to protect Obama and confront and investigate those who threaten him.

It is time for Americans of every stripe to insist that the Secret Service and FBI operate at the highest levels of effectiveness.

Continued>>>
http://www.alternet.org/rights/142510/action_editorial%3A_why_the_secret_service_and_fbi_must_investigate_threats_against_obama_and_beef_up_security_to_protect_him/

SIGN THE PETITION

http://act.credoaction.com/campaign/protect_obama/?rc=alternet1

[T Wolf]

1. Those agencies, in addition to having the resources, but also have to have the desire and goal

of protecting this President.

I doubt their dedication. After all, most (not all, so don't go all cop-defender) law enforcement types are reich-wingers and the feds are no exceptions.

[MidwestTransplant]

3. The SS take their jobs very seriously regardless of their political affiliation.

Their politics don't play into it.

[Seldona]

4. They aren't robots.

By DAVID JOHNSTON

snip

WASHINGTON — Secret Service supervisors shared crude sexual jokes and engaged in racially derogatory banter about blacks, and passed around an anecdote about a possible assassination of the Rev. Jesse Jackson, according to internal e-mail disclosed in a federal court filing on Friday by lawyers for black Secret Service agents.

The filing includes 10 e-mail messages that were among documents the agency recently turned over to lawyers for the black agents as part of an increasingly bitter discrimination lawsuit. The messages were written mainly from 2003 through 2005, and were sent to and from e-mail accounts of at least 20 Secret Service supervisors.

The messages offer a glimpse into the darker recesses of an agency known for protecting presidents and other dignitaries but whose culture is regarded as one of the most insular in federal law enforcement.

The disclosure of the messages follows an incident last month in which a noose was found in a room used by a black instructor at a Secret Service training facility in Beltsville, Md. Agency officials said that episode was under internal investigation.

snip

http://sableverity.com/2008/05/11/secret-services-secret-supervisors-sent-racist-emails-on-the-job/

I know I am sighting a blog, but the incident was very well known, and covered pretty extensively. You can find MSM references if you want.

These racist emails were sent out by at least 20 supervisors. I can't see how you make the claim their politics don't play into it. Not that I equate racism with politics. But if you are a racist, I think it is a pretty safe bet that race is going to be a defining factor in your politics.

[MidwestTransplant]

2. You can be sure they are working very hard to do their job. Hopefully they have the resources they

need. Don't forget, Bush and Cheney have massive security details still.

[mother earth]

5. Obama-hate is being spewed 24/7 on MSM, people like

Beck & False News are spreading hatred to a new, dangerous unprecedented level, they seriously are invoking homegrown terrorism and it goes unchecked. There is no evidence for Birthers and Teabaggers, but they are being provoked and frenzied by delusions invoked by idiots that call themselves anchors or journalists.

Time to call for resignations, it's like having the KKK televise their views to easily confused GOP minds, the ones that are too stupid to understand they are being used to spread more disinfo & hatred.