Security Around Obama Alarms Some VIP Donors

[democracy1st]

Security Around Obama Alarms Some VIP Donors
Lack of Measures 'Absurd,' Guests Say

By Aaron C. Davis
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, January 30, 2009; B01



Downtown Washington resembled a militarized zone last week for the inauguration of President Barack Obama, but some major contributors who had direct contact with Obama said they were surprised to find what they viewed as porous security surrounding the president-elect and vice president-elect.

Three contributors who raised $300,000 or more for the inauguration said they were never asked to show identification to retrieve dozens of tickets, including VIP passes that allowed them and their guests to meet privately with Obama. One of the three said ticket checks were so lax that no one noticed when, after a breakfast for contributors, a friend whose name hadn't been submitted for a background check tagged along into a VIP room to take pictures with Vice President-elect Joseph Biden.

And a half-dozen said that after a screening to sit in a ticketed area near Obama for his swearing-in, they mingled with public crowds but were never again checked for firearms or explosives.

A half-dozen donors expressed concern that security close to Obama and Biden seemed lacking, especially in light of the measures in effect downtown that day.

A donor who bundled contributions for the inauguration, who recalled participating in events hosting former president Bill Clinton, said he was shocked at what he saw as the disparity between the strict advance work done to secure a site for Clinton and the way he felt donors breezed through security last week. "The lack of security was absurd," said the bundler, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to talk more freely about how he and others were able to circumvent security. "It was just broken somewhere; someone wasn't thinking it through."


Several donors said they were particularly troubled by an episode before dawn Tuesday: More than 100 corporate executives, Hollywood personalities and others had been told to gather for a security screening outside the Renaissance Hotel at 999 Ninth St. NW. Once cleared, they were told, they would board "secure" buses that would ferry them to seats close to the president's podium at the Capitol, and then to bleachers adjoining his viewing stand in front of the White House.

But after passing through a magnetometer outside the hotel, members of the group said they were directed to a public sidewalk and told to find their way across Ninth Street to buses waiting in a convention center parking lot. Along the way, they said they mingled with throngs of spectators streaming toward the Mall. The VIPs were not screened again or asked for identification, they said.


Suzi LeVine, a former Expedia executive, said volunteers lined her path to the buses. Even so, she said, "I was definitely thinking, 'Is there a way that people could be infiltrating this group?' "

Arjun Gupta, founder and managing partner of the Silicon Valley venture capital firm TeleSoft Partners and a co-chairman of the Presidential Inaugural Committee, stressed that on the whole, he was impressed with inaugural security, but said the walk to the bus appeared to be a lapse.

"I didn't think about it at the time, but we went through security and then we were in an open space, freely accessible to the public," Gupta said. "The street was an open thoroughfare. Cars were going up and down. If you really knew what you were doing, that was truly a gap."

The Presidential Inaugural Committee was in charge of transportation for the donors but not security, and two of the donors said they recalled seeing Secret Service badges on men staffing the checkpoint outside the Renaissance.

Donovan, the Secret Service spokesman, said he could not confirm whether the agency ran the checkpoint. Donovan said he was aware of no concerns about security outside the hotel, and he encouraged anyone with such concerns to contact the Secret Service directly.

To anyone surfing the Internet, accounts of the lax security surrounding the "secure" buses were being broadcast in near-real time.

Chris Sacca, a tech investor who raised money for the inaugural committee, posted a message on the social messaging Web site Twitter at 6:45 a.m. after passing through the checkpoint. "We were thoroughly X-rayed, then walked across a public street in the open," Sacca wrote, adding an acronym for an expletive to convey disbelief.

Evan Williams, chief executive of Twitter, was also in line -- ahead of film producer George Lucas, according to his posts. He republished Sacca's account for his 39,615 online followers 10 minutes later, adding "True. And yikes."

Alfred Lin, who is chief operating officer and financial officer for Zappos.com, replied, "If I got this sooner, wd have slept & snuck in."

Asked about the Twitter exchange, Lin said he was surprised by the walk to the bus but didn't see anyone not go through security. Sacca and Williams declined to comment on their posts, but Williams said he assumed that with the Secret Service, "there's a lot going on behind the scenes that you don't see."

Two donors expressed concern about security screenings that preceded a meeting they and about 100 others had with Obama in a tent behind the Lincoln Memorial before the Sunday concert.

One said he was waved through with a camera that had no batteries despite warnings that it would have to be operational. The two said they later walked unattended by the president's motorcade and watched other donors lean on Obama's limousine, posing for pictures.

By the next morning, when Biden spoke to donors at a Northwest hotel, one said it had become clear that ticket checks had become "a joke." He said he flashed a handful of coveted gray passes to gain access to the VIP room with Biden but brought in an extra guest.

Steve McKeever, founder of the music label Hidden Beach Recordings and another bundler, said he was never concerned about security because many in the groups were acquainted with one another, as well as with some Secret Service agents from past gatherings. "It wasn't like people won a lottery ticket to be there," he said.

Staff researcher Meg Smith contributed to this report.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/29/AR2009012903894_pf.html

[Danger Mouse]

1. They need to get on this shit pronto.

[Chulanowa]

2. Given how many death threats Obama's received during the course of the campaign...

I can't argue with the security measures. Unofficially I'm sure everyone involved is fully aware that since every single fucking domestic terrorist and assassin in the US has been from the "conservative" establishment, the Democratic black guy with an Arabic name proposing new deal-ish reforms NEEDS tight security.

I don't feel bad for these VIP guys. He's the president, not a fucking carnival ride.

[Metric System]

3. The point of the article is that security isn't good enough, not that it's too tight.

[Chulanowa]

7. Oh wow

Woah, my reading comprehension must have been out getting a beer!

Thanks

[Metric System]

10. lol, no problem. Your reaction was normal because you'd expect for security to be very tight. It's

troubling and disappointing that it's not.

[oberliner]

4. Isn't the point of the article that the security isn't tight enough?

That seems to be what the VIP guys were concerned about.

[heliarc]

5. self-delete

[chill_wind]

6. Yikes!! n/t

[FrenchieCat]

8. They better get on this shit.....

and I mean now!

Because otherwise, if something were to happen, this country could not survive, period.

[Two Americas]

9. may not mean anything

Big showy and obvious displays of security measures and tight procedures for screening the public do not necessarily mean better security. In fact, the opposite is often true - that sort of obvious and heavy-handed security usually works against actual security.

In my experience with the Secret Service, I was amazed at how unobtrusive, yet knowledgeable, hyper-alert and effective they could be. What looks lax and disorganized to the casual observer may not be at all, and if bad guys do not know exactly what the security procedures are that makes them more difficult to circumvent. You don't necessarily want security to show, because that tells the criminals what you are protecting against and where and how.

My hunch would be that SS was all over that, and knew who everyone was and every move they made, without anyone knowing they were doing that. That is good security, not bad security.

Juts because those donors are rich that does not mean they are very smart. I think what they saw - or didn't see - was very effective security work.

[mythyc]

12. interesting... I'm curious to see/hear corraboration on this reading.

know nothing about how any of this works, so your post gave the one ray of hope in an otherwise scary story. Is what you're describing a common practice, and if so are there any other sources to lend further support to this angle?

[Two Americas]

13. I am not an expert, that is for sure

I had that one experience as a performer, and it was very memorable. I had a chance to see the SS folks working all week, and chat with a few of them. That shattered all of my preconceptions, and taught me a lot about effective security. I was amazed at how much they knew about people - trained to read it, you know? I was also amazed at how they could be working, and not look like they were working. They are very relaxed, yet at an intense level of alertness and awareness.

The public feels safer when there are shows of force and uniforms and check points and cops with frowns and shades and their arms folded and weapons visible, but when you think about that, resources and attention put into that stuff are resources and attention taken away from watching and reacting to potential threats. Also, when you put heavy bars and locks on something, that tells the crook exactly what the measures are and what the challenge is for them, and where the goods are. Much more effective to keep the bad guys guessing. Then, when everyone is a suspect, no one is. Also, by blending and mingling, they can be far more effective.

My guess - there were far more agents their then people realized; the agents knew much more than we assume; everything that happens was being closely watched, but unobtrusively.

Those are some of my thoughts, and I have found it an interesting subject ever since that experience. I still find myself looking at a public situation and thinking "now how would SS secure this area?" lol.

I am just saying that we should not assume that we know what they were doing, and would probably be impressed and amazed if we did.

[mythyc]

14. it makes a lot of sense

and i hope you're right. thanks for explaining in more detail! :patriot:

[Two Americas]

16. I hope so too

The subject of good security versus bad security is interesting.

For example, it seems to me that Homeland Security and the other things the Bush admin has been doing are going about it completely wrong, and the mentality it reflects is the worst law enforcement thinking. If you make everyone a suspect - as police states always do - there will never be enough people to watch everyone, and the potential for security people to cause more problems than they solve increases. You are almost certain to persecute the most vulnerable and to harm innocents.

There are two false premises at work with the feds under Bush: that intimidation flushes out the bad guys; that "the hands" of law enforcement "are tied," and that giving them "more power" will catch more bad guys.

Big shows of police state bullshit just intimidate the public and that don't catch any bad guys. Giving the police broader powers just fosters sloppy and lazy police work. Both are certain to lead to harassment of innocent people and also to the erosion of law, from civil liberties to habeas corpus to the presumption of innocence. We can see the results of "getting tough" and "untying the hands" of the authorities - torture, detention, mass round ups, abuse of suspects and on and on.

That is why I think we should be very cautious about demanding that police and security agents have "broader power" and "get tougher." What we want is "smart" and "trained" and police work that is unobtrusive and works within the law. That will always be more effective, as well as slowing the alarming growth of police state thinking.

I would bet that SS was all over that situation the donors are describing. Just because those people are rich, that does not mean they are smart. (I know, that flies in the face of the modern American worship of the wealthy and financially successful.)

[ecstatic]

11. So very disgusted and disappointed to hear this nt

[enuegii]

15. Helpful of them to point this out in the Post. nt

[high density]

17. A police state would bring us ultimate security

We demand to be frisked and profiled at all times. Papers, please.

[zulchzulu]

18. When I was in DC, the place was crawling with Secret Service everywhere

As one who has worked/conversed/had access with the Secret Service in 2004 with the Kerry campaign (driving vans during primary and in Spring Green for debate practice), they blend in pretty well to the untrained eye. They are indeed there though.

It was the same in DC for the Inauguration. There were plenty of them around if you knew how to pick them out of a crowd.

As for security checks, having to go through metal detectors every turn of an event is overkill. These people know how to traffic people through checkpoints and as much as people may hate it, they do obvious profiling of people who look suspicious, out of place, nervous... anyone who thinks that's not done doesn't know what goes on.