--- begin forwarded text Delivered-To: ignition-point@majordomo.pobox.com X-Sender: believer@telepath.com Date: Wed, 04 Nov 1998 06:17:44 -0600 To: believer@telepath.com From: believer@telepath.com Subject: IP: New Powers for Secret Service Mime-Version: 1.0 Sender: owner-ignition-point@majordomo.pobox.com Precedence: list Reply-To: believer@telepath.com Source: Salt Lake City Tribune http://www.sltrib.com/11031998/utah/utah.htm IT'S CLASSIFIED: The Secret Service Will Have a Hand In 2002 Security BY GREG BURTON THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE A classified executive order signed by President Clinton during the summer has altered the way the Secret Service prepares for security at national events, a change already affecting the blueprint for the 2002 Winter Olympics. Presidential protection, often a hectic, hodgepodge operation, has been the jurisdiction of the Secret Service since John Wilkes Booth shot President Lincoln. Now, the presidential directive orders the Secret Service to take an active role in planning security for major national events, whether or not presidents, vice presidents, ex-presidents, their spouses or other dignitaries attend. Called Presidential Decision Directive 62 (PDD 62), the order also reportedly alters a range of national security considerations, although the directive's internal hardware is top secret. PDDs, like executive orders, do not require the approval of Congress but come through the National Security Council. For Salt Lake City, PDD 62 means Secret Service agents already are planning for the orchestration of executive ogling at the Winter Olympics without knowing who the president of the United States will be or if that person will attend. At the 1996 Summer Games, when the same shadowy squad led then-first-term Clinton through the magnolia trees in Atlanta, security experts with the Secret Service did not begin preparing for the executive visit until after Olympic organizers and the FBI had completed their security plan. ``The public has this perception of the Secret Service as a strange institution that rides in and rides out with black glasses on,'' says Dennis Crandall, resident agent in charge of the Secret Service for Utah and Idaho. ``This is kind of a new era for us.'' PDD 62 now enters a vault of classified security directives. Among other PDDs is No. 29, issued in 1994, that established the Security Policy Board, a secretive agency with authority over information systems' security and safeguarding classified information. The National Security Council has refused to release details of PDD 29. PDD 62 likely will remain equally veiled. ``PDD 62 is not classified, but the contents are,'' says David M. Tubbs, the recently appointed special agent in charge for the FBI's Utah, Idaho and Montana command. Says Crandall: ``Portions of it are still sensitive.'' According to several national security experts, the major event clause in PDD 62 is an outgrowth of a perceived lack of security planning for the president's visit to the Atlanta Games. Because of PDD 62, the Secret Service has been involved nearly from the onset of security planning for the 2002 Winter Games. ``We are designated to take a more aggressive upfront role in major events,'' says Crandall. Currently, the FBI and the Secret Service are hammering out a memorandum of understanding that clarifies the division of labor between the two federal security teams in accordance with PDD 62. The Secret Service's role -- although a topic that has reportedly led to turf wars in Washington, D.C. -- has been welcomed by most Salt Lake City organizers. Tubbs does not see their involvement as a threat to the FBI, the lead federal security agency for the 2002 Olympics. ``I have not had a turf war with anyone. Period,'' says Tubbs, who was one of several agents with direct security oversight during Atlanta. ``We are all involved in the planning stages here, so what has happened in the past is unimportant. What is important is what happens in 2002.'' ----------------------- NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. 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