About That Recent Secret Service Incident . . . .

The new Director for the US Secret Service, Joe Clancy, was questioned by members of the House  recently at a closed-door hearing.  The subject:  the recent late-night incident where two senior agents, apparently after having been out drinking, who may have been drinking earlier that evening, reportedly nearly ran over a suspicious package at one entrance to the White House with a government vehicle after arriving on-scene.  That incident is now under investigation by the DHS Office of the Inspector General.

Two surveillance videos were provided to Congress.  One showed little of the incident.

When asked, Mr. Clancy told the Representatives was that additional surveillance video of the incident may not be available.  Secret Service policy apparently is to erase surveillance video after 72 hours.

Now, I’m going to ignore the question of why White House surveillance video isn’t archived to digital video and retained for far longer than 72 hours (storage is really pretty cheap these days).  But it seems to me that if you had an incident at the White House involving a possible bomb and/or potential agent misconduct, you’d flag all surveillance video showing anything that might be related to that incident and keep copies until all actions relating to the incident and its investigation had been completed.

The fact that any available video of an incident like this – which is under investigation – may have been erased IMO smells. Badly.

But maybe that’s just me.

(Note:  first paragraph above has been reworded to more accurately reflect what is publicly known regarding the circumstances of the incident in question.)

Category: "Your Tax Dollars At Work", Crime, Government Incompetence