I'd also appreciate anything you can tell me about secret service protection in general.
Who Asked: Celebrity Guest-Stumper, Ally Carter, author of teen spy novels I’d Tell You I Love You, but then I’d Have to Kill You and Cross My Heart and Hope to Spy, as well as a number of novels for adults.
Novel: The title is still top secret
About the Book: Well, Ally would tell us, but then . . . you know!
Answer: As a general rule, major candidates receive protection throughout the 120 days prior to the election. There are a few cases where the candidate receives protection outside this time frame, such as in the case of Hilary Clinton, who as a former first lady is already protected.
The United States Secret Service was created in 1865 to protect against counterfeiting. However, the mission has expanded, so that now, according to their site, they are all about, “protection of national and visiting foreign leaders, and criminal investigations.” In order to become an agent, recruits undergo an 11-week course in law enforcement. If they pass, they head to the Washington D.C. area for an additional 16 weeks of training where “trainees are provided with basic knowledge and advanced application training in combating counterfeiting, access device fraud and other financial criminal activity, protective intelligence investigations, physical protection techniques, protective advances and emergency medicine. The core curriculum is augmented with extensive training in marksmanship, control tactics, water survival skills and physical fitness.”
In line with the protection goal, the Secret Service works to make assassination attempts preventable. According to a New York Times article, the group has released a study of all 83 assassination attempts on political figures and celebrities within the last fifty years. According to this, agents would look more for a chain of events or pattern of behavior rather than the appearance of an individual to assess the possible threat.
That same article states, “Each year, the Secret Service tries to assess the risk posed by about 2,000 people. Some have made explicit or vague threats against the President or another national leader. Others expressed romantic interest in a public figure, pressed grievances that seemed unreasonable or tried to volunteer as a protector.” Which means these guys stay busy trying to stop trouble before it happens.
Hope this is enough to get you started, and I can’t wait to see how you weave this information into your novel. It sounds like you’ve got another exciting adventure in store for your readers.
Thank you for playing Stump the Librarian!
Amber
Web Resources
- United States Secret Service Wikipedia Article (Please remember that anyone can add to or edit a Wikipedia article.)
- United States Secret Service Official Website
- Secret Service Challenges Assassin Stereotypes
