Secret Service Game Download

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TheUnited States Secret Service (USSS or Secret Service) is a federal law enforcement agency under the Department of Homeland Security with the purpose of conducting investigations into currency and financial-payment crime, and protecting U.S. political leaders, their families, and visiting heads of state or government.[3] The Secret Service was, until 2003, part of the Department of the Treasury, due to their initial mandate of combatting counterfeiting of U.S. currency.[4] The agency has protected U.S. presidents and presidential candidates since 1901.[5]

The Secret Service is mandated by Congress with two distinct and critical national security missions: protecting the nation's leaders and safeguarding the financial and critical infrastructure of the United States.

The Secret Service is tasked with ensuring the safety of the President of the United States, the Vice President of the United States, the President-elect of the United States, the Vice President-elect of the United States, and their immediate families; former presidents, their spouses and their children under the age of 16; those in the presidential line of succession, major presidential and vice-presidential candidates and their spouses; and visiting foreign heads of state and heads of government. By custom, it also provides protection to the Secretary of the Treasury and Secretary of Homeland Security, as well as other people as directed by the president (usually the White House Chief of Staff and National Security Advisor, among others). By federal statute, the president and vice president may not refuse this protection.[6] The Secret Service also provides physical security for the White House Complex; the neighboring Treasury Department building; the vice president's residence; the principal private residences of the president, vice president and former presidents; and all foreign diplomatic missions in Washington, D.C. The protective mission includes protective operations to coordinate manpower and logistics with state and local law enforcement in the US, protective advances to conduct site and venue assessments for protectees, and protective intelligence to investigate all manners of threats made against protectees. The Secret Service is the lead agency in charge of the planning, coordination, and implementation of security operations for events designated as National Special Security Events (NSSE). As part of the service's mission of preventing an incident before it occurs, the agency relies on meticulous advance work and threat assessments developed by its Intelligence Division to identify potential risks to protectees.[7]

The Secret Service is tasked with safeguarding the payment and financial systems of the United States from a wide range of financial and cyber-based crimes. Financial investigations include counterfeit U.S. currency, bank and financial institution fraud, mail fraud, wire fraud, illicit financing operations, and major conspiracies. Cyber investigations include cybercrime, network intrusions, identity theft, access device fraud, credit card fraud, and intellectual property crimes. The Secret Service is also a member of the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) which investigates and combats terrorism on a national and international scale. Also, the Secret Service investigates missing and exploited children and is a partner of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC).[8]

The Secret Service's initial responsibility was to investigate the counterfeiting of U.S. currency, which was rampant following the American Civil War. The agency then evolved into the United States' first domestic intelligence and counterintelligence agency. Many of the agency's missions were later taken over by subsequent agencies such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF), and IRS Criminal Investigation Division (IRS-CI).

The Secret Service is also tasked with investigating reports of the existence of specimens of the extremely rare 1933 double eagle gold coin, as only a single example of the fourteen known survivors from this mintage year is authorized to be owned or sold.[9]

The Secret Service combines the two responsibilities into a dual objective. The two core missions of protection and investigation synergize with each other, providing benefits to special agents during the course of their careers. Skills developed during the course of investigations which are also used in an agent's protective duties include but are not limited to:

Protection of the nation's highest elected leaders and other government officials is one of the primary missions of the Secret Service. After the 1901 assassination of President William McKinley, Congress also directed the Secret Service to protect the president of the United States. The Secret Service investigates thousands of incidents each year of individuals threatening the president of the United States.

In addition to the above, the Secret Service can also protect other individuals by executive order of the president.[11] Under Presidential Policy Directive 22, "National Special Security Events", the Secret Service is the lead agency for the design and implementation of operational security plans for events designated an NSSE by the secretary of homeland security.

There have been changes to the protection of former presidents over time. Under the original Former Presidents Act, former presidents and their spouses were entitled to lifetime protection, subject to limited exceptions. In 1994, this was amended to reduce the protection period to 10 years after a former president left office, starting with presidents assuming the role after January 1, 1997. On January 10, 2013, President Barack Obama signed legislation reversing this limit and reinstating lifetime protection to all former presidents.[12] This change impacted Presidents Obama and G.W. Bush, as well as all future presidents.[13]

The Secret Service's other primary mission is investigative; to protect the payment and financial systems of the United States from a wide range of financial and electronic-based crimes including counterfeit U.S. currency, bank and financial institution fraud, illicit financing operations, cybercrime, identity theft, intellectual property crimes, and any other violations that may affect the United States economy and financial systems. The agency's key focus is on large, high-dollar economic impact cases involving organized criminal groups. Financial criminals include embezzling bank employees, armed robbers at automatic teller machines, heroin traffickers, and criminal organizations that commit bank fraud on a global scale.

The USSS plays a leading role in facilitating relationships between other law enforcement entities, the private sector, and academia. The service maintains the Electronic Crimes Task Forces, which focus on identifying and locating international cyber criminals connected to cyber intrusions, bank fraud, data breaches, and other computer-related crimes. Additionally, the Secret Service runs the National Computer Forensics Institute (NCFI), which provides law enforcement officers, prosecutors, and judges with cyber training and information to combat cybercrime.

In the face of budget pressure, hiring challenges and some high-profile lapses in its protective service role in 2014, the Brookings Institution and some members of Congress are asking whether the agency's focus should shift more to the protective mission, leaving more of its original mission to other agencies.[14][15]

Following the Civil War, counterfeiting of U.S. currency was going rampant,[16] with as much as one third of the currency in circulation being counterfeit at the time,[17][better source needed] Abraham Lincoln established a commission to make recommendations to remedy the problem. The Secret Service was later established on July 5, 1865, in Washington, D.C., to suppress counterfeit currency.[citation needed] Chief William P. Wood was sworn in by Secretary of the Treasury Hugh McCulloch. It was commissioned in Washington, D.C. as the "Secret Service Division" of the Department of the Treasury with the mission of suppressing counterfeiting. At the time, the only other federal law enforcement agencies were the United States Customs Service, the United States Park Police, the U.S. Post Office Department's Office of Instructions and Mail Depredations (now known as the United States Postal Inspection Service), and the United States Marshals Service. The Marshals did not have the manpower to investigate all crime under federal jurisdiction, so the Secret Service began investigating a wide range of crimes from murder to bank robbery to illegal gambling.[citation needed]

After the assassination of President William McKinley in 1901, Congress informally requested that the Secret Service provide presidential protection. A year later, the Secret Service assumed full-time responsibility for presidential protection.[citation needed] In 1902, William Craig became the first Secret Service agent to die while on duty, in a road accident while riding in the presidential carriage.[18]

The Secret Service was the first U.S. domestic intelligence and counterintelligence agency. Domestic intelligence collection and counterintelligence responsibilities were later vested in the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) upon the FBI's creation in 1908.

In 1909, President William H. Taft agreed to meet with Mexican president Porfirio Daz in El Paso, Texas, and Ciudad Jurez, Chihuahua, the first meeting between a U.S. and a Mexican president and also the first time an American president visited Mexico.[19] The historic summit resulted in serious assassination threats and other security concerns for the then small Secret Service, so the Texas Rangers, 4,000 U.S. and Mexican troops, BOI agents, U.S. Marshals, and an additional 250-man private security detail led by Frederick Russell Burnham, the celebrated scout, were all called in by Chief John Wilkie to provide added security.[20][21] On October 16, the day of the summit, Burnham discovered a man holding a concealed palm pistol standing at the El Paso Chamber of Commerce building along the procession route.[22] The man was captured and disarmed only a few feet from Daz and Taft.[23]

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