13 www.minorityreporter.net | JANUARY 6 - 12 | 2014
NATIONAL
Airline Pilots May Get Better Security Than President Obama
By Hazel Trice Edney
(TriceEdneyWire.com) – He described
it as a “dagger”. That was the word
used by a Transportation Security
Administration (TSA) supervisor at
Reagan National Airport Dec. 6 to
describe a six-inch metal letter opener
with a razor sharp tip at the end of a
three-inch blade.
“This could be used as a dagger,”
Supervisor Joshua Hunt told this
reporter after he was summoned
by TSA Officer Venus Washington.
Washington had discovered the knifelike instrument inside a large leather
purse as it moved through the x-ray
machine at the U. S. Airways terminal.
The agents were doing their jobs to
protect airline pilots, other employees
and passengers. They gave this
reporter a choice to either trash it,
check it, or FedEx it to herself. She
chose the latter.
The TSA officers were unaware that
the U. S. Secret Service had apparently
given the same letter opener the green
light to be distributed by the thousands
in a ballroom where President Barack
Obama alongside First Lady Michele
Obama shook hundreds of hands,
separated from the crowd only by a
rope.
That night was Sept. 21 at the 43rd
Annual Congressional Black Caucus
Foundation’s Annual Phoenix Awards
Dinner, where the President was
keynote speaker. The letter openers,
which were incased in black cardboard
boxes alongside matching ink pens
and placed in each chair, were gifts to
the more than 3,000 dinner guests.
The security was so tight for people
going into the gala that the Secret
Service even confiscated umbrellas.
Yet, as the President and First Lady
strode from the stage to the floor and
worked the rope line after the speech,
hundreds of people leaving the event
with the ‘dagger’-like instruments in
their possession pressed to shake their
hands and take photos. The couple
interacted with individuals in the
crowd for at least six minutes.
President Obama has spoken at nearly
every CBCF Phoenix Awards Dinner
since he was elected. The friendly, nonthreatening audience receives him
warmly at the event which showcases
the 43-member Congressional Black
Caucus and its honorees.
leading trackers of hate crimes, simply
pointed to all the failed plans to
assassinate Obama. They included an
Oct. 2008 plot foiled by the Bureau
of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and
Explosives, which arrested two racist
skinheads in Tennessee, who had
taken several steps toward a plotted
killing spree of 88 African-Americans,
culminating with Obama, who was
then only the Democratic nominee for
president.
they shook hands with the crowd, any
danger was minimized.
SPLC reports the number of hate groups
leaped to an all-time high of 1,007 in
2012, coinciding with the presence of
a Black President in the White House.
That - in part - is why President Obama
has been protected by a larger Secret
Service security force than any other
President. The force has done its job
successfully, which is why the loose
letter openers seemed rather odd.
“They go into a room to visit people,
we don’t remove the furniture
although someone could pick up a
chair presumably and try to strike
them,” he said. “At that table there
were knives and forks on the table,
there were glasses on the table.
Someone could certainly break a glass
and cause a problem for us as well.”
Secret Service spokesman Edwin
M. Donovan said risks can only be
minimized, not totally omitted.
“We’re unable to remove all risks
when our protectees go somewhere any of our protectees - the President,
the Vice President or anybody else
we protect,” Donovan explained in an
interview with the Trice Edney News
Wire, Sept. 23, the Monday following
the dinner.
Donovan, who was not at the dinner
that night but said he has worked
presidential security in the past, sought
to detail why the letter openers were
allowed to be so close to the President
and Mrs. Obama.
“I would say presumably these were
purchased well in advance of the
dinner. So, when our advance agents
get there setting up security, they
have to make a decision based on
what the committee tells us. The host
committee would say, ‘Hey we’re
giving these out as gifts.’ So, you look
and you say ‘Oh my goodness, you’re
going to give these out to everybody
that’s attending?’” he said. “The
decision had to be made, ‘Are we going
to ask them not to give them out until
after the President leaves or are we
going to ask them to give them out as
people depart? Or are we going to just
let them give them out the way they
want to?’ So the decision was made to
give it out the way you want to.”
But, hate experts and those familiar
with assassination plots indicate no
event should be taken for granted.
That’s because ambush - a common
strategy for deadly attacks on elected
officials – remains a constant threat.
CBCF spokeswoman Shrita D. SterlinHernandez declined comment on the
CBCF’s interactions with the Secret
Service on the matter of the letter
openers. She wrote in an email, “I am
not comfortable making comments on
behalf of the Secret Service’s security
protocols. Please direct all of your
questions about the security of the
President to the Secret Service.”
When asked for comment, Mark Potok,
a spokesman for the Southern Poverty
Law Center (SPLC), among the nation’s
Donovan said as long as the President
and First Lady were accompanied by
attentive Secret Service agents as
“That’s their job to look for anything
unusual; to look for anybody that’s
acting in a way that’s not appropriate
or certainly if someone has taken this
out of the box and is brandishing it,”
he said.
He compared the letter opener to
dinner ware.
The presence of the razor tipped letter
opener so close to the President was
initially brought to this reporter’s
attention by a photographer who
observed what appeared to be
extremely high security surrounding
the event except when it came to
the letter openers. The photographer
asked to remain anonymous. But that
observation gave rise to this Trice
Edney News Wire investigation into
how many high security areas that
letter opener could enter undetected.
Incased in the same black gift box
inside a purse, the letter opener was
not flagged as it went through the
x-ray machine and bag search at the
Secret Service headquarters where
the interview with Agent Donovan
took place Sept. 23.
On Nov. 6, it went undetected through
an x-ray machine and bag search at
the U. S. Capitol. Yet, afterwards, when
asked whether a letter opener would
be allowed inside the Capitol building,
U. S. Capitol Police spokesman Shennell
Antrobus responded in a Nov. 7 e-mail,
“Visitors are strictly prohibited from
carrying any pointed object, such as
letter openers, knitting needles, etc.,
into the Capitol and Capitol Visitor
Center, at all times.”
Then, on Nov. 20, the letter opener
was not flagged as it went through a
Secret Service x-ray machine and bag
search at the White House. That day, it
was taken into an East Room ceremony
where President Obama bestowed 16
Presidential Medals of Freedom.
It was finally flagged Dec. 6 at the
airport security gate, where Officer
Washington took no chances. “I saw
something in here that looked like
a letter opener, but it looked rather
sharp,” she said, removing the purse
from the x-ray belt and beginning to
search.
Despite the sharpness of the letter
opener, it apparently did not violate
airport security. The list of “Prohibited
Items” on TSA.gov doesn’t even
mention letter openers. Washington
gave a one-sentence explanation as to
why it was not allowed on the plane.
“It’s to our discretion, Ma’am,” she
said.
As the Secret Service successfully
handles hundreds of events a year
during which the President and/or
First Lady conduct rope line greetings,
the loose letter openers indicate all
loopholes are not closed.
“A lot of what happens in many
instances is determined by what the
President wants to do,” said U. S. Rep.
Bennie Thompson, ranking Democrat
and former chair of the Homeland
Security Committee. For example, he
noted that President Clinton would
unexpectedly go to a McDonald’s or
greet people who have gone through
no security. “So, I think those are
some of the risks associated with it,”
Thompson said.
Stressing how Secret Service agents
“put their lives on the line every day”
to protect the president, Thompson
concluded, “I’m confident that the
Secret Service does a good job. I know
that when I chaired the Committee,
the President had more threats on
his life than any other President
before him. So we were able to, even
before he became President, we got
him a security detail there early; and
obviously they’ve done a good job. But,
even with that, there are still potential
vulnerabilites that a president or any
other person with a detail just has to
face.”
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