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Police, fire and other emergency vehicles swarmed around the White House in the predawn hours, with several clustered near the southeast entrance to the mansion as the NYT reports that a small aerial drone has been found on the grounds of the White House. Obama and the first lady, Michelle Obama, are on a three-day visit to India, but their daughters, Malia and Sasha, are in Washington. The report of a drone came at a time when other threats to the president’s family or their home have led to concerns about security but according to a White House spokesman the drone poses no threat. “As the Secret Service has more information about their investigation, about what they’ve been able to learn about this, they’ll share more information on this,” says White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest. After daylight, more than a dozen Secret Service officers fanned out in a search across the White House lawn as snow began to fall. They peered down in the grass and used flashlights to look through the large bushes that line the mansion's driveway.
The incident is the latest in a string of White House security breaches that have led to questions about Secret Service effectiveness. Four of the agency's highest-ranking executives were reassigned earlier this month. Former Director Julia Pierson's was forced to resign last year after a Texas man armed with a knife was able to get over a White House fence in September and run deep into the executive mansion before being subdued.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday January 27 2015, @02:03AM
I mean... look... no need for ICBM-es anymore, a "tactical model aircraft" suffice.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1) by Nuke on Tuesday January 27 2015, @01:49PM
Look at it from the secret service guards' point of view. They have an utterly utterly boring job for 99.99% of the time. TFA mentioned that there was one posted on the south grounds of the White House when the drone appeared at 3am. Can you imagine how f#&king boring it must be to stand like that guy for hours on end, in the cold, with nothing ever happening, night after night - until one night a drone appears? Of course the SS made a huge fuss and a huge search about it. It is the only sort of thing that happens in most of their lives- their 15 minutes of fame.
I once worked as a night security guard, temporarily, in an industrial place. We used to walk around and check things like the filling dates on fire extinguishers. One night it was noticed that a fire sand bucket was only three-quarters full. Some guards were sure that it had been full a day or two earlier, others were not so sure. The debate about how a quarter of a bucket of sand had dissappeared went on for days (or rather nights). It was the most interesting thing that happened during my two months there. I wish we'd had something like a drone land in the grounds.
Anyway, this is the USA isn't it? The nation that has always (ie from before "terrorism") been paranoid about its president being assassinated (at least since Lincoln was). But as someone else here said, no-one is irreplacable. Anyway, about half the American population did not even want him to be President in the first place.