Day: October 2, 2014

Yet another head rolls.

Director Julia Pierson resigned yesterday. One DAY after scathing congressional questioning about a security breach during her tenure as Director of the Secret Service.

She’d been on the job for a little over a year. The Media is attempting to paint her as somehow responsible for PRIOR security breaches dating back to 2009. 

The things she could be reasonably held responsible for are; the breach of the White House on Sept 19th, where NO ONE was injured and no threat to the President occurred. This White House breach should never have happened, but that’s another story.

Then there’s the revelation that the president was in an elevator with a CDC security guard who honestly shouldn’t have been working at the CDC!  There’s the tendency to assume that a security guard working at a federal facility that contains PLAGUES would be someone that you don’t have to vet too closely. The assumption may be flawed.  As humans,  we want to trust each other. Trust is more likely among law enforcement especially if one officer is wearing a uniform.

I find myself asking how demanding/forcing the Director to resign is going to help the situation. In the ensuing chaos of her departure doesn’t that further degrade the morale of the agency? In addition to the procedural issues, morale and high turnover rates among the agents have been cited as ongoing problems for years. 

I think we’ve become too quick to demand resignations. I’d personally like to have seen how the secret service would correct it’s mistakes. But now we’ll never know if the problem originated at the head of the agency, or if it was somewhere in middle management. Unfortunately, a new Director will have to spend time figuring it out all over again.

I wonder what breach of Presidential security will happen while the new Director is trying to get a handle on the issues, and if he or she will have to resign too.