Anyone following the fact that death threats to Obama are up 400% from those to Bush and that the Secret Service, in order to dedicate itself to protect the President, may have to delegate its responsibility of protecting the financial system over to the Treasury Dept?
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ynews/ynews_ts950
Brett Dykes for Yahoo! News Wrote:
The Southern Poverty Law Center says that the U.S. has seen a 35 percent rise in hate groups in recent years, and few doubt that the discontent stirred up over the election of an African-American president is fueling the rise in threats. But, could the influx of modern technology also be to blame?
As the cost of computer technology has fallen (and accessibility to high-speed Internet service has spread), more and more people are spending more and more time online. Accordingly, these people are doing what people often do on the Internet: sending emails, communicating in chat rooms and on social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace, watching YouTube videos, etc. According to results of a recent study by the Simon Wiesenthal Center, these activities seem to be enhancing the scope of extremist groups' reach:
With over 200 million users, online bigots have to date outpaced efforts to remove them. Some sites have thousands of friends, thus enabling the message of hate to spread virally...This user-generated material increases the viral spread of extremism online and aids in increasing the social acceptability of hate in mainstream discourse. By creating an environment where users are equal participants in the Web, all editorial functions are removed and expressions of hate can easily flow unchallenged.
In other words, extremists once confined to small sects can now congregate on the Internet anonymously and distribute propaganda to millions of people in mere seconds. People with extreme views can also now communicate direct threats to individuals quicker and more easily than they have previously, thanks to the immediacy of email and chat rooms.
The Secret Service, presently housed under the bureaucratic umbrella of the Department of Homeland Security, was initially established in 1865 to help combat the rise in counterfeiting that took place in that era. The protection of national leaders didn't become a full-time responsibility until William McKinley was assassinated in 1901. Congress passed a law in 1917 making any threat against the president a federal crime, and the responsibility of investigating such threats often falls upon the Secret Service. Along with protecting presidents, the agency's role in policing financial shenanigans was expanded when the 20th century's technological revolution led to a rise in electronic financial transactions.
It should be noted in all of this, however, that the Secret Service has issued a response in which the agency denied any decreased capacity to carry out its missions, saying that the Boston Globe's report was "not accurate and lacks a good deal of information."
[img][342:500]http://www.thepaparazzis.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/02/picture-5__opt.jpg[/img]
