Unprecedented Security Watches Over DC

It is an almost unimaginably difficult job: as Washington floods with millions of visitors, the Secret Service has to comb through and pick out all potential sources of danger to the new president. This means, as the London Times reports, a record five tons of bulletproof glass, tens of thousands of security forces, and near-invincible vehicles. The Secret Service even removed the doorknobs from buildings overlooking Pennsylvania Avenue.

No credible threats have emerged, but the agency is paid to be paranoid, and the emphasis seems to be on domestic racist-hate groups rather than foreigners. One Mississippi man was arrested for threatening in a chatroom to kill Barack Obama. Fear of assassination was a quiet theme throughout the campaign, and Obama employed private security before his Secret Service protection. The head of his private guards called him “one of the best protectees I ever worked with. He listened to us."
(More Secret Service stories.)