© The Associated Press/Susan WalshIn this Monday, Oct. 24, 2011 file photo, Secret Service agents stand guard as President Barack Obama meets with the neighbors of homeowners Jose and Lissette Bonilla in Las Vegas. The Secret Service has been tarnished by a prostitution scandal that erupted April 13, 2012 in Colombia involving 12 Secret Service agents, officers and supervisors and 12 more enlisted military personnel ahead of President Barack Obama's visit there for the Summit of the Americas.
Washington - After two weeks of disturbing revelations about a tawdry prostitution scandal, the Secret Service and its supporters are circling the wagons to restore the "secret" part of its mission.
Retired agents have been instructed to stop talking to reporters. Secret Service agents are dismantling Facebook accounts, hanging up on reporters and notifying headquarters - even calling police - when journalists knock on their doors at home for interviews about the investigation.
"What purpose do these revelations, true or exaggerated, serve? What ever happened to one's pride in being discreet and keeping a confidence?" asked the president of the Association of Former Agents of the U.S. Secret Service, Pete Cavicchia, in an email to members. Cavicchia, head of a New York-based security and investigations firm, praised retired agents who declined interviews, urged others to "exercise the proper caution" and added, "We as an organization and individually do not have to add to the damage and speculation at this time."
Cavicchia said Monday that the email speaks for itself.
The scandal and what it's revealed about the culture inside the Secret Service have been a shock to an agency that is famously discreet. More than a dozen Secret Service agents contacted by The Associated Press have abruptly hung up or declined to return multiple messages to discuss their agency and former coworkers. One reported it to headquarters when an AP reporter visited his home in the evening; some retired officials who were interviewed quickly notified headquarters about what questions reporters were asking.
Comment: So, with France leading the way, the EU has quietly created a secret police force that will be accountable to no one but SITCEN, its new intelligence agency.
The name Brice Hortefeux rings a bell. Apparently he is good at creating secret police forces:
Big Agri-Business, Big Pharma, Arms Trafficking, Suicide Cults and MIVILUDES - The Truth Behind France's Cult-Hunting Policies Exposed Monsieur Hortefeux is also very good at getting things done in secret: Having cut their teeth among the ranks of special forces in Afghanistan and the Balkans, it's unlikely that this 'new riot' squad is being drafted in to do grunt work on the streets. No, Europe's elites might have much craftier work in mind for them...
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