--- title: Secret Service Fence Jumper Shows Agency's Arrogance and Negligence description: The latest incident underscores how important it is to overhaul the Secret Service and its management culture that fosters cutting corners. canonical: https://time.com/3534194/secret-service-fence-jumper-operation-moonlight/ author: Ronald Kessler article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-10-23T15:26:56.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T05:07:18.175Z article:section: Ideas og:title: It Shouldn't Take Another Tragedy To Reform the Secret Service og:description: The latest incident underscores how important it is to overhaul the Secret Service and its management culture that fosters cutting corners. og:url: https://time.com/3534194/secret-service-fence-jumper-operation-moonlight/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt617840d1c45ab1f1/69876269a988cad0046a9fe7/456537512.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2790 og:image:height: 1569 og:image:alt: US-POLITICS-SECURITY-WHITE HOUSE og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: It Shouldn't Take Another Tragedy To Reform the Secret Service twitter:description: The latest incident underscores how important it is to overhaul the Secret Service and its management culture that fosters cutting corners. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt617840d1c45ab1f1/69876269a988cad0046a9fe7/456537512.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # It Shouldn't Take Another Tragedy To Reform the Secret Service > Sponsored content. 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Inside TIME is the newsletter where TIME's Editor-in-Chief explains cover selection and the editorial reasoning behind major stories. It is free at time.com/newsletters. #### Who is the editor of TIME? Sam Jacobs is TIME's Editor-in-Chief. He writes Inside TIME, a twice-weekly newsletter about the newsroom's reporting and editorial decisions. #### Is Inside TIME free? Yes. Inside TIME is a free newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. A paid TIME subscription is separate and available at time.com/subscribe-agent. by [Ronald Kessler](https://time.com/author/ronald-kessler/) ## Ronald Kessler Oct 23, 2014 3:26 PM UTC  A member of Secret Service walks on the North Lawn of the White Houes on October 2, 2014 in Washington, DC. US President Barack Obama has appointed former Presidential Protective Division (PPD) director Joe Clancy as interim head of the Secret Service a day after Julia Pierson stepped down from the post. A member of Secret Service walks on the North Lawn of the White Houes on October 2, 2014 in Washington, DC. US President Barack Obama has appointed former Presidential Protective Division (PPD) director Joe Clancy as interim head of the Secret Service a day after Julia Pierson stepped down from the post. MANDEL NGAN—AFP/Getty Images by [Ronald Kessler](https://time.com/author/ronald-kessler/) ## Ronald Kessler Oct 23, 2014 3:26 PM UTC At least a dozen times a year, intruders try to jump the White House fence. Many of them succeed. Until Omar Gonzalez penetrated the White House itself, the Secret Service had stopped the intruders before they got inside, as the Secret Service admirably did on Wednesday evening when a Uniformed Division dog took down a [fence jumper](http://time.com/3533798/white-house-fence-jumper-charged-police-dogs/). But this recent incident spotlights how foolish it is to keep the White House fence where it is. Many will argue that moving the perimeter to Lafayette Park and closing off access to the public along Pennsylvania Avenue somehow shuts down access to the president. But no one has access to the president without an appointment and being cleared by the Secret Service. The public sees the president almost every day on television. The idea that our rights will somehow be impinged upon by making the White House safer is a myth. However, the latest incident underscores how important it is to overhaul the Secret Service and its management culture that fosters cutting corners. A [report](http://bigstory.ap.org/article/8bf0339650f1409d92edef2335a300d8/investigators-question-secret-service-assignment) issued this week by the Department of Homeland Security’s Inspector General brings that into vivid focus. The report describes how Secret Service management as part of Operation Moonlight diverted agents on the so-called Prowler team from protecting President Obama at the White House to instead protecting Lisa Chopey, the assistant to then Secret Service Director Mark Sullivan, at her home in southern Maryland. ### PHOTOS: Go Behind the Scenes with the Secret Service  Secret Service agents stand guard around President Bush's Limousine on the tarmac as he arrives in Kansas City, Mo., Jan. 25, 2007. Brooks Kraft—Corbis  Secret Service agents surround U.S. President Barack Obama at a campaign event in Las Vegas on Nov. 1, 2012. Brooks Kraft—Corbis  A Secret Service agent watches the crowd as President Barrack Obama speaks in Holmdel, N.J. on July 16, 2009. Brooks Kraft—Corbis  U.S. President George W. Bush attends a campaign rally in the town square of Troy, Ohio, on Aug. 28, 2004. Brooks Kraft—Corbis  Secret Service agents watch as President George W. Bush lands in Philadelphia on March 15, 2004. Brooks Kraft—Corbis  Secret Service agents watch as U.S. President George W. Bush arrives in Cedar Rapids, Iowa on Nov. 3, 2006. Brooks Kraft—Corbis  A Presidential limousine is loaded onto a C5 military transport plane bound for eastern Europe, where President Bush is headed next week. A "secure package" of motorcade vehicles, including the limousines and a fleet of Secret Service SUVs is transported to the site of every presidential visit, Maryland, March 28, 2008. Brooks Kraft—Corbis  A Secret Service agent stands guard in front of President George W Bush's vehicle, while he tours rebuilding efforts in a neighborhood affected by Hurricane Katrina, in Long Beach, Miss. on March 1, 2007. Brooks Kraft—Corbis  A Secret Service agent with the Counter Assault and Tactical Division holds a loaded weapon in front of the North Portico of the White House in Washington, Oct. 28, 2009. Brooks Kraft—Corbis  Members of the Counter Asault Division of the US Secret Service keep an eye on the crowd as President Barack Obama departs the Annual Legislative Conference of the United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce in Washington on March 10, 2009. Brooks Kraft—Corbis  A uniformed secret service agent waits for the arrival of President Bush and Italy's Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi on the North Portico of the White House in Washington on Oct. 13, 2008. Brooks Kraft—Corbis  Secret Service agents stand near the Presidential Limousine at the conclusion of a campaign rally attended by President Bush in an airport hanger in Sugar Land, Texas on Oct. 30, 2006. Brooks Kraft—Corbis As first reported in my book _The First Family Detail_, the agents who were diverted to protect Chopey also retrieved confidential law enforcement records on Chopey’s neighbor who had allegedly harassed her. But neither the Secret Service nor the FBI has the authority to protect its own employees. Only when a federal law enforcement officer is threatened or retaliated against as a result of an investigation does such action become a federal offense. As a support employee, Chopey is not a law enforcement officer and was not engaged in an investigation. Thus, retrieving 13 pages of records on the neighbor violated federal criminal laws because the agents had no legitimate law enforcement authority to conduct an investigation of this nature (a point the DHS report failed to note). Also left unsaid in the DHS report was that one of the purposes of the Prowler team is to look for possible snipers as Marine One lifts off with the president from the White House grounds. On July 1, 2011, Obama and his family left in the helicopter in the late afternoon to go to Camp David, but the Prowler team was nowhere to be found. Instead, the team had been diverted to protect Chopey in southern Maryland. As if that is not shocking enough, the DHS report quotes Secret Service management and former director Sullivan as defending the decision to divert agents from protecting the president. They claimed the diversion did not impinge on the president’s safety. That, along with the comment by former Secret Service Director Julia Pierson that Secret Service uniformed officers exercised “tremendous restraint” in not taking out Gonzalez even though he penetrated the White House, pinpoints both the arrogance and the negligence of the Secret Service today. The Secret Service agents involved in Operation Moonlight were fully aware that they were breaking the law, but they felt that their jobs were on the line, a Secret Service agent who asked not to be quoted by name for fear of reprisals told me for the book. The agents “obtained all this information illegally and kept it and were told not to talk about it outside the squad,” the agent says. “They kept records at the duty desk and made agents on every shift initial that they had gone all the way out to southern Maryland to check on the woman’s welfare on the taxpayer dollar.” DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson has appointed a four-person panel to recommend security improvements at the White House and to suggest a new director. One development the panel should explore are so-called non-lethal weapons such as ear-splitting sound and high-energy beams that are used to protect our nuclear facilities. And the panel should recommend an outside director such as a former FBI official to change the management culture that encourages cover-ups and brazenly defends the indefensible. This time, the Secret Service succeeded in apprehending a fence jumper. The next time, it may not. It took the assassination of President Kennedy to substantially upgrade the Secret Service the last time. It should not take another tragedy to reform the Secret Service now. _Ronald Kessler, a former_ Washington Post _and_ Wall Street Journal _investigative reporter, is the author of_ The First Family Detail: Secret Service Agents Reveal the Hidden Lives of the Presidents_._ ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"OpinionNewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3534194/secret-service-fence-jumper-operation-moonlight/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3534194/secret-service-fence-jumper-operation-moonlight/"},"headline":"It Shouldn't Take Another Tragedy To Reform the Secret Service","datePublished":"2014-10-23T15:26:56.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T05:07:18.175Z","description":"The latest incident underscores how important it is to overhaul the Secret Service and its management culture that fosters cutting corners","url":"https://time.com/3534194/secret-service-fence-jumper-operation-moonlight/","keywords":["politics","White House","U.S.","National Security","Secret Service"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt617840d1c45ab1f1/69876269a988cad0046a9fe7/456537512.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Ronald Kessler","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/ronald-kessler/"}],"articleSection":"Ideas","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt617840d1c45ab1f1/69876269a988cad0046a9fe7/456537512.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"US-POLITICS-SECURITY-WHITE HOUSE","caption":"US-POLITICS-SECURITY-WHITE HOUSE","creditText":"MANDEL NGAN—AFP/Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/ideas/","name":"Ideas"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/politics/","name":"politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3534194/secret-service-fence-jumper-operation-moonlight/","name":"It Shouldn't Take Another Tragedy To Reform the Secret Service"}}]}] ```