Thursday, October 22, 2009

Secret Service strained to protect Obama

This article discusses how budget cuts are affecting everyone including the Secret Service.  It specifically discusses the overwhelming number of threats on President Obama.  The blog argues that a major cause of the growing number of threats is the increase in accessibility to high speed Internet.  The accessibility of websites like YouTube and social networks like Facebook is aiding extremist groups to spread their message.

4 comments:

Robb S. said...

Great post - it is actually pretty scary to think that today even an elite group such as Secret Service is being questioned about whether or not it can successfully protect President Obama. I thought it was remarkable to read that threats against President Obama are up 400 percent, from the number of threats levied against former President Bush even though Bush was critcized as being one of the worst Presidents in recent decades and had at one point one of the lowest approval ratings of any US President. This goes to show you that the cost of computer technology has fallen, more and more people are spending time on Facebook and Myspace, which can unify people with extreme views and lets them communicate direct threats to individuals quicker.

AaronSoltis said...

This article is very interesting to read. I find it interesting that even the Secret Service is facing cuts to its program because the economy is in such hard times. This article also proves the point that there are many media outlets to get one's message out across to millions. Because of these rise in new media the President is facing more and more threats.

Curry Wilson said...

This is a very interesting and important article because it proves that this tough economic time is not just affecting the citizens of the US but also our President. His safety is being somewhat jeopardized by these budget cuts specifically to his own secret service. It also proves that technology has its negative effects too by spreading these hate groups mission throughout more areas and states and thus increasing the threats on our President even more.

Karan Dave said...

Its really interesting to see what the global meltdown has led too! This major downturn in the world's economy has led to fewer wages paid and job losses to a nations security and in this case the US President's safety. I was watching CNN the other day, and they mentioned that the secret service had been overloaded with a number of missions, however in my view, the secret services' main objective or operation should be the President and his families utmost protection. Their priorities need to be set straight, and the government should make sure that one of the world's most important men shouldn't be compromised!