Althouse: "In an opinion filled with chilling, repeated references to being within shooting or grenade-throwing distance of the president..."

May 28, 2014

"In an opinion filled with chilling, repeated references to being within shooting or grenade-throwing distance of the president..."

"... the Supreme Court ruled unanimously on Tuesday that the Secret Service did not engage in unconstitutional censorship when its agents moved protesters out of range of a president as he dined on an outdoor restaurant patio."

60 comments:

dbp said...: It seems like any assassin worth his salt would pose as a supporter of his target.; 5/28/14, 10:06 AM
Chris said...: "It seems like any assassin worth his salt would pose as a supporter of his target."

That was my first thought. Second thought is that the Secret Service should know this.; 5/28/14, 10:13 AM
SomeoneHasToSayIt said...: All these precautions are based on the premise that The President is so important and integral to government and military that extraordinary measures are 24/7 required to insure safety.

Perhaps Obama's lazy, un-involved 'do nothing' presidency might shake that assumption somewhat.; 5/28/14, 10:24 AM
TosaGuy said...: Those here who supported during Recall Summer the groups of goons hounding Governor Walker and his family everywhere they went should be against this decision.; 5/28/14, 10:30 AM
James Pawlak said...: It appears that the Secret Service is "behind the times" as: A Barrett .50-cal/like rifle can "take out" an individual at a mile; A remote controlled model airplane, loaded with plastic explosive or home made nerve gas, can do the same; Etc.; 5/28/14, 10:34 AM
MadisonMan said...: I'm not the President.

If I were, I might think about the disruption that might be caused by my eating location.

On the other hand, I'm stubborn enough that I might choose a location to egg on protesters and ignore them.

I think this is the right ruling, though. The Secret Service made a judgement call. I trust their judgement in cases like this.; 5/28/14, 10:42 AM
KLDAVIS said...: For a time, there were certain things you didn't write about, lest they conjure images in disturbed minds.

Today, we take the output of those disturbed minds at face value, provided it furthers the appropriate agenda.; 5/28/14, 10:47 AM
Michael K said...: The Secret Service has been better known lately for drunken binges than assassination attempts. Previous Presidents often risked some danger because they did not want to seem remote from the voters. This President revels in it.; 5/28/14, 10:55 AM
Wince said...: Take that you metaphorical bomb-throwers!; 5/28/14, 10:55 AM
Eric the Fruit Bat said...: Now I'm wondering whether the Secret Service clears everyone out of the hotel restroom when the president has to take a dump; 5/28/14, 11:00 AM
Ignorance is Bliss said...: It seems like any assassin worth his salt would pose as a supporter of his target.

This lunch was an impromptu stop, so it is unlikely that a serious assassin would have been able to plan for this event. Thus, the concern for the secret service in this case is some nutjob seeing an opportunity and taking it. As such, a nutjob amongst the protesters seems more likely to turn violent than a nutjob amongst the supporters.

Seems like a reasonable decision to me.; 5/28/14, 11:02 AM
Anonymous said...: Let the man eat his waffle!; 5/28/14, 11:07 AM
Ann Althouse said...: ""It seems like any assassin worth his salt would pose as a supporter of his target." That was my first thought. Second thought is that the Secret Service should know this."

Then the third thought is that the worth-his-salt assassin knows that and would pose as a common political opponent of the President, the usual crazy other-party member, hoping the SS would look for assassins among the supporters.

And the SS knows all that and more and looks at whomever they like, probably everyone, and the SCt isn't going to second-guess their expertise.; 5/28/14, 11:10 AM
Ann Althouse said...: ""It seems like any assassin worth his salt would pose as a supporter of his target." That was my first thought. Second thought is that the Secret Service should know this."

Then the third thought is that the worth-his-salt assassin knows that and would pose as a common political opponent of the President, the usual crazy other-party member, hoping the SS would look for assassins among the supporters.

And the SS knows all that and more and looks at whomever they like, probably everyone, and the SCt isn't going to second-guess their expertise.; 5/28/14, 11:10 AM
Anonymous said...: Don't eat at outdoor patios if you're the target of a potential assassin.; 5/28/14, 11:17 AM
n.n said...: I would prefer that the president be more considerate of his subjects; but, I understand the mindset which places royalty before peasantry.; 5/28/14, 11:18 AM
MayBee said...: Maybe there aren't really that many people trying to kill the President at any one time.; 5/28/14, 11:24 AM
richard mcenroe said...: "Shooting range" is 600 yards for a decent shot, 1000 yards for a good shot, and up to two and a half miles for an experienced professional with the right equipment.

How big a bubble does the Emperor Jones need?; 5/28/14, 11:35 AM
richard mcenroe said...: "Now I'm wondering whether the Secret Service clears everyone out of the hotel restroom when the president has to take a dump"

In fact, yes.; 5/28/14, 11:36 AM
rhhardin said...: They have false Obamas eating out here and there.; 5/28/14, 11:37 AM
jr565 said...: "It seems like any assassin worth his salt would pose as a supporter of his target."

Or you could pull off a lee Harvey Oswald and get off a good shot.; 5/28/14, 11:41 AM
SJ said...: A historical assassination to remember:

Archduke Ferdinand escaped a grenade thrown at his motorcade in the first assassination attempt.

While taking a trip to the hospital, the driver missed a turn.

Gavrilo Princip, one of the conspirators in the earlier assassination attempt, was standing at a nearby cafe. He saw the driver bring the vehicle to a halt and stall the engine while attempting to reverse.

Princip took advantage of the opportunity, and fired twice with his pistol at a range of less than 10 feet.

It was an unplanned attack. (Though it followed a planned-but-failed attack.)

Are the SS afraid of attacks-of-opportunity, like this one?

My guess would be yes, they are afraid of this style of attack.; 5/28/14, 11:42 AM
paul a'barge said...: whatever. who cares?; 5/28/14, 11:49 AM
Chris said...: "And the SS knows all that and more and looks at whomever they like, probably everyone, and the SCt isn't going to second-guess their expertise."

I skimmed the ruling, and it makes sense, based on the facts.

I'd hate to think that the Supreme Court would give broad cover to the President to squelch critical speech in his vicinity by abusing the Secret Service.

If you value the First Amendment, it's something to be wary of.; 5/28/14, 11:54 AM
lemondog said...: ...made an impromptu stop for dinner during a campaign visit

If the stop was impromptu, were supporter/protestor groups impromptu? Was there likely to be an impromptu assassin in the group, .... maybe an impromptu tomato?

It seems like any assassin worth his salt would pose as a supporter of his target."

That was my first thought. Second thought is that the Secret Service should know this.

However, given possible double and triple switching, best to be prudent and move all groups back.; 5/28/14, 11:58 AM
David said...: Hey, something they all agree on.

And remember, Supreme Court Justices need protection too. Probably more than they get.; 5/28/14, 11:59 AM
SGT Ted said...: And the SS knows all that and more and looks at whomever they like, probably everyone, and the SCt isn't going to second-guess their expertise.

"Expertise" should never be the excuse to justify violating the civil rights of peaceful protestors.

They are effectively declaring and portraying ordinary political dissenters as criminal suspects with enormous potential for violence and defacto enemies of the State and thus not deserving of the right to assemble and protest Government officials. Wrong answer.

I am trained in Personal Protective Service Duties for VIPs and HVTs. Nowhere did I receive instruction that violating others civil rights is OK. In fact, the training also included instruction in how to do your job while maintaining respect and observance of any protestors civil rights while protecting the principle from possible harm.

The fact of the matter is that the SS routinely bullies citizens into surrendering their rights for the convenience of a politician. It needs to be curbed. If Obama wanted it stopped, he could do so with an order to his security detail. But note that he doesn't do that; he is perfectly OK with violating others rights for his own convenience.

He will use the "expertise" of his detail as the excuse, just like the court just did.; 5/28/14, 12:11 PM
Fen said...: A remote controlled model airplane, loaded with plastic explosive or home made nerve gas

Nano-flies with a hint of C4 attached. They look like small insects, can be piloted like a drone. Surround the area around the subject's head and detonate. The shockwave from the blast should(?) be enough to scramble the target's brain.; 5/28/14, 12:41 PM
Austin said...: I'm not sure that referring to the Secret Service as the "SS" is helpful. I understand the need for brevity, but still...; 5/28/14, 12:49 PM
Mousebert said...: How many presidential assassin or attempted assassin have been "worth their salt"?

It seems to me that the only one with meticulous planning was Booth's shooting Lincoln. All the others have been ad hoc. If the route had not been published in the paper, Oswald would not have brought his rifle to work.; 5/28/14, 12:52 PM
tim maguire said...: I see, so now the president is enveloped in a"constitution-free zone" that moves with him like a rain-cloud over Sad Sack. We don't like what you're saying? No problem--you might be armed!

Thank you Supreme Court!; 5/28/14, 12:54 PM
Anonymous said...: Security pigs. May they all burn in hell, soon, for how they treat the rest of us.; 5/28/14, 12:56 PM
Sigivald said...: Whoever wrote that chills real easily.

REmember, contra the first paragraphs, that a half-assed assassin can still get lucky.

The SS isn't really protecting the President from the FSB, say, or Pro-grade Assassins; they're damn near impossible to stop if they really, really want to try. [The protection there is the ... consequences of such an act.]

It's dangerous lunatics with a bomb or a pistol or a common rifle that are the more serious threat, I think.

(And contra Mr. Pawlak, "home made nerve gas" isn't a Giant Threat. It's not trivial to make, and nerve agents actually take more exposure than you might think to kill.

As above, "nutcase with a small bomb or a pistol" is a far more likely threat in the real world, and that's what they actually protect against, not movie plots and The Most Clever Thing We Can Come Up With.); 5/28/14, 1:09 PM
Anonymous said...: The often paranoid SS need not have worried so much. George Bush's greatest protection against assassination, at least by a Leftist, was the official line of succession, which would have made the hated Dick Cheney President.; 5/28/14, 1:22 PM
jr565 said...: That was my first thought. Second thought is that the Secret Service should know this.

Why does this remind me of the mental duel in Pricess bride between Wesley and Vizzini?; 5/28/14, 1:23 PM
Bill said...: The group of supporters may have been closer as measured on a map, but there was a building between them and the president, so there was no perceived need to move them further back.; 5/28/14, 1:28 PM
furious_a said...: As such, a nutjob amongst the protesters seems more likely to turn violent than a nutjob amongst the supporters.

You might want to ask Rajiv Gandhi about that.; 5/28/14, 1:28 PM
Big Mike said...: @Althouse, you mean even you got the dreaded double post?; 5/28/14, 1:30 PM
BarrySanders20 said...: That crazed, senile Justice Ginsberg really needs to retire already!

. . . says the left . . .

Except this one was unanimous. Something all the justices can relate to and agree upon -- government protection and deferring to secret service judgment about weirdos from Oregon.; 5/28/14, 1:33 PM
Richard Dolan said...: The Court, quite wisely I think, declines to allow judges or juries to second-guess all the variables in the first-thought, second-thought, third-thought litany detailed above in this comment string. It has nothing to do with whether the Secret Service is particularly good at its job, or whether their exercise of discretion reflected good judgment. Instead, it's all about how much worse the Secret Service might be at its job if the exercise of judgment by individual agents on 'how close is too close' resulted in their being dragged into the endless morass of litigation as we know it today.

Glenn Reynolds often laments the fact that the Supreme Court has invented various levels of immunity that the courts then bestow on governmental actors, his point being that governmental actors are at least as likely to trample the rights of others as anyone else. Since governmental actors often are granted vast powers over the citizenry and its property, a system that provides a check on the exercise of those powers has much to recommend it, while judicially created immunities does just the opposite. There is much wisdom in his view, and it would be compelling if the litigation system were better at separating out potentially meritorious case from the junk. Unfortunately, it's not. Given the realities, I think SCOTUS got this case right -- no second-guessing these decisions about where to create a security zone around the President, where, as here, those zones allowed ample opportunity to exercise the right to protest.; 5/28/14, 1:34 PM
Deirdre Mundy said...: Maybe we work too hard to protect politicians from assassination. We're not a dictatorship, where one man is essential for national stability. If a politician falls, another will fill the gap.

England and France don't worry this much. Why do we?; 5/28/14, 1:37 PM
paminwi said...: MadisonMan you would think the smartest man in the world, i.e. Obama, would think these things through, too!

http://www.businessinsider.com/obama-motorcade-traffic-jam-play-catch-2014-5; 5/28/14, 1:39 PM
Big Mike said...: I agree with the Secret Service precautions and the Supreme Court ruling. World War I started when a nut job got a target of opportunity from a car stopping right in front of him due to a wrong turn.

FWIW John Hinkley, Jr., hid among a crowd of well-wishers. Nor for that matter do we know whether the Secret Service recognized an individual who was a known threat in the crowd of protestors and chose to move the entire crowd in order to prevent that individual of being aware that they were aware.; 5/28/14, 1:43 PM
Big Mike said...: @James Pawlak, the bad guy wouldn't need a Barrett. During the Civil War Union General John Sedgwick was shot in the head by a muzzle-loading rifle from a distance of 1000 yards. His famous last words were supposed to be "Get up. They couldn't hit an elephant at this dist ..."; 5/28/14, 1:44 PM
I Callahan said...: I'm not sure why anyone has a problem with this. You have a right to say something, but not to have an audience.; 5/28/14, 2:23 PM
Anonymous said...: the groups of goons hounding Governor Walker and his family everywhere they went should be against this decision

You got that backwards. The allegations regarding Walker's family being attacked was shown to be untrue.

However, the many cases of Walker supporters spitting on people, throwing rocks in the windows of pro-union bus, and physical violence (one case involving a man attacking his own wife in order to prevent her from voting against the Governor) have been documented and shown to be true.; 5/28/14, 2:29 PM
Nichevo said...: USSS please. SS means something else.

Also consider context. Point may not be just to kill Pres X but to get Y blamed. E.g. hippies, or whoever.; 5/28/14, 2:56 PM
Andy Freeman said...: > Then the third thought is that the worth-his-salt assassin knows that and would pose as a common political opponent of the President, the usual crazy other-party member, hoping the SS would look for assassins among the supporters.

The rational thought is that said assassin will pick the pose that provides the best access. That decision is based on what the SS does at the relevant time, not the suggested navel-gazing.; 5/28/14, 3:25 PM
Andy Freeman said...: > This lunch was an impromptu stop, so it is unlikely that a serious assassin would have been able to plan for this event.

Said assassin doesn't need to plan for a specific stop. While this particular stop may have been impromptu, Presidents make impromptu stops fairly often.

One problem is avoiding being detected while waiting for an opportunity. Twitter and other mobile media probably help here.; 5/28/14, 3:31 PM
The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...: "nutjob amongst the supporters."

Which is all of them.; 5/28/14, 5:14 PM
NotWhoIUsedtoBe said...: Didn't Nixon have rocks thrown at him while he was campaigning?; 5/28/14, 5:22 PM
Michelle Dulak Thomson said...: "It seems like any assassin worth his salt would pose as a supporter of his target."

That was my first thought. Second thought is that the Secret Service should know this.

My third thought is that the Secret Service would be the perfect place for an assassin. I will now go read the rest of the thread and see if anyone else's mind is running the same way.; 5/28/14, 5:44 PM
JackWayne said...: All you lefties that hollered about the patriot act seems servile when the loss of freedom is for a democrat.; 5/28/14, 5:50 PM
Zach said...: "In an opinion filled with chilling, repeated references to being within shooting or grenade-throwing distance of the president..."

What's so chilling about that? The Secret Service is establishing a perimeter around the president. The radius of that perimeter is determined by, yes, the distance at which someone can shoot or throw a grenade effectively.

Chilling would be the Secret Service establishing a perimeter that wasn't in some sense determined by a reasonable attack range.; 5/28/14, 6:48 PM
Mark said...: The original complaint was that protesters were treated differently than supporters. The SCOTUS upon reviewing the case decided (if I read the analysis correctly, and no, IANAL) that the plaintiffs' claim in this case was without merit.

Those of you who assumed Obama was the President in question should have at least skimmed the original article.

When they're not drunk and stiffing prostitutes, I'm willing to let the Secret Service security apparatus do what it feels it needs to do. Can any of you imagine anything worse for this country than an assassin taking out the President right now? Short of a nuke in NY harbor, I can't.; 5/28/14, 6:55 PM
tim maguire said...: A few people here seem clued in to the big issue hiding behind all our little issues--it says something very ugly about our society that so many resources are put into protecting the president, so many sacrifices are required of the public to keep him safe. What we have today is what you eventually get when certain assumptions are not questioned.

If we really were a nation of laws, not of men, then we would not worry so much about assassination, because it wouldn't matter so much.; 5/28/14, 7:19 PM
Bayoneteer said...: Being a US president is dangerous!
Killed: Lincoln, Garfield, Mckinley, JFK, RFK (candidate)Injured:TR Roosevelt(candidate), Geo.Wallace (candidate), Reagan.
Attempted:FDR,Truman,Ford (twice), Reagan (again after leaving office), GW Bush (only a shoe thrown, but..
America is an incredibly violent country. The BoR dont stop bullets.; 5/28/14, 7:38 PM
David said...: "LarsPorsena said...
Let the man eat his waffle!"

Wrong President, Lars (and others.)

It was Bush 43.; 5/29/14, 12:27 AM
Kirk Parker said...: MDT,

Indira Gandhi was unavailable for comment.; 5/29/14, 4:27 PM
Nichevo said...: David, I'd like to note that President George W. Bush has actually had a grenade thrown at him. I forget the details but it was in Russia. I believe the pin was not pulled but if it had been, W would have been in grave danger.; 5/30/14, 6:44 PM