With suspicious packages containing crude pipe bombs being sent to former president Barack Obama, onetime vice president Joe Biden, and presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, the Secret Service is on high alert. Keeping current and former presidents prophylactic is a high-profile part of the task for Secret Service agents, merely what else practice they do?

Secret Service agent 2018
Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty Images

Despite the name, the U.s.a. Secret Service isn't all that secret. Sure, we know about the handful of agents who don sharp suits, sunglasses, and discreet walkie-talkies while protecting the president, but there's more to it than that.

What does the undercover service do?

The most visible and obvious part the Hush-hush Service provides is keeping current and former presidents prophylactic.

When presidents are at home, agents proceed an center out for intruders and threats. When Donald Trump or quondam presidents travel, Secret Service agents scope out the destinations ahead of time. That includes identifying potential risks, packing numberless with the president's blood blazon, having an extra plane waiting nearby, and watching what the Commander in Chief eats (literally — they ensure nutrient isn't poisoned).

Nonetheless, there'due south more than to the job than assigning code names for presidents and jogging aslope motorcades. The United States Undercover Service's primary office is to find and arrest counterfeiters. Agents also investigate financial, cyber, and financial criminal offence, too as international organized crime, co-ordinate to the Secret Service website.

The USSS also protects visiting strange leaders or anyone else the president directs it to baby-sit.

Those are all official duties. Unofficially, agents make mental notes nigh some of the behind-the-scenes, confidential information about U.S. presidents under their lookout man.

How many Secret Service agents protect the president?

Uniformed Secret Service agents
Not all Secret Service members vesture suits. | J. David Ake/AFP/Getty Images

As nosotros mentioned, protecting the president is the virtually high-profile aspect of being a Secret Service agent. The handful of people selected presidential protection detail come from the USSS's group of roughly 3,200 special agents and officers. Those who don't guard the president are assigned to watch the White Firm, Treasury building, or foreign embassies in Washington, D.C., or they work in offices scattered across the country.

The history of the Undercover Service

The Secret Service dates dorsum to 1865 when it was in the Department of the Treasury. At commencement, its sole mission was to stop counterfeiting, but it's added to its duties over the years. Hither are a few key moments in its history.

Secret Service agents with George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush, and Barbara Bush 1990
The Hugger-mugger Service protects presidents and their families as well as vice presidents. | Kevin Larkin/AFP/Getty Images
  • 1867: Responsibilities expanded to include investigating and stopping smugglers, mail robbers, land fraud, and other federal crimes.
  • 1894: The service protects its showtime president. Underground Service agents guard Grover Cleveland on a part-time basis.
  • 1901: President William McKinley's bump-off prompts Congress to brand presidential protection a formal duty, which started in 1902. Only ii agents guarded the president full time.
  • 1917: A president's family unit receives the same protection equally the Commander in Chief.
  • 1951: Congress authorizes the Secret Service to protect the president, his immediate family, the vice president, and the president-elect.
  • 1968: Presidential candidates, their running mates, and other nominees garner protection.
  • 1999: The Secret Service moves into its own headquarters. Earlier that, It rented role space in Washington, D.C.
  • 2003: The Underground Service moves from being function of the Treasury Department to the Department of Homeland Security.

How to become a Secret Service agent

Secret Service with Obama 2013
Heavily armed Secret Service agents stroll with President Obama in 2013. | Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images

Condign an amanuensis might be more hard than condign presidents. Potential field agents accept to complete a 10-step process before they face a hiring panel that makes the concluding phone call on whether or not to rent them.

The two-phase process starts with a task opening and continues with a resume review, written exam, physical ability examination, interview, and a conditional task offer. That's phase one.

Phase two includes a security and credit cheque, polygraph test, medical and psychological examination, and a background check that takes up to nine months.

Agents need to be well-rounded, too. They receive all-encompassing weapons and h2o survival skills, according to Thrillist. Notwithstanding, if y'all've used any illegal drugs since historic period 23, y'all have no shot of making the cut since y'all'll exist automatically disqualified. Same goes if you lot bought or sold drugs at whatsoever time in your life.

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