Secret Service's job: secure political conventions

It's the Secret Service's job to keep the candidates and convention sites safe and secure. Many of its roughly 4,400 agents and officers will be working the conventions. The agency also relies on thousands of other federal, state and local officials to help — including police, airport screeners, nuclear weapons experts and intelligence analysts.

Tens of thousands of delegates, reporters, protesters and other interested folks will flock to Denver Aug. 25-28 and St. Paul Sept. 1-4. These conventions are attractive platforms for terrorists and other groups that want to cause disruptions.

The threats to major events like the conventions have evolved over the years. When Secret Service agents would go to sites to do advance security work 10-20 years ago, they'd manually check the elevator and make sure the air infiltration systems and the water purification systems were locked, Sullivan said. Now all of that can be manipulated remotely.

The timing of this year's conventions poses a unique challenge for the Secret Service as well. Coming off protection details in China where U.S. dignitaries traveled for the Olympics, the agents and officers go straight to Denver for the Democratic National Convention and then have just three days before the Republican counterpart kicks off. In 2004, there were 32 days between the two conventions; and there were 11 days between the 2000 conventions.

"It's a tremendous pull of resources," said Nick Trotta, assistant director of the Secret Service's Protective Division.

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Trotta also called Obama's decision to accept his party's nomination a "tremendous challenge."

It costs the Secret Service about $45,000 a day to protect each candidate. The agency has already asked for more money to cover unexpected costs — an extra $9.5 million on top of the $85.25 million that was budgeted for the 2008 campaign. Obama received Secret Service protection almost a year earlier than officials expected and has had a detail since May 2007. And as soon as each candidate announces his vice presidential pick, new protective details are deployed for the second-in-command hopefuls.

Because Denver's Invesco Field, an open-air stadium that seats 76,000 people, holds nearly four times the number of people as the indoor Pepsi Center — there needs to be more security and extra countersnipers and air patrols as well.

"That undoubtedly puts far, far more pressure on people and resources than holding it inside," said Tom Ridge, the country's first Homeland Security secretary and a former Republican governor of Pennsylvania. As for Obama's decision to move his acceptance speech to Invesco Field, Ridge said, "I don't know if he thought about that. Maybe he didn't care."

But Ridge said the Secret Service, which became part of his department in 2003, is up to the task. "They'll get it done."

The Secret Service began protecting major presidential candidates and the presidential conventions after Robert Kennedy's assassination in 1968. There has never been an assassination attempt at a presidential convention, the Secret Service said.

Sullivan said security is a necessary reality at the conventions.

"We just always have to assume that there's someone out there, you know, looking to come after us, looking to come after the people we protect," Sullivan said. "Today could be the day, and you need to be ready."

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