So, will Congress ever depose *'s Secret Service team?

[guruoo]

I can hear them now....

http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1998/05/22/lewinsky.scandal/
Judge: Secret Service Must Testify
Clinton says ruling could have a 'chilling' effect

WASHINGTON (AllPolitics, May 22) -- In another setback for President Bill Clinton, a federal judge has ruled Secret Service personnel must testify before the grand jury in the Monica Lewinsky controversy.

Judge Norma Holloway Johnson rejected the Secret Service's attempt to invoke a "protective function privilege" to prevent its agents from testifying. The Secret Service had resisted Whitewater prosecutor Ken Starr's effort to compel the testimony, saying it would erode the relationship agents need to be near the president and protect him.

In her 10-page ruling, Johnson said there was no legal basis for the privilege the Secret Service sought.

"The court does not doubt that physical proximity between Secret Service personnel and the president is crucial to the president's safety," the judge wrote. "However, it does not accept the suggestions that the possibility that agents could be compelled to testify before a grand jury will lead a president to 'push away' his protectors."

[Rabrrrrrr]

1. Yeah, but everything changed on 9-11,

so now asking the secret service to testify is no different than partial birth abortion or letting gays marry turtles or handing the country over to Osama himself.

[Xenotime]

2. What makes them so special?

If you are a witness to a crime, you should testify.

[Hippo_Tron]

5. Ask a secret service agent that question

Imagine if you had to be followed around by someone LITERALLY wherever you go. There is no privacy whatsoever. Because there is no alternative to this relationship, the president must trust that his secret service agents are there to do nothing except protect his life. If the president does not trust his secret service agents then it will hinder their ability to protect him and possibly endanger the agents themselves.

This is even more of a problem for the first family. The president is pretty much going to have swarms of people around him all day, no matter what, so the lack of privacy is not as big of a deal. For the first family, particularly when there are teenagers it is different. Privacy is incredibly important to teenagers and when someone is following your every move it can become incredibly tempting to just ditch your secret service agents. In order to prevent this from happening, it must be understood that the agents aren't there to babysit you or to rat you out, but only to protect you. This understanding can't happen if we are subpoenaing secret service agents to testify before congressional committees.

Unless we are talking about something that is absolutely a matter of life and death, I think that the secret service needs to be left alone to do their job.

[guruoo]

6. Yes, but then the precident has already been established...

like they're now attempting to do with warantless
wiretaps, and executive power in general.

What is it they say, something about being careful
in what you wish for?

[Hippo_Tron]

7. This is true...

But I'd prefer that the precedent be dis-established if possible.

[guruoo]

8. I've been struggling with that one....

Part of me tells that would be the
noble thing to do, but the other part thinks like, well,
like Smokey the Bear...

Only you can prevent fascism
Make sure it's dead out

[Pab Sungenis]

3. One of the worst decisions in history.

However, we have to learn to fight dirty like they do.

[guruoo]

4. We have a lot to learn about that

[OneBlueSky]

9. what the Secret Service SHOULD be called to testify about . . .

is their failure to hustle Bush out of that elementary school in Florida when the country was supposedly under attack . . . totally out of character with how the Service is perceived and with how it has acted in the past, and I for one would like to know why . . .