Taegan Goddard's Political Wire: The Good Old Days of Lower Security in Washington

January 10, 2011

The Good Old Days of Lower Security in Washington

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In the wake of the Arizona shooting, the National Journal takes an interesting look back at the history of presidential and congressional security, noting it was far more lax then than it is now. Thomas Jefferson had a public reception after his inauguration, and Harry Truman sometimes walked around Washington with just a small detail of Secret Service agents.

"Today, those seem like postcards from a forgotten era. Security concerns have transformed Washington, taking a city envisioned as the physical embodiment of the openness of American democracy and turning it into a garrison town that is increasingly inaccessible to the general public. To take one example, tourists visiting Capitol Hill start their trips by passing through a gauntlet of metal detectors and other screening measures in a $621 million visitors center constructed specifically to better protect what is already one of the most heavily guarded areas of the city."

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