Newly Upgraded White House Fence Defeated by Infant Intruder

To me, the most interesting detail in the story: “While taller, the new fence has an additional inch of space between the pickets, for a total of 5.5 inches (12.7 centimeters) between posts.” https://t.co/kmWKskK0Sa

— TSB (@TweetingTSB) April 18, 2023

So, for lovers of trivia and minutia, can you guess how actual security design professionals determine how close is close enough for the spacing of pickets in a high-security fence? 

Hint: the human head is the most irreducibly small element that an intruder has to push through an opening. No matter how skinny a body may be in all other dimensions, the adult head can't get smaller.

How large is that typical adult head, and how would you know? Sample hat sizes? Conduct experiments? Survey your friends?     

Thanks to the U.S. taxpayer, none of that is necessary because the motherlode of body measurement data comes to us from the U.S. Defense Department. If you are prepared to be suitably impressed, go to page 478 at the linked report and check the head measurement known as the 'bitragion breadth.' 

That's the smallest head dimension relevant to a picket fence. An intruder must get that front width of his head through an opening if the rest of his body is to follow. 

I urge you to really appreciate the scientific legitimacy of DOD's anthropometric data. Go deep into the dork forest of sample sizes and standard deviations. 

Thanks to that good work, we can say with a high level of confidence that 5.5 inches of clear opening distance between the pickets of the White House fence is enough to stop nearly all intruders (not counting infants, of course), without being ridiculous or unaffordable. 

A tip o' my government hat to whoever worked on that project.

White House Fence Jumper Spent 16 Minutes on the Grounds Undetected

A surprising new development in the case of that White House fence-jumping incident back on March 10 happened today, when the Secret Service publically acknowledged that the intruder was loose on the White House grounds for an incredible 16 and a half minutes before they found and arrested him.

At 11:21:38 pm an individual breached an outer perimeter fence near the Treasury complex, near East Executive Avenue. This fence is approximately 5 feet in height. The individual proceeded within the secure perimeter and scaled an 8 foot vehicle gate. The individual then proceeded to climb over a 3 ½ foot fence near the SE corner of the East Wing of the White House grounds. Uniformed Division Officers attempted to ascertain the location and identity of the individual. At 11:38:00 pm, the individual was taken into custody on the grounds without incident.

But now the House Oversight Committee is on the job, and we can be sure that Chairman Jason Chaffetz will soon be on top of the situation.

The Secret Service has only itself to blame, of course. If only it hadn't turned Chaffetz down when he applied for a job as an agent, he wouldn't have a platform from which to oversee it now.

I Think We Need a Higher Fence

The luckiest man in Washington DC today is the guy who jumped over the White House fence and then, by some almost unbelievable stroke of luck, or by an only slightly less unbelievable lapse of security, was not immediately shot to death.

The WaPo reports:

A man draped in an American flag was taken into custody Thursday afternoon after he jumped the fence of the White House while the first family was inside celebrating Thanksgiving.

Joseph Caputo faces criminal charges after he scaled over the north fence line of the grounds and was immediately apprehended about 2:45 p.m., said Robert Hoback, a spokesman for the Secret Service. Officials did not provide details on Caputo’s age, home town or any reason for the jumper’s actions.

The Secret Service did not immediately provide further details of the incident, and officials were working to determine how the man made it past new “pencil-point” spikes added to the White House perimeter this year to deter intruders.

The WaPo article links to more on the "pencil-point" spikes, but really, isn't it obvious how the jumper made it past them? They are a pathetic excuse for an anti-climb fence topping, being only a few inches high. That's how he made it past them.

Hey Secret Service officials, you can stop working to determine how this happened and start working on getting a higher fence.

White House Fence Gets an Almost-Perceptible Security Improvement

The new spikes are on the left; if you squint, you might see them

Wasn't it all the way back in September 2014 that the White House had that fence-climbing intruder? The one who ran into the house despite all the security countermeasures in place to prevent something like that? And the administration is only now getting around to doing some tangible security improvement to the White House fence?

Better late than never, I guess. But, after nine months, you'd think they could have come up with something a lot more impressive than those tiny fence-top spikes. Those little things provide no appreciable gain in physical security, so far as I can see.

Here's the ABC News article on that minor perimeter security improvement - Metal Spikes Installed on White House Fence in Latest Security Renovation:

Metal spikes were installed atop the White House fence today, the latest enhancement to fortify the security perimeter at the White House.

U.S. Secret Service and the National Park Service mounted the "removable anti-climb feature" this afternoon, but the entire installation process will take six weeks. Designed by Rock Island Arsenal Joint Manufacturing and Technology Center, the metal spikes installed today are only a temporary and will be replaced once a long-term solution is implemented, officials said.

Honestly, if a complete fence replacement is coming - someday? - why even bother with an insignificant interim improvement?

White House Security Measures "All Failed in Stunning Succession"

Nice hedges there, in front of the door

The Secret Service was already embarrassed by its failure to stop that White House fence-jumper back on September 19, but until today we didn't know how very badly it failed. The WaPo reported on an internal review of the incident (here) and had this to say:

Layer after layer of security measures that were supposed to block an intruder from getting into the White House all failed in stunning succession on the evening of Sept. 19, according to an internal review of a fence jumper’s breach.

There were nearly a dozen failures in the Secret Service’s rings of security that helped Omar Jose Gonzalez, 42, get inside the White House and deep into the East Room, according to a Department of Homeland Security review, a summary of which was obtained Thursday by The Washington Post

The executive summary is here. It is grim reading.

The report has surprising stuff - surprising to me, at least - about shortcomings in elementary physical and technical security countermeasures. For instance, the intruder climbed the White House fence at a weak spot that lacked an ornamental spike topping, temporary construction around the fence line blocked officers' visibility during the incident, the Emergency Response Team officers and the dog handler all assumed that bushes near the North Portico were an impassable barrier (whereas the intruder went through them with no trouble), alarm annunciation had been muted inside the White House at the staff's request leaving the officer who was posted directly inside the North Portico door unaware of what was going on, and the doors lacked any automated locking mechanism.

The training and staffing problems were even worse, if that is possible. One tidbit is enough to make my point. According to the investigation, responding members of the Emergency Response Team didn't know the layout of the White House and hesitated to go into the mansion after the break-in. They "had never received familiarization training regarding the interior of the White House." What?

The part about the bushes interests me. “Prior to that evening, the Officers believed the bushes too thick to be passable” the report says. Really? Are they some sort of super-special high security bushes?

No, they aren't. According to a White House pamphlet about the landscaping of the grounds, the bushes are simple English and American boxwoods. Those are evergreens that have dense foliage and are often used for privacy fences or border hedges, but they are no more impassable than any other common shrubbery. Have the White House Uniformed Division Officers never received familiarization training about the exterior of the White House, either?

White House Denies Surpressing Scandal Investigation Before 2012 Election

Obama donor, Obama, and Obama aide (UK Mail photo)

The young man on the right is not Napoleon Dynamite, by the way. He's actually the son of an Obama contributor and he currently works in the State Department as a teenage Policy Advisor, but maybe not for much longer, depending on how the latest Washington sex-and-politics scandal develops.

Dach posted this photo on Instagram

I see he uses his big boy name of Jonathan on his business card, but he goes by the more age-appropriate "Jonny" in the State Department phone book, and by "darkwingdach" on his Tumblr account, which is called, I kid you not, Let's Get Dangerous.

Dangerous? Have you ever seen a less dangerous-looking individual? I hope the prostitutes in Cartagena have a Kid’s Menu of reduced rates, because that boy should not have been charged full price.

The WaPo explains how Dach-Darkwing-Danger-Dynamite got his job:

Dach’s father, Leslie Dach, is a prominent Democratic donor who gave $23,900 to the party in 2008 to help elect Obama. In his previous job as a top lobbyist for Wal-Mart, he partnered with the White House on high-profile projects, including Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move!” campaign.

I've discovered that Dach did some work for Michelle's youth fitness campaign himself, as you can see here.

Don't feel sorry for him. His father can always find him a job at Wal-Mart if the Washington thing doesn't work out.

Utah Man Advocates Violence On Federal Property

Jason "Overwhelming Force" Chaffetz Action Figure

I was going to write up my reaction to yesterday's Oversight Committee hearing on the White House security breach, but then Salon wrote it for me:

The competition for who could make the grander spectacle of themselves was stiff. Rep. John Mica held up an ADT sign and suggested that the Secret Service buy some “inexpensive vegetation” to bolster White House security. Rep. Trey Gowdy cranked his volume knob all the way to eleven and then broke it off. But the winner has to be committee-chair-in-waiting Jason Chaffetz, who demanded to know why, when it comes to fence jumpers, the Secret Service doesn’t use “overwhelming force.”

Exactly so. If you didn't see it live, you can watch the hearing here, on C-Span.

Representative Mica's helpful suggestion to Secret Service Director Pierson was that she reinforce White House security with Spanish Bayonet, a plant that grows in the desert and on sand dunes and which is used as a landscape accent in his home state of Florida. Okay, yeah, thanks.

Representative Gowdy is still the loudest man in Congress. Still annoying, but that's nothing new.

Representative Jason Chaffetz, however, might have broken new ground with his histrionics about wanting "overwhelming force" exerted against any and all White House intruders (no matter how small?). I think he even teared up a little when he said, more than once, that if any Secret Service agent used lethal force "I will have his back." I don't know what he means by that, but he seemed to think it was a muy macho thing to say.

The only grown-up at the hearing was former Secret Service Director Basham, whose opening statement cautioned that, had this latest fence-jumper been shot, the Committee might very well have been grilling Pierson over why her troops killed a mentally disabled veteran who was displaying no obvious weapon. Of course, had that happened, the agent who fired would be reassured to know that Jason Chaffetz will have his back - what does that mean? - while he goes through the criminal, civil, administrative, and personal consequences of using deadly force.

After all the bloodthirsty shouting at that hearing, it seems awfully mild and mundane to go back to the business of the White House's weak perimeter fence. But, there was this interesting article in the WaPo a few days ago in which a National Park Service spokeswoman said that the Secret Service has never given NPS any security standards or criteria for the fence, or even shown any interest in what NPS does with it:

The fence itself is 7 feet 6 inches tall. It is made of evenly spaced iron bars, mounted in a Virginia sandstone base. At the top of the bars — the last physical obstacle between the public sidewalk and the knob on the White House door — are little spear points, called finials.

“We haven’t done any other work since 1965,” said Jenny Anzelmo-Sarles, a spokeswoman for the National Park Service, which owns the fence (the White House is technically located in a national park).

And Anzelmo-Sarles said the Park Service couldn’t remember anyone — the Secret Service, the White House, anyone — asking for the fence to be changed. In fact, the Park Service is in the middle of a project that will repaint the old fence and remove the rust, without changing anything else.

“There’s no sort of tension or anything like that in recent memory” over the design of the fence, she said.

That article was published September 23. I hope there has been some tension between NPS and the Secret Service since then.

Utah Man Vaults Over House Oversight Committee, Rushes Into the WaPo

There's a proper fence for a Head of State, but not perfect

The House Oversight committee will hold a hearing tomorrow to examine the White House intrusion incident of last week:

On Tuesday, September 30 at 10:00 a.m., the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee will convene a hearing to examine the latest concerns regarding the U.S. Secret Service’s security protocols in light of the September 19, 2014, incident in which an armed intruder entered the North Portico of the White House. The Committee has invited Secret Service Director Julia Pierson to testify at the hearing. Chairman Issa released the following statement:

“The recent intrusion of an individual into the White House is the latest in a string of high profile incidents for the Secret Service. These significant security breaches reveal our weaknesses as well as our response capabilities to our nation’s enemies. I look forward to hearing from Secret Service Director Pierson, in light of scandals ranging from the Salahis to Cartagena, about what steps the agency is taking under her leadership to improve security and put an end to dangerous embarrassments.”

But you don't need to wait until tomorrow to get some quite interesting inside information about the incident, because Representative Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) leaked the juicy details to the Washington Post today:

The man who jumped the White House fence this month and sprinted through the front door made it much farther into the building than previously known, overpowering one [female] Secret Service officer and running through much of the main floor, according to three people familiar with the incident.

An alarm box near the front entrance of the White House designed to alert guards to an intruder had been muted at what officers believed was a request of the usher’s office, said a Secret Service official who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The officer posted inside the front door appeared to be delayed in learning that the intruder, Omar Gonzalez, was about to burst through. Officers are trained that, upon learning of an intruder on the grounds, often through the alarm boxes posted around the property, they must immediately lock the front door.

After barreling past the guard immediately inside the door, Gonzalez, who was carrying a knife, dashed past the stairway leading a half-flight up to the first family’s living quarters. He then ran into the 80-foot-long East Room, an ornate space often used for receptions or presidential addresses.

Gonzalez was tackled by a counter-assault agent at the far southern end of the East Room. The intruder reached the doorway to the Green Room, a parlor overlooking the South Lawn with artwork and antique furniture, according to three people familiar with the incident.

Well, well, well. All of that, plus the Secret Service's surprisingly lackadaisical response to a 2011 shooting incident, ought to make for a must-see hearing.

Don't Fence Me In, Too Much

As Robert Frost said, good fences make good neighbors.

Someone who definitely likes good fences is former Secret Service Director Ralph Basham. He told CNN that the White House needs a bigger and badder one if it wants to stop fence jumpers:

Former Secret Service director Ralph Basham said the fence around the White House on Pennsylvania Avenue is particularly vulnerable.

"That is the problem," said Basham, founder of Command Consulting Group, a security firm. "It took this individual less than 30 seconds" to scale the fence.

Basham said he is not necessarily recommending a higher fence, suggesting instead an added tilt at the top, or non-lethal shock wire to increase security.

"I don't think anyone in this country wants to see a White House that's got concrete walls, and Concertina wire across the top, and guard towers on the corners. That is unacceptable. And that's the challenge that the Secret Service has," he said.

Any changes to the fence would require buy-in from several different groups, such as the White House Historical Association and the National Capital Planning Commission, said Basham.

"All of these entities have to be satisfied when you're dealing with this simple sort of question: Should we not enhance this type of fence and make it more secure?" he said.

In case anyone takes that suggestion of an electrified fence seriously, please add to the list of parties who need to buy-in (1) the President, (2) the Congress, and (3) every personal injury lawyer in America. I assume that no one is taking it seriously, if only due to the impracticality.

Such fences usually need to be put up inside of an outer boundary fence, the electric wires need to be isolated and grounded, and the emanations they put out can interfere with a variety of devices that are probably in constant use around the White House. Not to mention that they can be defeated easily enough by an intruder with a little knowledge; the primary use for electrified fences is to contain cattle, and even the stupidest White House fence jumper is brighter than a cow, although maybe not by much. File that idea under Not Feasible.

On the other side of the issue is the public space / public architecture community, those people who, Frost would say, do not love a wall. They were well-represented by the WaPo's Art and Architecture critic, Phillip Kennicott, who came out swinging with a column that included this:

The loss of public space and the intrusion of the security apparatus into daily life are not merely inconveniences. Among the most cherished symbols of democracy is openness, including direct access to our leaders. Politicians, in a democracy, must understand that holding elected office means not only maintaining that direct connection to the people, but also incurring some inevitable measure of risk. If they do not wish to run the risk, they should not run for office.

It is not reasonable to ask a free people to continually submit to police control; doing so becomes ingrained, and when we freely submit to unreasonable searches, we lose the all-important, reflexive distrust of authority that helps keep us free. We must not allow the ever-increasing, ever-more-powerful security apparatus to train us in slavish behavior, or our deepest habits will conform to their darkest estimation of our worth.

Whoa! Is he saying that there is inherent risk is open public spaces and democratic systems? And that because our public office-holders wanted those jobs they must accept the unavoidable risk that comes with them? And that it is necessary for free people to distrust authority lest they internalize a condition of slavery? I say that's bold talk for an architect, and I agree with him one hundred percent.

So, how big a security problem are these fence jumpers? Not all that big, historically. So far as I can tell from the public literature, the last time there was a systematic review of White House security was during the Clinton administration, and it produced a report that documented a typical pace of 3 to 5 intruders and gatecrashers per year from the 1970s onward. All but a few of them have been innocuous.

What to do about those few fence jumpers who are dangerous? Since landmines are now off the table, why not go with ex-Director Basham's call for a better fence? Even Kennicott would agree that is the least intrusive option that is likely to be effective.

As it happens, the White House fence is currently being renovated, so this seems to be an ideal time to do a little redesigning:

The White House fence along Pennsylvania Avenue is being moved about 16 feet farther from the building while the original fence is being restored.

The restoration, which was supposed to be completed by the end of September, has taken longer than expected and is now likely to be finished in March [TSB note: if you couldn't tell, this is a government project], Jenny Anzelmo-Sarles, National Park Service spokeswoman, said. In the meantime, chunks of the barrier that separate excited tourists from the president’s house are being moved back incrementally.

I had never before paid attention to the White House's perimeter fence, and now that I do, I can't believe what a crappy barrier it is.

A section of temporary fence (left) in front of the original

The fence looks to be barely six feet high, and it's mounted atop a wide stone base that makes a nice step to stand on while you grab the top rail and pull yourself over. Even better, someone placed handy ledges and platforms just outside the fence to give an intruder more hand- and foot-holds.

That's the White House's first line of defense against intruders? That is incredibly weak. I don't think the Secret Service was paying attention when they approved that design.  

That stone base makes a handy seat for protestors, too

It's just a hop, skip, and a jump from the Penns. Ave fence to the house

Seriously, the Secret Service ought to beef up that fence. Increase the height of the pickets by at least another foot, remount the pickets to the outer edge of that stone base in order to make it useless as a step (or bevel or round off the base to accomplish the same thing), and maybe cover the lower portion of the fence with a little transparent material to make it harder to climb while not visually detracting from the architectural openness stuff that Mr. Kennicott is going on about.

A mundane improvement, I suppose, but maybe that's all it would take to slow down the next nut for a critical few seconds while the legions of White House security forces react.

$150 Billion Divided by 650,000 = Cause for Embarrassment

The Washington Post is reporting the administration's claim to have "created or saved" some 650,000 jobs.

Reports to be released Friday on the government Web site Recovery.gov are expected to show that the $150 billion in grants and loans made so far under the economic stimulus package have created or saved about 650,000 jobs, White House officials said Friday morning.

Let's put aside our questions about how the White House defined "jobs created" and "jobs saved," and about the reliability of self-reporting by grant recipients, and about the absence of any consideration of the employment contraction that must have been caused by the extraction of $150 billion from the U.S. economy to spend on this stimulus program, and just take this claim at face value. Why should the administration be boasting about creating or saving only 650,000 jobs at the cost of $150 billion?

$150 billion in spending divided by 650,000 jobs equals $230,769.231 in stimulus expenditure per job created or saved. According to the Social Security Administration, the United States national average wage for 2008 was 41,334.97.

Other things being equal (I have an economics degree, so I can say that in Latin, too: ceteris paribus), I would have expected the government to create or save at least five jobs for each $230K and change it spent.

Instead of boasting about those results, the White House should be auditing its books.

Closing Gitmo: Closer to the Deadline, Further From Reality

The Washington Post reported today that the Obama administration has relieved White House Counsel Gregory Craig of responsibility for carrying out the President's commitment to close Gitmo by January 22, 2010. This strikes me as rearranging the deck chairs on the political Titanic that is the administration's self-imposed deadline.

From White House Regroups on Guantanamo:

Even before the inauguration, President Obama's top advisers settled on a course of action they were counseled against: announcing that they would close the facility within one year. Today, officials are acknowledging that they will be hard-pressed to meet that goal.

The White House has faltered in part because of the legal, political and diplomatic complexities involved in determining what to do with more than 200 terrorism suspects at the prison. But senior advisers privately acknowledge not devising a concrete plan for where to move the detainees and mishandling Congress.

To address these setbacks, the administration has shifted its leadership team on the issue. White House Counsel Gregory B. Craig, who initially guided the effort to close the prison and who was an advocate of setting the deadline, is no longer in charge of the project, two senior administration officials said this week.

-- snip --

To empty the prison, the administration will need to find facilities to house 50 to 60 prisoners who cannot be released and who cannot be tried because of legal impediments, according to an administration official. The administration must also win congressional funding for the closure process, find host countries for detainees cleared for release, and transfer dozens of inmates to federal and military courts for prosecution.

Craig's explanation is priceless:

"I thought there was, in fact, and I may have been wrong, a broad consensus about the importance to our national security objectives to close Guantanamo and how keeping Guantanamo open actually did damage to our national security objectives."

He thinks he may have been wrong about that "broad consensus?" Only may?

Let's see. Congress has denied the administration any funding to transfer, release or incarcerate any of the Guantanamo detainees in the United States. A Gallup poll found that by better than a 2-to-1 margin the public opposes closing Gitmo. Senior Democratic officeholders, such as the Senate Majority Leader, have spoken out in the strongest terms against bringing any Gitmo detainees to the United States. And other countries are not exactly lining up to receive our 'releasable' detainees.

Mr. Craig should have realized long ago that a consensus for closing Gitmo doesn't exist much outside of the Obama White House. He needs to get out more often.