Working as a contractor a few years back we had to do an analysis of all the data bases for criminal and terrorist activities used by a consortium of agencies - INS, DEA, FBI, State, etc.
Almost every agency we dealt with was helpful in letting us do our analyses and answering our questions except one:
Yep, the Secret Service.
They were the most arrogant group I ever dealt with. They felt everything they did was perfect; that all those other agencies’ data weren’t good enough for them; that their practices were perfect; and that nobody had any right to question.
This was mostly senior management personnel - the agents were pretty good, but they were under management’s control.
One reason TSA got started off on the wrong foot is that the first head was a former Secret Service guy who thought that all the managers to be hired by the new agency should be former police and government law enforcement types, even though TSA is not a law enforcement agency. It was set up for giving former police chiefs and federal government law enforcement heads a second career (sinecure) after they started collecting their pensions.
The best thing that could happen to the Secret Service to knock them off their pedestal is to put some ass-kicking general in charge.
I didn’t realize until looking into this story that SS was moved from Treasury to DHS way back in 2003.
They should be FAR MORE than just a TSA agent in a black suit.