Secret Service, USSS

The United States Secret Service is a United States federal law enforcement agency that is part of the United States Department of Homeland Security. The sworn members are divided among the Special Agents and the Uniformed Division. Until March 1, 2003, the Service was part of the United States Department of the Treasury.

The U.S. Secret Service has two distinct areas of responsibility:

1) Treasury roles, covering missions such as prevention and investigation of counterfeiting of U.S. currency and U.S treasury securities, and investigation of major fraud.

2) Protective roles, ensuring the safety of current and former national leaders and their families, such as the President, past Presidents, Vice Presidents, presidential candidates, foreign embassies.

The Secret Service's initial responsibility was to investigate crimes related to the Treasury and then evolved into the United States' first domestic intelligence and counterintelligence agency. Many of the agency's missions were later taken over by subsequent agencies such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and Internal Revenue Service (IRS).

Located just outside of Washington, D.C., the James J. Rowley Training Center (JJRTC) is comprised of almost 500 acres of land, six miles of roadway and 31 buildings. The protective, investigative, specialized tactical and executive/managerial training conducted at JJRTC is unique among federal law enforcement instructional entities.

In a single year, hundreds of training recruits undergo extensive training in firearms marksmanship, use-of-force/control tactics, emergency medical techniques, financial crimes detection, physical/site/event protection and water survival training.

In the 1800s, America's monetary system was very disorganized. Bills and coins were issued by each state through individual banks, which generated many types of legal currency. With so many different kinds of bills in circulation, it was easy for people to counterfeit money. During President Lincoln's Administration, more than a third of the nation's money was counterfeit. On the advice of Secretary of the Treasury Hugh McCulloch, President Lincoln established a commission to stop this rapidly growing problem that was destroying the nation's economy, and on April 14, 1865, he created the United States Secret Service to carry out the commission's recommendations.

President Lincoln was assassinated at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C., by John Wilkes Booth. The country mourned as news spread that the President had been shot. It was the first time in our nation's history that a President had been assassinated. Congress began to think about adding Presidential protection to the list of duties performed by the Secret Service. However, it would take another 36 years and the assassination of two more Presidents -- James A.Garfield (March 4, 1881-September 10, 1881) and William McKinley (1897-1901) -- before the Congress added protection of the President to the list of duties performed by the Secret Service.