Secret Service Strained

Given the large field of candidates, I am not surprised, but I didn't think it was this bad:

The U.S. Secret Service expects to borrow more than 2,000 immigration officers and federal airport screeners next year to help guard an ever-expanding field of presidential candidates, while shifting 250 of its own agents from investigations to security details.

Burdened by the White House's wartime security needs, the persistent threat of terrorism and a field of at least 20 presidential contenders, the Secret Service was showing signs of strain even before the Department of Homeland Security ordered protection for Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) as of May 3, the earliest a candidate has ever been assigned protection in an election season.

Its $110 million-plus budget for campaign protection -- two-thirds more than the record $65 million it spent for the 2004 election -- was prepared when the service did not expect to be guarding Obama or anyone else until January. The agency has already been forced to scale back its efforts to battle counterfeiting and cybercrime.

snip

And while the 2008 campaign gets going, the service is also gearing up for January 2009, when President Bush is set to leave office; officials are mindful of the 1993 assassination effort by Iraq against his father, former president George H.W. Bush. The service has begun training agents to fill 103 full-time slots as to be part of the current president's retirement detail.

"You've just ticked off what you might say are unprecedented challenges," said David G. Carpenter, formerly the head of Clinton's Secret Service detail and assistant secretary of state for diplomatic security and now vice president of global security for PepsiCo.

The stresses come as the agency's duties have grown faster than its funding.

Not surprising. Even a quick influx of agents now will not help since it does take a while to train them.