Obama faces more death threats than Bush: Book
Tue, 04 Aug 2009 13:55:17 GMT
Nearly seven months after Barack Obama was sworn-in to office, a recently published book claims that the US president receives 30 death threats every day.
Author of In the President's Secret Service Ronald Kessler claims that despite a 400 percent rise in the number of death threats from the 3,000 annually under Bush, Obama's Secrete Service security team remains over-stretched and under-resourced.
"We have half the number of agents we need, but requests for more agents have fallen on deaf ears at headquarters," a Secret Service agent told Kessler.
"Headquarters' mentality has always been, 'You can complete the mission with what you have. You're a U.S.S.S. agent'," wrote a Telegraph article on Monday.
Obama's Secrete Service refrains from disclosing the daily threats to prevent others from copycatting the attempts.
According to the daily, white supremacists in Tennessee planed to assassinate Obama late last year. After Obama secured the presidential nomination, "assassinate Obama" became a popular search term online.
Despite a sprawling security shelter during Obama's inauguration in January, his security team received tips that the African-American President might be attacked by groups or individuals affiliated with the Somalia-based Islamist group al-Shabaab.
At least 40,000 agents and officers from some 94 police, military and security agencies took part in the event to provide security.
RB/HGH