tasked with defending the president of the united states the secret service uses amazing tactics to do their jobs some of the measures they take may seem crazy but there's a reason for everything they do join me as we take a look at 15 of the most insane secret service tactics number 15 human shielding while the president generally has barriers and barricades around them in order to keep out unwanted guests the secret service will generally have some sort of formation that allows them to quickly intercept any threats while this tactic is rather basic it is proven
to be extremely important this is because it was thanks to this shield that richard nixon was protected against a latin american mob and ronald reagan was safeguarded from an assassination attempt as such this tactic has become an integral part of secret service training [Music] number 14 tactical driving in the event of an attack on a presidential vehicle the secret service member in the driver's seat needs to be able to evacuate the area with the president in tow asap in order to do this safely the drivers are required to be trained in the arts of offensive
and defensive driving these include maneuvers such as the three wheeled j turn the ability to reverse accelerate ramming into other vehicles safely and driving full speed and in complete control while in reverse so what goes without saying that this type of esteer driving puts all the stunt drivers in the fast and furious movies to shame [Music] number 13 getting shot secret service agents have to be prepared for anything while on the job so in order to ensure that they can continue to serve even when under fire one of their training tactics is to get shot
with fake bullets more specifically the bullets that are shot at them during training exercises and while they're strong enough to leave a colored trace and a superficial sting they don't penetrate deep enough to cause any serious damage this makes them the perfect training tool number 12 they film everything constantly being filmed sounds like something taken right out of the book 1984 but when it comes to the president this measure is of the utmost importance ever since cameras failed to identify president kennedy's assassin after he was shot in 1963 the secret service made a point of
meticulously filming every presidential motorcade on camera while this filming can be used to help identify potential threats in the case that something bad were to happen this footage would be invaluable in trying to determine the suspects behind any presidential attack number 11 crowd scanning while meetings at a distance are easy to deal with some interactions are a little more up close and personal than most in order to deal with this the secret service are constantly scanning the area around the president to keep an eye on people who have their hands stuffed in their pockets have
strange bulges in their jackets or who are otherwise suspicious the sunglasses are their way of doing this under cover as by being completely black it's nearly impossible for these suspects to notice that they're being stared at therefore just know that if you ever get to visit the president you will be constantly watched number 10 trip planning while you've probably made an itinerary to plan your travels from one city to another the secret service brings trip planning to a whole new level rather than simply plan a route and then book hotels secret service agents take a
very hands-on approach that takes every minor detail into consideration for example they will ensure the airspace is clear map out a motorcade route plan which presidential vehicles will use it they'll identify low-risk hotels that can have entire floors booked off and will be sure to locate hospitals and secure locations on route should the president need to be treated or evacuated to safety all of this planning generally needs to take place months in advance and so it should come as no surprise that practically zero presidential visits are unplanned number nine always watching while it may creep
you out to imagine someone watching your every move this is exactly what the president has to deal with on a daily basis from the time they run on the campaign trails to the time they die they will always have a security detail and it's this security details task to never take their eyes off the president and i mean that literally whether the president is going to a doctor's appointment having a meeting with a member of congress or going to the bathroom a secret service agent has to be on hand and while this type of protection
is certainly necessary when a president is in office it can get overbearing afterwards and as a result president nixon went as far as to have it relinquished in 1985 and instead replaced it with his own private security detail number eight systema secret service agents are a highly trained military force and while they generally hope to avoid hand-to-hand combat they generally neutralize these types of physical threats through a martial art known as systema russian force system it's a type of russian martial art that's known for being extremely brutal originally used only by military personnel such as
the kgb and spetsnaz it emphasizes the use of natural and simple techniques to take advantage of an attacker's biomechanics more specifically it's a strong focus on controlling the levers of an attacker and deflecting weapons so that they cannot be aimed at the president it's largely because of martial arts such as this demo that it would be near impossible for any shooter to take out the president at short range in today's day and age making it a useful skill to know number seven food testing poisoning is easily one of the sneakiest ways to kill a president
and so in order to ensure that a poisoned porterhouse steak isn't what leads to the president's demise the secret service has the task of testing food while they don't take a bite to test it what they do instead is monitor the entire cooking process as if it's being done by non-cleared chefs say at a fancy restaurant however there are some exceptions to this rule for example if the president is eating at a place like buckingham palace the secret service is generally comfortable enough to trust the uk's secret service to inspect the food for them the
secret service is also lacks when it comes to the president's takeout food as rather than order food right to the white house they will order it to a building nearby so that the cooks don't know that this there for the president and therefore do not poison it number six letter testing while it's easy enough to find someone who makes threatening comments about the president online doing so for a letter with no return address is much harder however despite the challenges the secret service is able to do this by employing a few sneaky tactics if the
letter is hand written it can be run under a handwriting scanner which can be matched to other handwritten documents in their database to determine a potential match however if the letter is typed then the secret service reaches out to their ink database ink companies apply chemical tags to their ink before it's shipped and by cross referencing the letters ink to the tags the secret service can find out which companies sold the ink what country it's from what state it's sold in and allegedly what city the ink was shipped to this process allows the secret service
to narrow down their search efforts and with enough additional sleuth work this tactic allows them to find the sender number five threatening to kill the president the united states is a country with almost complete freedom of the press and as such americans are allowed to criticize their politicians as much as they please however the one thing you absolutely cannot say is that you want to kill the president considered to be a class d felony under united states law doing so is punishable by up to five years in prison a maximum fine of 250 000 and
up to three years of supervised release and internet restrictions such as prohibition on accessing emails now while this may sound pretty heavy-handed what's perhaps even more interesting is that the secret service is very active in terms of enforcement in order to find potential threats they constantly scour the internet using advanced technologies in order to find any suspects online while also relying on reports made by those who say such things out in public once a suspect is found they'll launch a mini investigation and will divide the threat into one of three categories the first type which
are class 1 threats are those deemed serious at first but ultimately determined to be harmless class 2 threats are considered to be serious but made by people incapable of acting upon them and class 3 threats that are considered to be serious and dangerous enough that the agents will have to interview the suspect and any acquaintances of theirs to determine if they truly are a threat with this in mind i recommend being extremely careful about what you post about the president online as if you say something dicey you might be able to expect a secret service
agent to be knocking on your door number four marine one when traveling between cities sometimes a car isn't all that practical after all american presidents typically need to have a large motorcade around them and in all honesty it's often easier and less expensive to simply let the president travel by air as a result a helicopter that goes by the code name marine one is often used to transport the president from place to place with a helicopter by the code name of marine ii often being used in the same capacity for the vice president now technically
speaking any aircraft carrying the president or vice president can get their marine code names however with the helicopters in question they're typically hmx-1 nighthawks which consist of either large sikorsky vh3dc king helicopters or the newer smaller white vh-60n helicopters in either case they're usually as many as five helicopters use as all the ones not carrying the president will typically act as decoys shuffling around with the presidential helicopter in order to obscure which one he's truly in yet the secret service's security measures don't stop there that's because marine one is also equipped with an anti-missile countermeasure
system such as flares to counter heat-seeking missiles chaff to counter radar-guided missiles and an infrared jammer to protect against infrared missiles in addition to this every member of the hmx-1 is required to pass a specialized yankee white background check before touching any of the helicopters used for presidential travel ensuring both the helicopter's equipment and the president himself cannot be tampered with when considered in tandem it's these countermeasures that enable a president's flight from place to place is as safe as possible number three white house security tricks given that the white house is the home of
the president it's an extremely difficult home to get into if you'd like a tour it is legal to get a look around a few carefully selected parts of the facility although you must book 21 days in advance so that the secret service can do a background check on you however if you happen to be someone who's not on a scheduled visit then you'll have a far more difficult time finding your way inside you see every inch of the perimeter is surrounded in a complex set of infrared lasers that cover the sky surface and underground they're
sensitive enough to detect even the most minuscule of threats and while this means that sometimes something as small as a squirrel can cause secret service agents to storm into the white house it means that no threats go uninvestigated above ground the airspace of washington dc is considered to be a no-fly zone so if anyone or anything enters this area a team of drones and a set of sensors will pick it up and if necessary there are several surface-to-air missiles that can be dispatched to deal with the threat as a final resort the white house also
has a high fence and bulletproof windows making it a very difficult place to enter however despite the security in place several people have managed to enter the white house uninvited some such as omar gonzalez has used violence others such as robert lotta were able to simply walk past all security as such it's technically possible to find a way around security and enter the white house but yet good luck with that number two air force one the president of the united states typically has to visit multiple countries during their term so the secret service has to
furnish an airplane that's able to comfortably make international trips and while air force one can technically refer to any plane that the president flies in the title is most often designated to one of two very highly customized boeing 747 200b series aircraft now these aircraft are perhaps best known for having a virtually unlimited range as they have the remarkable ability to be able to be refueled midair the two planes are also extremely secure as they have on-board electronics that protect against electromagnetic pulses and coded communications equipment that allow the aircraft to function as a mobile
command center in the event of an attack on the united states yet besides the intense security the plane is also extremely luxurious that's because inside of each is composed of about 370 square meters of floor space spread across three stories with this including an extensive suite for the president that features a large office bathroom and a conference room air force one also includes a medical suite that can function as an operating room and a doctor is permanently present in order to serve the needs of all on board if the plane's visitors get hungry too they
can rely on air force one's two food preparation galleys which have the capacity to feed a hundred people at any given time best of all when you consider that the plane has separate quarters for the president's advisors and a detachment of cargo planes to provide the president with everything he could ever need it becomes clear that this plane is the epitome of luxury number one the beast when it comes to safe travel nothing quite beats the presidential vehicle nicknamed the beast it's a limousine that is made to look like a cadillac but outside of its
headlamps tail lamps and the grille design the car itself is far from your typical caddy driven by the secret service the beast takes things up a notch by sporting a chassis diesel engine and transmission that are similar to those used on gm's heavy-duty commercial vehicles as a result the beast comes in at a whopping 9 000 kilograms has a max speed of just 100 kph and an efficiency of about three and a half kilometers per liter however outside of its rather poor specs the beast is by all accounts a world-class vehicle for example the car's
doors are reportedly 20 centimeters thick and weigh as much as the doors found on a boeing 787 meaning that they're nearly impenetrable against outside threats the security is reinforced by the car windows which are bulletproof and about 13 centimeters thick and the under body which is made out of a reinforced 13 centimeter steel plate that can fend off roadside bombs the tires are reportedly run flats made from super high strength kevlar which means that they function even after being punctured interestingly enough the car's protection even extends to its interior as if faced with a chemical
attack the inside of the car can be completely contained as the fuel tank can surround itself with a special foam material in order to insulate it from outside threats and if the president ever gets in a really messy situation the trunk of the car is fully stocked with tear gas canisters shotguns grenade launchers oxygen tanks night vision cameras and a cache of the president's blood type with all of this being used by a squad of secret service agents when necessary in other words the car really is ready for anything yet it's also important to note
that the beast has its own fair share of problems that's because despite being as tough as it is it's notoriously difficult to drive and prone to breaking down as a result it's only ever released on rare occasions that require added security watch our binge watching playlist if you'd like to watch all of our most popular top 15 videos grab a drink grab a snack and get ready to binge
