|
The Bureau of Diplomatic Security, more commonly known as Diplomatic Security, or DS, includes the Diplomatic Security Service (DSS), DS's most high profile branch. DS personnel work together as a team to ensure that the State Department can carry out its foreign policy missions safely and securely. Diplomatic Security has a broad scope of global responsibilities, with protection of people, information, and property as its top priority. Image File history File links DS_Badge_seal. ...
Seal of the United States Department of State. ...
Overseas, DS develops and implements effective security programs to safeguard all personnel who work in every U.S. diplomatic mission around the world and to protect classified information at these locations. The DS presence overseas is led at each Post (Embassy) by a DSS Special Agent who is referred to as a Regional Security Officer, or more commonly as the RSO. In the United States, DS protects the Secretary of State, the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, and foreign diplomats who visit the United States. DS has protected Yaser Arafat, the Dalai Lama and Prince Charles. The agency develops and implements security programs to protect the more than 100 domestic State Department facilities as well as the residence of the Secretary of State. Regional Security Officer is the title given to DS Special Agents serving overseas as the head of security at an American Embassy. ...
RSO Records was a record label, formed in partnership with Polydor Records by rock and roll and musical theatre impresario Robert Stigwood in the late 1960s, after the death of his business partner and mentor Brian Epstein. ...
In matters of criminal investigation, DS is the lead agency in the U.S. for cases of international terrorism. DS personnel and Special Agents conduct personnel security investigations, issue security clearances and conduct criminal investigations involving visa and passport fraud. DS also assists foreign embassies and consulates in the United States with the security for their missions and personnel.
Since 1984, DS has administered the Rewards for Justice Program, which pays monetary rewards of up to $5 million, or in recent years even more, upon special authorization by the Secretary of State, to individuals who provide information which substantially leads to countering of terrorist attacks against United States persons. Through 2001, $62 million had been paid to over 40 people in this effort. The Rewards for Justice Program is an anti-terrorism program which offers rewards of up to $25 million for information that prevents or favorably resolves acts of international terrorism against U.S. persons or property worldwide. ...
Personnel
DS personnel include: - Special Agents of the Diplomatic Security Service
- Security Engineering Officers (SEOs)
- Diplomatic couriers
- Civil Service specialists
- Contract security and administrative support staff
Note: All DS personnel are foreign service specialists The Bureau of Diplomatic Security is the agency responsible for the safe conduct of foreign policy. ...
Relationship to the Department of State In recent years the Bureau of Diplomatic Security (DS), although not autonomous from the U.S. State Department, has been given much freedom in managing its own affairs. Budgetary approvals and allocations and hiring and promotion numbers still must be cleared through the U.S. State Department. Traditionally DS, and more specifically the Diplomatic Security Service, has had a conflicted relationship with its parent agency, the U.S. State Department. It is worth noting that before 1985, that is to say before the 1983 Beirut embassy bombings and the creation of the Bureau of Diplomatic Security, there were only several hundred agents. These agents were part of the office of Security (called SY), which in turn was under the Admin Bureau of the Management Undersecretary. This changed in 1985, and since that time DSS has grew to well over 1,000 agents. However, by the mid 90's budget cutbacks were foisted on the U.S. State Department by Congress and the Department in turn trimmed the budget of DSS to the point where it had dwindled to a little over 600 agents. At the time this seemed justified by Department hierarchy who thought DS was growing much to fast and in over reaction to the Beirut bombings. The Bureau of Diplomatic Security is the agency responsible for the safe conduct of foreign policy. ...
Although DS was now a Bureau within the State Department, overseas the vast majority of RSOs continued to be under the Admin officer. This changed in 1999, as fallout from the east Africa embassy bombings of 1998. The terse message from the then Undersecretary for Management announcing the immediate change made it clear that this action was against his best judgment and insinuated that it was done because the Secretary of State (Madeleine Albright) ordered it. This change stripped DS out from under Admin officers and placed the RSO next to the Deputy Chief of Mission (DCM) in the chain of command at an Embassy. There is an apparent pattern of forced changes in relation to security for the U.S. State Department and its facilities overseas (American embassies). Often this change is the result of a serious incident, such as a terrorist attack on a U.S. Embassy. Since 1999 and especially after the creation of the U.S. embassies in Kabul and Baghdad there seems to be an increasing acceptance and desire by State Department hierarchy to fully embrace and support the goals of the Diplomatic Security Service. Likewise, DS has been allowed a greater degree of independent action in administering itself. In the 1998 U.S. Embassy bombings (August 7, 1998), 257 people were killed and over 4,000 wounded in simultaneous [1] car bomb explosions at the United States embassies in the East African capital cities of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and Nairobi, Kenya. ...
External links |
Feeds |
Contact