Mobile UPI  |   About UPI  |   UPI en Español  |   UPI Arabic  |   UPIU  |   My Account
Search:
Go

Secret Service checkpoints breached

|
|
 
  
In this photo released by the White House on November 27, 2009, President Barack Obama greets Michaele and Tareq Salahi during a receiving line prior to a State Dinner for Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh (back,left) in the Blue Room at the White House in Washington on November 24, 2009. The Secret Service is looking into its own security procedures after the uninvited Virginia couple was able to get into the dinner. UPI/Samantha Appleton/White House 
Published: Dec. 7, 2009 at 11:41 AM

WASHINGTON, Dec. 7 (UPI) -- Intruders have reached the president or another person under U.S. Secret Service guard eight times since 1980, the federal agency confirmed.

Four of the incidents involved the same man and the most recent intrusion occurred last month when Tareq and Michaele Salahi crashed President Obama's first White House state dinner, The Washington Post reported Monday.

Overall, intruders breached Secret Service checkpoints at least 91 times since 1980, secret service and federal homeland security officials said.

The secret service, however, last year alone successfully protected 34 key U.S. officials and 222 United Nations dignitaries at myriad locations throughout the world, agency spokesman Edwin Donovan said.

Richard Weaver, a California minister, evaded detection four times in 1991, 1997, 2001 and 2003 to infiltrate events for Presidents George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, The Post reported.

"I believe God makes me invisible to the security, undetectable," Weaver told reporters after one his arrests.

Topics: Michaele Salahi
Recommended Stories
© 2009 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Any reproduction, republication, redistribution and/or modification of any UPI content is expressly prohibited without UPI's prior written consent.

Order reprints
  
Join the conversation
Most Popular Collections
The Tibetan Moniam Festival in China Super Bowl XLVI ticker tape victory parade The making of the Oscars
The Chicago Auto Show The Most Desirable Women of 2012 Tu Bishvat Migron settlement
Additional U.S. News Stories
1 of 21
President Obama Signs Smuggling Prevention Act at White House
View Caption
fark
Man breaks into home, then vacuums and folds laundry (possibly with a menacing scowl on his face)...
It's starting to look as if the roles are now reversed - that Obama is Lucy with the football, and...
You're a female air traveler and there's no female TSA agent to screen you? No problem, there's...
Despite their efforts to convince you otherwise, many "foodies" can't, in a blind taste test, tell...
Photoshop this urban underground dweller
Kim Jong Un Dead. I repeat - Un Dead