A slew of Secret Service Agents surround the presidential motorcade as it travels toward the White House Jan. 20, 2021, during the inaugural parade in Washington, D.C. Official White House Photo by Ana Isabel Martinez Chamorro
Dark sunglasses, unsmiling mugs, a head on a swivel, the surreptitious earpiece, black suit, maybe the hint of a bulge under the jacket. Everybody knows a Secret Service agent when they see one, right?
Ah, but the United States Secret Service is way more than no-nonsense automatons packing heat and putting their lives on the line to protect presidents and other political bigwigs. When the United States Secret Service the USSS, for all you government acronym-iacs came into being at the end of the Civil War, protecting people wasn t even in its DNA.