Security Blanket For Who?

I am reminded of the first session I ever spent in The White House.  I was part of a group of young men and women invited in for the first day of work and a security briefing.  I had already worked on Capital Hill and for a local network television group so had heard some of this before.  Here we go again I am sure I thought.

Two things did stand out which I remember to this day though from that security briefing.

The first was a reminder that though you were technically in a political position, you still had to clear security.  We were reminded that now would be a great time to stop by the Executive Office of the President's Office of Security if we wanted to amend any items on our background forms.  I was a little surprised, but then another young man next to me leaned over and asked if I thought our security presentation was a joke.  He didn't think the EOP or US Secret Service were going to find out about some juvenile drug arrest apparently.  For some reason I never saw him again.

The other item I remembered though was pointed at all of us regarding our security badges.  The White House obviously has a few security measures which I found astonishingly basic in terms of protection, but that still had a twist.  However, the issue I found most amazing was the idea to leave your badge out in plain view while on campus and hide it while commuting.

What does any of this have to do with anything?  Well on a recent visit to Washington, I had the occasion to visit some friends involved with either the US Senate or various federal agencies.  Once again, it struck me walking down 1st Street, how many people were proudly wearing their security badge to announce to the world how important they were or weren't.  Meanwhile, once inside whichever building they worked at they would clumsily move them into shirt pockets, coat pockets, or wherever necessary to conceal they actually belonged.  (Granted they did know where the bathrooms were, but....)

I guess this is more of a post that the more things change, the more they stay the same, but it did have some fond memories for me from twenty years ago when I too thought I was something and even had hair.