By Carlos Miller
You gotta love the United States, a country where we can carry rifles and sidearms to watch the president speak, but God forbid we photograph his limousine while the hood is open.
The story comes to us from the Asylum, a website I never heard of but they actually have a White House correspondent.
Rookie reporter Tommy Christopher describes how he stepped outside the presidential briefing room and found a couple of secret service agents checking under the hood of the presidential limousine.
A cable news tech guy then pulled out his iPhone to snap a photo. Big mistake apparently.
One of the secret service agents yelled at the guy,ordering him to delete the photo.
See, there’s this rule.
Nobody is allowed to photograph the presidential limos while either the hood or the trunk are open. I already knew this because the same agent had told me the rule a minute earlier. You also can’t shoot the interiors of the limos.
Never heard of that rule before. And I would probably be stupid enough to challenge it, if I ever got that close.
But I would probably have a better chance strapping my Colt .45 to my side to greet the president.
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24 responses so far ↓
1 Vidiot // Oct 22, 2009 at 6:11 PM
That actually doesn’t bother me, and seems like a reasonable request. They don’t have a problem with people taking pictures of the limo’s exterior, but I can imagine them wanting to keep security details of Cadillac One classified.
2 Difster // Oct 22, 2009 at 6:29 PM
If they’re that concerned about it, they should make sure they don’t open the hood in public! They could equip it with some sort of curtain or whatever if need be. And I understand not letting people inside to photograph it but if someone can do it from the outside, then big deal!
3 Tim // Oct 22, 2009 at 8:34 PM
If the hood is open and in public, it is fair game to be photographed.
4 Carlos Miller // Oct 22, 2009 at 8:37 PM
I’m not a car expert but I don’t understand what could be so different under the hood of the presidential limo than any other limo.
5 Paul Gana // Oct 22, 2009 at 9:25 PM
gee maybe the presidential limo has a secret rocket launcher on it or something LOL
6 Rick Thomas // Oct 22, 2009 at 9:56 PM
Vidiot,
The problem is that it was not a request, reasonable or otherwise. It was an order.
7 Mark H // Oct 23, 2009 at 1:16 AM
Everyone is right…. Details need to be kept secret to protect the President. Same for the layout of the interior of the Limo (which is going a bit too far, a house I can see, the car, well……).
I agree that they shouldn’t open the hood in public and if they do its fair game. Of course this happened at the White House before it went on the street. I’d say the photog was probably lucky he didn’t get BANNED from the White House or Fired or something like that…..
If you take those pics, you need to take them on the sly to make a clean getaway.
Mark H
8 Jon Quimbly // Oct 23, 2009 at 1:19 AM
@Paul Gana: Bullet-proof, rocket-proof, bomb-proof, factory radar and flack gun (to shoot nosy press flacks, of course!)
9 KDP // Oct 23, 2009 at 10:58 AM
Carlos, the car probably has one of those experimental alternative energy motors that the public is not supposed to know about.
10 Black Bellamy // Oct 23, 2009 at 11:00 AM
The POTUS limo’s engine compartment and all electronics are shielded against an EMP-based attack. Opening the hood exposes details of this functionality.
11 Gabriel // Oct 23, 2009 at 11:32 AM
Funny story….So my buddy worked for the Clinton White House and would get his friends to do “Advance” work. Fast forward I’m standing by VP Al Gores limo, while he’s napping in a hotel on South Beach, talking to a Secret Service agent. My buddy and I were telling him about a special we had just seen on the Discovery Channel about the limos and how they had foam gas tanks that are self sealing if punctured by a bullet and other details relating to defense systems. He asks “Did they mention the windows?”, we replied in detail how they make them bullet/bomb proof and this guy was blown away. He was under the impression that all those safety features were considered “top secret” Sorry buddy, it’s all on TV for the world to see.
12 Gabriel // Oct 23, 2009 at 11:40 AM
Oh and for the record I did take a picture of Clintons limo’s engine on the tarmac of MIA and don’t recall being told anything by the guards near by but that was quite a while ago.
13 Charles U. Farley // Oct 23, 2009 at 1:14 PM
Perhaps the White House should get one of these anti-photography laser setups for the limo. I’m kind of surprised that they don’t have it along with the EMP protection, bullet proof windows etc.
http://www.silobreaker.com/oligarchs-yacht-has-a-laser-antiphoto-screen-5_2262613514990387200
14 Catinthewall // Oct 23, 2009 at 1:29 PM
If they want to keep the stuff under the hood secret, you don’t open the hood where people can see it. The blame in this case falls solely on whoever opened the hood, and those who decided to attack the photog rather than the opener.
Anyway, any security measure can have weaknesses. suppose x good people (who would inform about the weakness, allowing it to be closed) could spot the weakness, and y bad people (who would abuse it) could spot the weakness. It’s safe to assume x>y. Good people, being good, won’t go to extreme measures to analyze a hidden security feature, while bad people, having something to gain, would. When a security feature is closed, the number of people who know are smaller, but one bad person is all it takes to inform someone of group y of the details. When the feature is open, if there is a weakness, someone of group x is much more likely to inform before someone of group y is able to abuse.
15 Trudy // Oct 23, 2009 at 2:51 PM
I have no problem with that whatsoever. I can understand the security issue involved in allowing photographs to be taken. Simply because we have the right to take photographs doesn’t mean that every photograph needs to be taken. Why would we expect to be allowed to photograph under anyone’s hood without permission? I don’t think the police or SS have to be nasty about it but some photographers seem to think that a camera gives them the right to do whatever they choose and some law enforcement thinks their badge gives them the right to do whatever they choose. Not so.
16 Vidiot // Oct 23, 2009 at 6:19 PM
The limo was in the White House driveway, right by the briefing room. I am a little surprised that USSS opened up the hood right there in front of the jackals of the press (that’s a joke; I work for a TV news network and have visited the White House pressroom) but I’d imagine that if you’re inside the White House, you’ve got to follow the Secret Service’s rules or risk losing your clearance (which would certainly impact your ability to work there.)
17 Scott Chamness // Oct 24, 2009 at 7:47 AM
Now wait a minute. I remember a story in my local paper about the presidential limo. It gave a diagram of the whole thing, with specifications. It’s not like the info wasn’t already out there.
18 Roger Krueger // Oct 24, 2009 at 5:38 PM
Trading freedom for security is one thing when there’s a genuine trade. But here, a bad guy would’ve just gone home and undeleted. Another case of looking busy by bullying the innocent while doing absolutely nothing to advance security.
If the Secret Service is this clueless at dealing with genuine secrets we are in SOOOO much trouble.
19 akagoldfish // Oct 28, 2009 at 11:38 PM
If he’s a White House pool photographer, then I’m guessing a condition of being credentialed is to follow all orders from the Secret Service related to not shooting sensitive areas. I ran into this myself shooting an Obama rally during the primaries when I tried to take a picture of some uniformed Secret Service officers doing advance work.
20 Sean // Oct 30, 2009 at 11:05 AM
Careful dogging those who believe in Second Amendment rights. I can promise you they won’t dog your standing up for your First Amendment rights.
The argument to take away our guns is that it is a state right, and not an individual one — let that get through the courts and the same argument can be made for every other Amendment.
21 Carlos Miller // Oct 30, 2009 at 11:08 AM
I’m surprised it took this long for someone to accuse me of not supporting the Second Amendment.
I’m a gun owner myself, so obviously I do support the Second Amendment.
22 Sean // Oct 30, 2009 at 12:09 PM
My apologies if I misread your article, Carlos.
A lot of the media *are* going after 2A folks (see what the media was saying after the guns showed up at Obama speeches — they used their 1A rights to say other people should have their 2A rights stripped).
Anyway — different argument for another day. Sorry for the side-track.
23 dsi r4 // Nov 23, 2009 at 6:13 AM
It is my understanding that the limo can cruise at 70 mph on four flat tires. When the limo is to go out of town, 2 limos are placed on the Air Force transports incase one limo breaks down and at least two secret service SUV loaded for a “war” go along with the limos. Most of this is public knowledge from articles in the print media and recall this. Pres. George Bush’s limo broke down in Russia and he had to wait for the back up limo to show up before he could go about his business.
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