New Secret Service rules on alcohol, unsavory bars

Hotel Caribe
A general view of the Hotel Caribe in Cartagena, Colombia on April 15, 2012. US secret service agents who have been accused of misconduct amid a sex scandal had reportedly stayed at the Hotel Caribe before being set back to the US.
MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images

By LAURIE KELLMAN and ALICIA A. CALDWELL
Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Seeking to shake the disgrace of a prostitution scandal, the Secret Service late Friday tightened conduct rules for its agents to prohibit them from drinking excessively, visiting disreputable establishments while traveling or bringing foreigners to their hotel rooms.

The new behavior policies apply to Secret Service agents even when they are off duty while traveling, barring them from drinking alcohol within 10 hours of working, according to a memorandum describing the changes obtained by The Associated Press. In some cases under the new rules, chaperones will accompany agents on trips. The embattled Secret Service director, Mark Sullivan, urged agents and other employees to "consider your conduct through the lens of the past several weeks."

The Secret Service said it would conduct a training session on ethics next week.

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Sullivan said the rules "cannot address every situation that our employees will face as we execute our dual-missions throughout the world." He added: "The absence of a specific, published standard of conduct covering an act or behavior does not mean that the act is condoned, is permissible, or will not call for — and result in — corrective or disciplinary action."

"All employees have a continuing obligation to confront expected abuses or perceived misconduct," Sullivan said.

The agency-wide changes were intended to staunch the embarrassing disclosures since April 13, when a prostitution scandal erupted in Colombia involving 12 Secret Service agents, officers and supervisors and 12 more enlisted military personnel who were there ahead of President Barack Obama's visit to a South American summit.

But the new policies announced Friday raised questions about claims that the behavior discovered in Cartagena was an isolated incident: Why would the Secret Service formally issue new regulations covering thousands of employees if such activities were a one-time occurrence?

"It's too bad common sense policy has to be dictated in this manner," said Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee. "New conduct rules are necessary to preventing more shenanigans from happening in the future, and whether these are the best, and most cost effective, rules to stop future misconduct remains to be seen."

The new rules did not mention prostitutes or strip clubs, but they prohibit employees from allowing foreigners _ except hotel staff or foreign law enforcement colleagues — into their hotel rooms. They also ban visits to "non-reputable" establishments, which were not defined. The State Department was expected to brief Secret Service employees on trips about areas and businesses considered off-limits to them.

During trips in which the presidential limousine and other bulletproof vehicles are transported by plane, senior-level chaperones will accompany agents and enforce conduct rules, including one from the agency's Office of Professional Responsibility.

In a Wonderland moment, the operator of the "Lips" strip club in San Salvador, Dan Ertel, organized a news conference late Friday and said he didn't know whether any Secret Service employees were among his customers. Ertel said the club was the only one in the country where prostitutes don't work. But a dancer who identified herself by her stage name, Yajaira, told the AP earlier in the day that she would have sex with customers for money after her shift ended.

"You can pay for dances, touch a little, but there's no sex," she said. "But if somebody wants, if they pLarry Margasak and Julie Pace in Washington, Sarah Breitenbach in Annapolis, Md., and Marcos Aleman in San Salvador, El Salvador, contributed to this report.