Dear Editor:
The Immigration Daily's Dec. 9th title article, makes a well-taken point, but mistakenly assumes that the Secret Service only recently gained
blanket arrest power. The Secret Service are allowed to detain a person for
being in the same room as a protected person. They can hold a person in
custody essentially indefinitely, or at least until a writ of mandamus
issues. They are permitted to do so long as it is reasonably related to
protecting their charge. This was old law back when I was in law school,
though it came as a shock to most of us, and was even in the news a few
times during the Clinton administration and added grist to the mill of the
black helicopters crowd.
Honza Prchal
University of Virginia Law School, Class of 1997
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