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| The Diplomatic Security Service (DSS) is the law enforcement arm of the United States Department of State. The majority of its Special Agents are members of the Foreign Service and federal law enforcement officers at the same time, making them unique. Unlike all other civilian federal law enforcement officers, these DSS agents must serve multiple-year tours overseas on a regular basis as a condition of employment. A minority of DSS agents are members of the State Department's civil service, and do not serve tours overseas; they focus on criminal work and dignitary protection within the United States. All DSS agents have the power to arrest, carry firearms, and serve arrest warrants and other court process. The State Department's web site says that "Diplomatic Security does not formulate foreign policy. It plays another essential — yet behind the scenes — role: To provide a safe and secure environment for the conduct of U.S. foreign policy. Not only is Diplomatic Security a unique organization in the foreign affairs community — it is the only law enforcement agency with representation in nearly every country in the world".
When assigned to domestic field offices, DSS agents are responsible for conducting investigations into passport and visa fraud as well as providing protection for the United States Secretary of State and others. Overseas, DSS agents are called Regional Security Officers (RSOs), and are charged with the security and law enforcement duties at U.S. missions, embassies, and consular posts. The Diplomatic Security Service is the lead U.S. investigatory agency in cases of international terrorism, although this function may be detailed to the FBI. There are currently about 1,450 DS Special Agents.[1]
Special Agent Badge
Special Agent Badge
DSS agents are hired after an intensive evaluation process that includes a Foreign Service Board of Examiners writing evaluation, knowledge-based test, panel interview and situational judgment exercises carried out by veteran DS agents. Those selected undergo a comprehensive medical examination needed for worldwide availability, as well as an exhaustive background investigation for security clearance at the level of top secret/sensitive compartmentalized information. A final suitability review and vote by a Foreign Service panel evaluates a candidate's overall ability to represent the interests of the United States as a diplomat abroad.
After a new DSS agent is hired, he or she begins a seven-month training program that includes the Criminal Investigator Training Program at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center, a Basic Special Agent Course at the Diplomatic Security Training Center, and courses at the Foreign Service Institute in Arlington, Virginia. A new agent is usually assigned to a domestic field office for three years before taking on an overseas assignment, although an agent can expect to be sent on frequent temporary duty assignments overseas even when assigned to a domestic post. As members of the Foreign Service, agents are expected to spend most of their career living and working overseas, often in hazardous environments or less developed countries throughout the world.
DSS agents have been involved in the investigations of most terrorist attacks on U.S. interests overseas in the past twenty years, including the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole, and bombings of two U.S. Embassies in East Africa in 1998. Perhaps most notably, in 1995 DSS agents assigned to the U.S. embassy in Pakistan were involved, along with Pakistani police and intelligence, with arresting Ahmed Ramzi Yousef, who was wanted in connection with the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center in New York City.[1]
DSS agents have often found themselves in harm's way with four agents and 28-contract security specialists killed in the line of duty as of July 2006. The vast majority of DSS casualties had taken place within the previous two years in Iraq where DSS continued to conduct its most critical and dangerous protective missions.
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