Inside the U.S. Secret Service

This is a pretty interesting documentary that takes you behind the scenes of the Secret Service, the agency tasked with protecting the President of the United States. The film takes place during the 2004 Bush vs. Kerry campaign, and many of the scenes involve the extensive preparation the Secret Service needs to do to secure a stadium and the surrounding areas for a presidential speech. There are of course the required scenes that walk you through various assassinations and assassination attempts on past presidents like Kennedy, Ford, Reagan, etc. These events are recounted in vivid detail firsthand by the Secret Service agents who were there at the time.

The more unusual parts of "Inside the US Secret Service", however, are the forays into the lesser known aspects of the organization. Here you get to see the Secret Service training facilities, complete with explosions and gunfire, including an evasive driving course where agents learn how to do 180 degree turns at 70 miles per hour. You also learn about threat assessment, where agents process death threats against the president and investigate them using voice recognition, handwriting analysis, and DNA/fingerprinting. There is a section on anti-counterfeit money operations, which was actually Secret Service's original role when it was first created, and still comprises about half of all Secret Service personnel. You even get to meet the guy that cleans the armored cars of the president's fleet!