# United States Secret Service **Entity class:** Federal law-enforcement agency **Domain:** Protective security / financial crime / cyber-enabled crime **Doc Type:** Agency Node **Maturity:** Developed ## Definition The **United States Secret Service (USSS)** is a component of the [[wiki/United States Department of Homeland Security|Department of Homeland Security]] with two enduring missions: protecting designated leaders, facilities, and events, and safeguarding the nation's currency, financial infrastructure, and payment systems through criminal investigation. ## Treasury Lineage and Present Placement The Secret Service was created in 1865 within the [[wiki/United States Department of the Treasury|Department of the Treasury]] to suppress counterfeiting. That origin explains why an agency now popularly associated with presidential protection retains jurisdiction and expertise in counterfeit currency, access-device and payment-card fraud, bank and financial-institution fraud, money laundering, computer fraud, and cyber-enabled attacks on payment systems. The agency transferred to DHS on **March 1, 2003**. Its current financial-crime jurisdiction is therefore not a consequence of present-day subordination to Treasury. It is a statutory and institutional mission carried from its Treasury history into DHS. ## Formal Chart and Operational Network **The 2003 transfer changed the Secret Service's formal parent and administrative reporting chain; it did not sever the operational network built around Treasury's financial data, expertise, and authorities.** Secret Service agents report through USSS and DHS command structures, while financial cases can still require close work with Treasury components, especially [[wiki/Financial Crimes Enforcement Network|FinCEN]] and the Treasury Executive Office for Asset Forfeiture, as well as DOJ, prosecutors, regulators, other investigative agencies, and private financial institutions. The Secret Service's published investigative strategy explicitly names close partnership with FinCEN and Treasury's forfeiture office. Treasury's 2020 statement supporting a proposed return of the agency described the Secret Service's cyber-enabled financial and counterfeiting mission as closely aligned with Treasury's national-security and financial-system responsibilities. Those records establish continuing functional proximity even though the proposal did not change the agency's present placement in DHS. The practical rule for analysis is therefore two-sided. The organizational chart must not be ignored: Treasury does not command Secret Service field operations merely because it once housed the agency. The operational graph must not be ignored either: when a matter involves currency, payment systems, illicit finance, asset tracing, forfeiture, sanctions, or BSA data, understanding Secret Service activity can require examining Treasury relationships, and understanding Treasury action can require identifying the investigative agencies that turn financial intelligence into cases. ## What a Card Swipe Can Reveal A card transaction can produce records at the merchant, processor, acquiring bank, payment network, and issuing institution. Those records can establish time, place, merchant, account, device, or counterpart relationships. They are not all automatically copied into a single Secret Service or Treasury database. Investigators obtain relevant records through applicable legal process, statutory reporting channels, consent, or other authorized means. When a financial institution files a [[wiki/Bank Secrecy Act Suspicious Activity Report|BSA Suspicious Activity Report]], supporting transaction records generally remain with the institution and can be requested under the governing rules. The Secret Service's financial and cyber task forces join public and private expertise around complex payment-system crime. That makes ordinary commercial infrastructure an investigative surface without making every purchase presumptively criminal or continuously visible to every agency. ## Sources / Provenance - [U.S. Secret Service — FY2019 Annual Report, institutional history and financial mission](https://www.secretservice.gov/sites/default/files/reports/2021-03/FY-2019-Annual-Report.pdf) - [U.S. Secret Service — Investigative Strategy FY2021–2027](https://www.secretservice.gov/sites/default/files/reports/2021-01/inv-strategy-fy21-27.pdf) - [U.S. Secret Service — Cyber Fraud Task Forces](https://www.secretservice.gov/contact/field-offices/) - [FinCEN — SAR supporting documentation and lawful access](https://www.fincen.gov/resources/statutes-regulations/guidance/suspicious-activity-report-supporting-documentation) - [GAO — Homeland Security Act transfer effective March 1, 2003](https://www.gao.gov/assets/a306267.html) - [Treasury — 2020 statement on proposed Secret Service return](https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/sm1004) ## Relationships - **current parent department:** [[wiki/United States Department of Homeland Security|United States Department of Homeland Security]]. - **historical parent department:** [[wiki/United States Department of the Treasury|United States Department of the Treasury]], 1865–2003. - **investigates:** payment-system crime, access-device fraud, counterfeiting, financial-institution fraud, and cyber-enabled financial crime. - **receives or develops financial leads with:** [[wiki/Financial Crimes Enforcement Network|FinCEN]], financial institutions, and other law-enforcement partners. - **continuing operational relationship:** Treasury financial intelligence, BSA data, forfeiture, sanctions, and policy components can support or intersect with Secret Service investigations without changing the DHS chain of command. - **supports:** protective intelligence and the wider [[wiki/Counterterrorism|counterterrorism]] security environment under its own authorities.