[MUSIC] >> Hello, and welcome to the Employee Safety Podcast from Alert Media, where you'll hear advice from experienced safety leaders on how to protect your people and business. I'm Peter Steinfeld. I'm excited for you to hear today's episode about the upcoming 2024 Summer Olympic Games in Paris, which begin July 26th. I'm talking with Scott Kim, Director of the Office of Protection at the Diplomatic Security Service, the organization that helps protect Team USA during the Olympic Games. Scott shares how he and his team keep citizens safe abroad, plus lessons learned that any safety or security professional can apply to their organization. Let's listen in. [MUSIC] >> Hey, Scott. Thanks so much for being here today. >> Thank you, Peter. It's my first time recording a podcast. So I will warn you that after 25 years of government service, I may have a habit of talking in acronyms. So if I start referring to the US OPC instead of the US Olympic and Paralympic Committee, please just correct me. My family does all the time. >> Absolutely will do. I'm guilty of that myself, so we'll make sure to slow down and explain that for the listeners. Frankly, I'd love to start by just getting a quick overview of the Diplomatic Security Services role of the 2024 Olympics that happened to be in Paris, as well as your and your team's direct involvement, and maybe even start with a little bit about the DSS in general. I think a lot of people may not be familiar with it. >> So the Diplomatic Security Service is the law enforcement and security agency at the US Department of State. Now, our mission is primarily to lead security and law enforcement efforts worldwide to advance US foreign policy and safeguard national security interests. Now, we accomplished this by a really a great team of special agents like myself, security engineers, diplomatic couriers, technical specialists, security contractors, and civil service specialists. This global responsibility of protecting people, property, and information makes us one of the most widely represented US law enforcement agencies in the world. Now, we manage security programs from our regional security offices that is located in something like 270 US embassies and consulates worldwide. Plus, we have a extensive network of 30-plus field offices in most major US cities. So with all that connectivity, we accomplished the mission. Now, me, as director of the DSS Office of Protection, I'm responsible specifically for the protection of designated US officials, such as the US Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken. We protect visiting foreign dignitaries to the US, and we also provide security for foreign diplomatic missions, embassies, and consulates throughout the US. Additionally, I get to oversee the US government's security responsibilities for international security events, such as the US involvement in the Olympic and Paralympic Games. So as the security lead for the US participation in the upcoming Olympic and Paralympic Games in Paris, we have a long-range security planning effort that identifies, tracks, and manages the US government's ability to provide security support for Team USA, the athletes, coaches, trainers, families, spectators, and the significant number of US private sector interests that are attracted to every Olympic Games. Now, we start this preparation up to two years in advance of an Olympic Games, and we select very qualified DSS special agents to serve as US special Olympic coordinators. They not only receive language training prior to the start of this unique assignment, but they also are permanently relocated overseas to live and work directly with our host government Olympic planners. I should mention that DSS special agents are very comfortable operating in the overseas environment, because on the average, close to 50% of our careers are spent abroad. Personally, I've served in Algeria, China, South Korea, and most recently Iraq, but even during my domestic tours in Los Angeles and Washington, DC, I did spend a significant amount of time abroad on assignments to include two trips to North Korea with the Secretary of State, which was incredibly challenging and interesting, but the insights there might require whole whole separate podcast, so I won't go too deep into it here. What's really unique in our approach is that we rely on that whole of government engagement with host country. I co-chair the International Security Events Group, also known as ISEG, which is the US interagency body that coordinates all of US law enforcement and intelligence community's resources and make it available to our foreign counterparts. Now, this could include training opportunities to foreign security on topics such as personal protective security, complex criminal investigations, such as financial crimes or identity theft. We are able to draw on partner agencies, members of the ISEG, such as the FBI, and they offer premier cybersecurity training, or we can draw upon a number of analytical counterterrorism efforts from the National Counterterrorism Center or NCTC, both of which are members of the ISEG. So basically, your average day is pretty boring. Absolutely. Man, that's a lot. That's unbelievable. And it sounds like when you were speaking, I'm thinking, a big part of your success and your effectiveness is reliant upon having local field offices, this local presence. Would you agree with that? Absolutely. We think of a global presence, really, because I can call on a number of colleagues from around the world, depending on what's going on with the current global conflicts that we're seeing, and then start getting insight and information on how that will affect maybe our domestic protection, responsibilities, or dignitaries traveling overseas. And it seems like relationships with the local officials is important, so how do you work with the French government to help create a really safe and festive environment for the games? Well, it's not easy. We're expecting over 10,000 competing athletes during the course of the Paris Olympics. There's about 500 plus US athletes that comprise Team USA. They will compete in probably close to 40 or 50 separate competition venues across the country. I should note that the Paralympic Games are also part of our planning. They expect over 4,000 competing athletes with a team from the US of about 350 para athletes that really represent the top of their fields. These games that expect to attract somewhere between 12 and 13 million visitors to Paris, I read somewhere that the population of Paris is about 12 million, so doubling the capacity there for these games, it's going to generate maybe 11 million dollars in revenue and create, I think, close to a quarter of a million jobs just to get the venues and sites ready. It'll probably attract a lot of bad actors too, potentially, so that's something you've got to contend with. Potentially, but we know the French have a long history of hosting successful global major events. We all develop these concentric rings of security, these layers of security, when we conduct our security planning, and continuing to work with the French to support Team USA and the USA presence in France during the games, we want to ensure that the city and all the visitors and residents are safe to move about and support the games. Now, as you can imagine, in addition to the large draw of just US spectators, there will be a large number of private sector US interests, including US media outlets such as NBC and Comcast and corporate sponsors Coca-Cola, Visa, those are the bigger ones that I recall. We assign between 40 and 60 additional DSS special agents. We send them to Paris for the couple of weeks and let them engage directly with French authorities because we know once the games begin, once the metal ceremonies start, hopefully, we'll be also fully engaged with the intense global media focus that the metal ceremonies bring and help Team USA to safely and securely enjoy the culmination of years of preparation and hard work to get them there. Hopefully, DSS will be right there with them. I think that's so fantastic that people can rest assured that there's someone out there that has their backs, making sure that they're safe when they're there. I know you guys cover all sorts of things around the world from individual visits to different kinds of events, but what are some of the unique challenges with securing the Olympics specifically? Well, every country will have its own unique and challenging aspects in their environment and managing security, but DSS have long history supporting these games around the world, so we've just about experienced everything out there. However, I will say this year marks the first time ever where the opening ceremonies will be conducted almost exclusively outdoors along the Senn River in Paris. As you can imagine, this has created a whole next level of challenges in securing an entire riverbank, but the French of a bold and original plan, they are engaging every level of their security, and I won't spoil it here, but the scope that they plan to achieve will be historic. As part of this, we will also have a large number of U.S. officials in attendance, so as I mentioned earlier, one of our partners in the ISEG includes the U.S. Secret Service, so we're going to be able to help them navigate their protection needs for potential visits from high-end delegations, which always tend to complicate and increase those challenges for us. Can you reveal maybe some more specific strategies or tactics that DSS employs to mitigate potential threats during the Olympics? Obviously, don't go there if you can, but is there something you can share? I'd love to hear it. Well, one of the more robust collaborative efforts is we will create and stand up a joint operation center or a JOC. This is a 24-hour, seven days a week operational command center that we invite U.S. law enforcement representatives as well as French law enforcement agencies to join us in this collaborative effort. In addition to reporting and sharing of information on everything from crime, transportation issues, schedule changes, personnel movements, the JOC is prepared to respond to emergency situations such as natural disaster, WMD, or weapons of mass destruction incidents, active shooter situations. The goal here is to receive and share valuable information as soon as possible, whether it's back here in Washington or with our colleagues in the field directly at the venues, we want to make sure that that vital information is being shared quickly and accurately. So if it happens during the game, the JOC is tracking it and knows about it. So it sounds like that collaboration and then the communication that collaboration requires is really crucial. So how does communication come into play in what you're doing? It's 100%. I mean, we live and die by our ability to communicate effectively and share information quickly. Now, I'm talking mainly about the open source realm here, but that's why we focus on syncing up with host government partners so importantly. We will also deploy locally engaged staff, staff from the embassy to help us, we'll place them in strategic locations and utilize them as official translators and support staff. We all realize and concede that during emergency situations, most people will default to their native language. So we want to be right there with them in understanding what they need, the after action, the active response, and meeting our mission goals. You know, that's interesting that you recognize that people will default to their native language when under stress. How does that work? If someone's in a situation, you got someone speaking French, someone speaking English, do you have someone in the middle just listening and making sure that they're communicating correctly and translating and just helping smooth things out? I mean, absolutely. That's why we approach this kind of forward leaning in getting our people in country aware of local cultural norms, habits engaging with host government as well as law enforcement. I mean, globally, law enforcement is we all stand under one badge and we operate in similar manners, but understanding local law enforcement culture is going to be important for us. That's why we take that long range approach and spend weeks, months, if that year's partnering up with those counterparts. Yeah, it's so crucial. I'm a big fan of lessons learned. So can you discuss any really memorable challenges or perhaps incidents that your team has faced while securing past Olympic games or other similar type of events? I was supporting the 2018 Winter Olympics in South Korea. And we were approached by the mother of a competing athlete. And she reported that her US passport was either lost or stolen. And she was very concerned about the loss of her identity and travel document. But I think she was also worried about the impact that it might have on her son who was competing for a medal in his event. I believe he was an individual lose athlete. And so she was very worried that he would find out and become preoccupied and impact his performance. So on the one hand, we tried to keep it quiet. But of course, having served at the US Embassy in Seoul, I knew that we'd have to engage with the local South Korean police at some level. So we started making calls and we were working our way through this investigation of this lost document. And out of sheer luck, we managed to locate it was a substation of a police, a local police station. And they recovered a US passport that just so happened that they were going to mail it back to the US Embassy for processing. But because of our investigation, we were able to identify the name on that passport was the mothers. And so again, with a little bit of negotiation with the locals, we were able to secure that passport and return it to the mother that day. So you can't imagine, you know, just on that local personal level, being able to assist in that capacity, the mother was so grateful. The son went on to, I believe, win a silver medal in his event. Afterwards, he made it a point to come find us at the USA House just to thank us for the help. And once he found out the full story, it was a very memorable moment. And it's hard not to get caught up in the patriotic feeling of assisting a team USA athlete that's worked so hard in achieving his goal and helping out in whatever way we could. On maybe a more somber example is more recently during the 2023 FIFA Women's World Cup that was hosted in Australia and New Zealand. We had a DSS special agent that was embedded with the US women's soccer team as that liaison. And I believe it was on the eve of the start of the tournament. She witnessed an active shooter event unfold in Auckland while she was walking to the team's hotel. She observed firsthand the law enforcement response that included helicopters and armed law enforcement response at a nearby high rise construction site. She heard the gunshots. Now, her training kicked in and she was able to report that immediately to the jock as well as her fellow agents in the field to initiate a complete lockdown for team movements. She recommended the team shelter in place until we could get an all clear that information that was relayed to the jock immediately came back here to Washington. And we were able to brief the US government collective as to what that developing situation was. Now, no US team USA or the women's team were affected by the lockdown. But it is a prime example of how DSS connects security information and gets it to where it needs to go during these major events. Well, that's amazing. I mean, it kind of bookends what you guys deal with everything from just minor incidents that are big to an individual to major things that could affect hundreds, thousands of people potentially. And the only way to be able to do all those things is to be unbelievably prepared. So you mentioned before, you've got a plan for this stuff way in advance. So how is the DSS starting prepare for future Olympic games beyond Paris? Well, we've already identified our Olympic security coordinators for the winter games in 2026 in Milan, Italy. They've completed language training and should be starting their preparatory work very soon. For our part, we've engaged with the Italian government and extended not only our deepest commitment to cooperation. But another successful relationship billing tool for us is inviting our Italian counterparts to join us in Paris to get hands on experience of what to expect as far as infrastructure and that jock and then our complete network of law enforcement support. We conduct a number of crisis management exercises in the run up to Olympic games, and the Italians will join us every step of the way. We will invite them to see and observe how we organize domestic major events, such as the annual United Nations General Assembly meeting in September of every year up in New York City. There might be other major sporting events that we will be able to invite the Italians, such as Super Bowl or World Series, something like that, so they can get, again, first-hand example of how to deal with crowds and the various layers of security. It's a great opportunity also to see how, for the U.S., our federal and local systems of law enforcement complement each other because we all agree we can't do this job by ourselves. We need that force multiplier by joining forces. Absolutely. I love that idea that you threw out there, which is incredibly valuable, that if you've got someone that's going to be doing something in the future and it's going on now in a different venue, invite them in, let them experience it when they're not responsible for anything, and they can literally just watch and observe and learn, so then they can be more effective doing it later. I think that's fantastic. Absolutely. I mean, there's no gatekeeping here when it comes to best practices, and like I mentioned, we have a long history of supporting the games, and so we always bring those lessons learned to the next problem set for the next event. Well, speaking of that, what have you learned from working on the Olympics and other similar events that our listeners can maybe apply to the safety and security challenges that they have at their organizations? Well, early preparation will always be key for us. As I mentioned, we have that extensive network of overseas personnel that work closely with foreign governments, so there isn't a city or country that DSS doesn't have some level of connectivity to. There are two unique State Department entities that if you'll entertain me, I'd like to share with your group. These are tailored to support international events, so I would recommend... No acronyms. Yeah, well, I'll give a couple. I have to give a couple. Our overseas Security Advisory Council, or OSAC, promotes security cooperation between U.S. business and private sector interests worldwide with the U.S. government, and of course, they are valued partners throughout our Olympic coordination. Their constituency is over 5,000 U.S. companies and organizations, so they will provide guidance, security briefings, recommendations on operating overseas in a number of fields, such as academia, aviation, media, entertainment, hospitality, and even energy. OSAC will host a number of networking and informational sharing events around the world, including an annual briefing in Washington, D.C., where they address emerging trends, lessons learned, and how to mitigate those future risks. There's a website involved. That's okay. OSAC.gov, and I strongly encourage your audience to look into it and potentially register for that level of overseas support. Is that good for any organization, and only if they have business overseas, or even if they're just in the U.S.? The focus is definitely on overseas activity, so if you're engaged in partnerships, overseas, or are looking to expand business opportunities, it's a good starting resource. On a more individual level for overseas travel, or just concerns about overseas business and presence, I'd recommend our American Citizen Services, which is part of our Bureau of Counselor Affairs at the Department of State. Now, this is located at every Embassy in Consulate Worldwide. ACS provides assistance to any U.S. citizens living, traveling, studying, working, vacation abroad. If your audience finds themselves ever in need of assistance, any assistance, while overseas, ACS is the greatest resource and can be contacted just through the main switchboard at any U.S. Embassy, which I'm sure is easy enough to locate. But if you have any issues with lost or stolen passports, if you need law enforcement assistance, medical assistance, legal assistance, they can provide those references and information. So, I strongly encourage this is a free service offered at any Embassy in Consulate. That's fantastic advice for the individual. I've done a lot of international traveling and I did not know about the American Citizen Services. That's great because you didn't need to use them, but hopefully you walk out today knowing that that resource is there. Absolutely. I'm going to put a note in my phone and I'm going to have that number on there for my next trip. That's great. Thank you. Well, as we start to wrap up here, what advice do you have for organizations that are looking to keep their people and their business safe at the Paris Olympics? I know we have a lot of listeners that their companies are going to be going over there. Please stay updated during your international travel and in preparing for the travel by visiting travel.state.gov to see the latest on international travel. That will include a current travel advisory database and that can guide a lot of planning on what to expect in terms of crime statistics, reporting things like that, what services are available in country, what to expect for major events, etc. You can also enroll in our Smart Traveler Enrollment Program, which is another free service available to all U.S. citizens living, working, traveling abroad and this allows you to receive important information directly from the U.S. Embassy by enrolling. It allows them to keep in touch with you in the event of any kind of civil unrest, natural disaster, or even if your families back home in the U.S. need to reach you, they can get contact information through the U.S. Embassy to keep you updated in that with any important information. And finally, really, remember that there are DSS special agents assigned to every U.S. consulate and embassy around the world at the regional security office and they can also provide that assistance to U.S. citizens abroad. It was one of the more rewarding aspects of my job when I was able to assist in U.S. citizens abroad while posted overseas. That's what it's all about. Well, Scott, thank you so much for being on the show. I thought this has been great. I love bridging government and the private sector. And I think this show has really done that. Really appreciate you taking the time and sharing what you know based on all your years of experience. I appreciate it and especially given the opportunity to share a lot of the resources available to U.S. citizens. But hopefully, of course, we hope you never need it, but rest assured that it is there available for you. Exactly. Well, to learn more about Scott and his work with the Diplomatic Security Service, check out the show notes. For video highlights from today's episode, just search for alert media on YouTube. Remember to subscribe, rate, and review the show wherever you get your podcasts. Stay safe out there. Thank you for listening to the Employee Safety Podcast from Alert Media, the industry's most intuitive emergency communication and threat intelligence solution. To learn more about how to protect your people and business during critical events, visit alertmedia.com. Until next time. [BLANK_AUDIO]
