WHEN United States President-elect Barack Obama gave his victory speech on Tuesday night, the lectern was shielded with bullet- proof Plexiglas, the first time his campaign had employed such protection.
This reflects the fact that security agents now face major challenges in protecting him, the first black President-elect: His race would make him more of a target than his predecessors.
The 47-year-old has had Secret Service protection since 18 months before the polls: The earliest for a candidate.
Secret Service spokesman Ed Donovan would not say if the security regime would be intensified for Mr Obama, but added: "We make adjustments, obviously... we have planned for every contingency."
Mr Obama will likely face an unprecedented number of threats on his life. Two white supremacists, Daniel Cowart, 20, and Paul Schlesselman, 18, were charged in Tennessee on Wednesday with plotting to assassinate him and violating gun laws.
It is "going to be a unique and challenging environment" for Mr Obama's security detail, said Mr Fred Burton, vice-president of counter-terrorism at geopolitical intelligence-analysis firm Stratfor.
He believes protective intelligence agencies have infiltrated white hate groups, whose sympathisers are blamed for the assassinations of civil-rights leaders Martin Luther King Jr and Malcom X, as a means of thwarting attempts on the lives of protectees.
The white supremacist Ku Klux Klan has already warned that there may be a white "backlash" against Mr Obama's election. In America, four sitting presidents were murdered and two more wounded in assassination attempts.
