![\"vancouver2010\"](\"http:\/\/liveshots.blogs.foxnews.com\/files\/2010\/02\/vancouver2010-259x259.png\" "\\"vancouver2010\\"")
It\u2019s been a year in the making for one pair at the 2010 Olympic Winter Games, where one of them has made his Olympics debut. And now that both of them are in Vancouver, on some days they\u2019ve had to perform at high levels for more than 12 hours straight.<\/p>\n
But this duo isn\u2019t made up of athletes. It\u2019s comprised of U.S. counterterrorism officials.<\/p>\n
\u201cI will be in Canada,\u201d reads a note taped to an office door in the main Justice Department building in Washington. \u201cIn an emergency I can be reached through the [Justice Department] Command Center.\u201d<\/p>\n
Of course, the Director of Preparedness and Response for the Justice Department’s National Security Division is in Vancouver in case of emergency there.<\/p>\n
His office in Washington has been dark for the past two weeks, and he is in Vancouver with another National Security Division attorney, Francis Schmitz.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe U.S. Government’s mission dictated that, given the security requirements surrounding Vancouver, including a variety of cross-border issues and other security matters, DOJ attorneys should be part of the overall deployment this year,\u201d the Director of Preparedness said, noting that the Justice Department has sent similar representatives to summer and winter Olympic games for more than a decade.<\/p>\n
The Director of Preparedness, who asked that his name not be published for \u201ca variety of reasons,\u201d\u00a0and Schmitz serve several roles in Vancouver.<\/p>\n
In particular, they provide \u201cimmediate, on-site legal guidance\u201d to the FBI and others \u201cin connection with security and legal issues that arise,\u201d the Director of Preparedness said in an email to FOX News from Vancouver.<\/p>\n
The team also acts as a \u201cmechanism for receiving and sharing information\u201d between Justice Department leadership, federal prosecutors across the United States and other law enforcement and homeland security officials in Vancouver, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would say that it’s hard work for us and for all the law enforcement personnel here, especially because we have to continue managing our responsibilities at home, but the assistance [from Canadian authorities and the U.S. State Department] has been exceptional,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He and Schmitz work out of the \u201cOlympic Coordination Office,\u201d where other law enforcement and U.S. government personnel are based.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs the only two officials from Main Justice on the ground in Vancouver, Fran and I are responsible for providing 24\/7 coverage here on behalf of the National Security Division and Main Justice,\u201d the Director of Preparedness said. \u201cWe are each working 8-10 hour shifts, seven days per week … Obviously, these day shifts can extend to 12 hours or more depending on events or crises.\u201d<\/p>\n
Schmitz\u2019s shift begins each day at 7 a.m. and ends at 3 p.m., when the Director of Preparedness takes over. The later shift typically ends at 11 p.m., but both officials are on call overnight.<\/p>\n
Asked whether there have been any incidents or \u201ccrises\u201d in Vancouver requiring substantial involvement from himself or Schmitz, the Director of Preparedness declined to offer much.<\/p>\n
\u201cI’m afraid that I can’t get into your last question too much, except to say that the [Royal Canadian Mounted Police] and Vancouver Police have been doing an amazing and professional job, and we are very proud to be able to support their efforts,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The Justice Department attorneys are joined in Vancouver by a team of officials from the Department of Homeland Security and agents from the FBI, which has been working on the Olympics security operation for about a year.<\/p>\n
“The FBI has a small team in Vancouver to support the U.S. mission and assist our Canadian partners,” said Richard Kolko, a member of the FBI team in Vancouver.<\/p>\n
All of them will soon be joined by another top counterterrorism official.<\/p>\n
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano is slated to be in Vancouver later this week, as part of the U.S. delegation to the Closing Ceremony of the 2010 Olympic Winter Games.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
![\"Note](\"http:\/\/liveshots.blogs.foxnews.com\/files\/2010\/02\/DOJletterredactedShort1.jpeg\" "\\"DOJletterredactedShort\\"")
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It\u2019s been a year in the making for one pair at the 2010 Olympic Winter Games, where one of them has made his Olympics debut. And now that both of them are in Vancouver, on some days they\u2019ve had to perform at high levels for more than 12 hours straight. But this duo isn\u2019t made […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4536,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-353161","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353161","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4536"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=353161"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353161\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=353161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=353161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=353161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}