Smithsonian Police is a national labor union of law enforcement officers and agents. Smithsonian Police The Smithsonian Institution Office of Protection Services is the guard force of the Smithsonian Institution. It is a federal guard force consisting of 850 officers with very limited special police authority tasked with protecting visitors, staff, property, and grounds of the federally owned and managed Smithsonian Institution museums and research centers in Washington, D.C., New York City, at the 2,800 acre Smithsonian Environmental Research Center in Maryland as well as oversight of the security operations at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama. According to a 1978
Smithsonian Museum Support Center (MCI), the Laboratories of Analytical Biology (LAB) and other numerous departments from the National Museum of Natural History, including the Department of Anthropology, the National Anthropological Archives (NAA), the Human Studies Film Archives (HSFA), the Walter Reed Biosystematics Unit (WRBU), as well as branch of the Smithsonian Institution Libraries. Smithsonian Museum Support Center The Smithsonian Institution's Museum Support Center (MSC) is a collections storage and conservation facility in Suitland, Maryland which houses Smithsonian collections which are not on display in the museums. It is not usually open to the public, due to security concerns, though occasionally special tours are organized.