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Palpatine wants to put Senator Padmé under protection:

Senator Bail: Do you really think that's a wise decision under these stressful times?

Padmé: Chancellor, if I may comment, I do not believe...

Palpatine: The situation is that serious? No, but I do, Senator. I realise all too well that additional security might be disruptive for you, but perhaps someone you're familiar with.

Why does Palpatine believe protection will be disruptive for Padmé?

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    Does he really believe that, or is it just a way to make the suggestion of Anakin seem like it's driven by a desire to accommodate Padme. (So as though it were not about Anakin himself.)
    – DavidW
    Dec 1, 2020 at 4:36
  • @DavidW I don't think he's lying there. He might be misleading about his personal reasons for pushing this additional security on her, but what he says is absolutely true.
    – Arthur
    Dec 1, 2020 at 20:06
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    Pretty much any spouse or child of any high-profile politician ever has complained about exactly this in at least one interview. It really is disruptive if you simply want to have a quiet low-key evening with a friend at a bar, and as you enter, an army of armed men descends onto the establishment.
    – Jörg W Mittag
    Dec 1, 2020 at 20:33

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Simply because security is disruptive to the principal protectee - security can prevent their protectee from certain activities that are deemed to be unsafe. Impromptu visits to anywhere are immediately out of the question, and having security present in meetings may make the other attendee(s) uncomfortable and limit the value of those meetings.

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    Also personal privacy, which is precisely what Palpatine is getting at by suggesting that someone she knows and trusts would mitigate the problems.
    – KRyan
    Dec 1, 2020 at 14:17
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Palpatine was the one who suggested that additional security provided by a Jedi to be put in place for Padmé. He also suggested Obi-Wan to that role which is what brought Padmé and Anakin together again, using disruptive is his reverse psychology (pulling a Jedi mind trick on the Jedi themselves) to lure the Jedi into assigning someone that Padmé knows and trusts like Master Kenobi (not some other knight whose security measures would confine and strangle her) and by association Anakin, since Obi-Wan and Anakin come together as a pair.

PADMÉ: Chancellor, please! I don't want any more guards!

PALPATINE: I realise all too well that additional security might be disruptive for you, but perhaps someone you are familiar with... an old friend like... Master Kenobi...

MACE WINDU: That's possible. He has just returned from a Border dispute on Ansion.

By doing so, Palpatine was slowly coercing Anakin to the Dark Side by having him indulge in temptation, lust, hatred, love,.... which resulted from his relationship with Padmé. And Anakin, down from the beginning, fell into his trap:

ANAKIN: She didn't even recognise me, Jar Jar. I thought about her every day since we parted... and she's forgotten me completely.

This dialogue clearly shows anger and frustration which would lead him down a dark path.

Once Anakin and Padmé were on Naboo, alone, they fell in love, resulting in Anakin's putting his feelings before his duty and that confrontation with Obi-Wan during the speeder chase on Geonosis.

Palpatine had always this plan for Anakin and one could argue that he sent Darth Maul to Tatooine to get him not the Jedi or the queen in Episode I, but that's debatable.

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    It seems very likely that Palpatine, like the Jedi, had no idea about Anakin Skywalker on Tatooine, but simply realized the same things that Qui-Gon Jinn did when the chase happened to take them all to that planet.
    – KRyan
    Dec 1, 2020 at 14:15
  • @KRyan Unless he created him by influencing midi-chlorians and lost his track.
    – user10191234
    Dec 1, 2020 at 14:19
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    This answer does not address the actual question. Yes, assigning Anakin was deliberate to start him down his path to the dark side but that has nothing to do with why Palpatine felt security would be disruptive to Padme.
    – aleppke
    Dec 1, 2020 at 19:43
  • This doesn't answer the question at all?
    – Daniel B
    Dec 1, 2020 at 19:45
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Palpatine believes that, because

  1. He knows her values / what she stands for
  2. She has literally just said she doesn't want additional guards
  3. This appears to be an ongoing argument.

He knows her values:

The entire theme of the opening of Attack of the Clones is that Padme stands for freedom, ahead of security. She is opposing the creation of an army to protect the republic, because she feels that puts security ahead of freedom.

From the script / a deleted scene of her speech shortly after the assassination attempt:

I have led the opposition to build an army... but there is someone in this body who will stop at nothing to assure it's passage.

I warn you, if you vote to create this army, war will follow. I have experienced the misery of war first-hand; I do not wish to do it again.

Wake up, Senators... you must wake up! If you offer the separatists violence, they can only show us violence in return! Many will lose their lives. All will lose their freedom.

This is symbolically paralleled by the fact that she doesn't want guards for herself, since they would be a microcosm of surrendering her freedom for security.

She has literally just said she doesn't want additional guards:

PADMÉ: Chancellor, please! I don't want any more guards!

I think this speaks for itself.

This appears to be an ongoing argument:

PADMÉ: Chancellor, if I may comment, I do not believe the...

PALPATINE: ..."situation is that serious." No, but I do, Senator.

The fact that he's finishing her sentence indicates this is an old argument that they've had a few times, so he knows how she feels about having guards. Given her irritated response when he insists:

PADMÉ: This is not necessary, Chancellor.

She is aware that he is aware that she doesn't want this.

Source: Attack of the Clones Script

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