GAO: Untrained guards mean unprotected feds

The security guards screening bags as people walk into federal buildings would imply safety to many, but a new study shows that this is not always the case.

In a study conducted by the Government Accountability Office, it was revealed that it was possible for people to walk into high security buildings with dangerous objects without ever being detected.

"The Federal Protective Service is a key component of our nation's security. Every day FPS officers and the agency's contracted security guards protect nearly 9,000 federal facilities, the people who work in them, and the visitors who come to them to access vital government services," Sen. Susan Collins, R-Me., ranking member of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Issues said yesterday during a hearing on the subject. "In this post 9-11 world that we are now living in, I cannot fathom how security breaches of this magnitude were allowed to occur."

Ten level-four federal buildings were included in the study and these included offices of a senator, a representative, and agencies of the departments of Homeland Security, State and Justice, according to Mark Goldstein, the director of Physical Infrastructure Issues for the GAO. Level four buildings have the most security of all federal office buildings, second only to the White House and the Capitol.

"Our investigators used publicly available information to identify a type of device that a terrorist could use to cause damage to a federal facility and threaten the safety of federal workers and the general public," Goldstein said. "In a number of the locations, three or four of them, the guards were not even looking at the screens that would show the materials passing through. In only one instance did a guard ask about something that our investigator was carrying, a brief explanation and that guard let it go through."

The GAO investigators also found evidence of guards sleeping through their shifts after taking medication, viewing adult Web sites on government computers, and allowing a baby to pass through the X-ray machine, Goldstein said. In another instance a guard did not recognize a box of handguns at the loading dock.

The guards are employed by private agencies that have a contract with the Federal Protective Service.

Many of the guards within these buildings have not been kept up to date with their required training. One case is in litigation because the contractor falsified many of the required documents, Goldstein said.

"In short, GAO has found that the Federal Protective Service is not doing anywhere near enough to make sure that its 13,000 private contract guards, the first line of defense of federal buildings, are qualified and trained for their jobs, and are actually doing what they were hired to do," Sen. Joe Lieberman, ID-Conn., chairman of the committee said.

Gary W. Schenkel, director of the Federal Protective Service, also testified at the hearing and focused on what is being done to correct the problems discovered in the GAO study.

"The training issue is one of the most prevalent," he said. "We are responsible for 16 hours of entry-level training of the security guards. We need to actually deliver the training to ensure compliance and to ensure standardization across all 50 states."

Lieberman and Collins announced Wednesday that they will be introducing legislation that will attempt to help FPS in correcting the issues that were found in the study. Senators Daniel Akaka, (D-Hawaii) and George Voinovich, (R-Ohio) will be joining Lieberman and Collins in the construction of the bill.

"As we approach the eighth anniversary of 9-11-01, and 14 years after the bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City, it really is outrageously unacceptable that the federal employees working within our federal buildings, and the citizens who pass through them, are still apparently so utterly exposed to potential attacks from terrorists and other violent people," Lieberman said.

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On the Web -

Senate Cmte on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs - LIieberman and Collins to Draft FPS Reform Legislation (press release)

GAO - Homeland Security: Preliminary Results Show Federal Protective Service's Ability to Protect Federal Facilities Is Hampered by Weaknesses in Its Contract Security Guard Program (by Mark Goldstein, highlights pdf)

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