Bomb Materials Smuggled into Fed Buildings

(CBS/ AP)  Last updated at 7:05 p.m. EDT

Federal investigators had no trouble smuggling bomb-making materials past ill-trained and poorly supervised guards at federal buildings, senators were told at a hearing Wednesday.

"This is the broadest indictment of a federal agency I have ever heard," Sen. Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., said at a Homeland Security Committee hearing on the performance of the Federal Protective Service, the office responsible for the safety of some 9,000 federal facilities. "This is really serious stuff."

The committee, chaired by Lieberman, heard how Government Accountability Office investigators on 10 occasions carried the components for an improvised explosive device through checkpoints monitored by FPS guards. In all 10 cases the bomb-making materials went undetected.

CBS News correspondent Bob Orr reports that the components only cost $150 per bomb, and took just four minutes to assemble.

Mark Goldstein, the GAO's director for physical infrastructure issues, said the investigators proceeded to assemble the material - made up of a liquid explosive and a low-yield detonator - in restrooms and walked freely around the facilities with the IED in a briefcase.

He said that in some cases the bathrooms were locked but employees working in the buildings opened them up for the visitors.

The IEDs, which Goldstein said contained actual bomb components but with concentrations below trigger points, were smuggled into 10 level IV facilities - buildings housing more than 450 employees with a high volume of public contact - in four major cities. They included offices of a U.S. senator and representative and agencies such as the departments of Homeland Security, State and Justice.

"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," Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, top Republican on the committee, said.

The FPS, Goldstein concluded, "is an agency in crisis." In addition to the smuggling operations, the GAO cited examples of a night guard being found asleep after taking the pain killer prescription drug Percocet, and a guard failing to recognize or properly x-ray a box containing handguns at the loading dock of a facility. One guard supposed to have been at his post was caught using government computers to manage a private for-profit adult website.

The report also found that 411 of the 663 guards deployed to a federal facility had at least one expired firearm qualification, background check, domestic violence declaration or CPR-first aid training certificate.

While the FPS requires that all prospective guards complete 128 hours of training, including eight hours of x-ray and magnetometer training, in one region the service had not provided the x-ray or metal detector training to its 1,500 guards since 2004.

Gary Schenkel, the FPS director, said the report "caused us all grave concern" and that within three hours of receiving the study he had ordered regional directors to increase inspections and outline steps they would take to improve guard performance. "It's purely a lack of oversight on our part," he acknowledged.

He also explained that the FPS's full-time workforce had decreased from 1,400 in 2003, when it became part of the new Department of Homeland Security, to 1,236 today, and that the agency had had to reschedule training and equipment purchases to avoid greater cuts. The FPS has a budget of about $1 billion and, in addition to full-time employees, uses about 13,000 contract security guards.

Schenkel said his office would also require the FPS's 11 regional directors to conduct more random searches of packages, increase oversight of contract guards, and carry out overt and covert inspections of screening processes.

Lieberman said the committee had originally planned to go public with the findings after the GAO issues a second report later this summer, but the conclusions "were so disturbing that we decided to air them immediately to accelerate the critical work of turning the FPS around." He said he planned to introduce legislation responding to the service's shortcomings.

[jhenry3107]

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[ajjaxtheleast]

A non-article,,,

First if THEY want us they'll get us,,,,,

This "article" merely talks about IED's in a briefcase,,
meaning the bad man would be happy with killing in
numbers of 10, 20, 50 people,,,to do that he wouldn't
have to slink into a building and assemble his IED
sitting on a toilet,,,all he'd have to do is get
on a bus,,,which would allow the carnage to be more
publically visable enhancing the fear-instilling
aspect of his day's handy-work.

News would have been sneaking enough bomb-making
material into a building that would bring the building
down killing 500 or more people,,,,why didn't the
"investigators" try it?,,,,If they truely ARE invest-
igators they DID try but couldn't and since this didn't
fit their boogie-man-is-after-you article they're
failure to do so isn't included.

As far as bringing down a building it would'nt be
from explosives brought into a building,, a passing
van or truck would do the job,,,Again why didn't the
"Investigators" try gathering together enough
bomb-making material to bring down a building and
assembling a hugh "bomb" inside a truck and driving
it next to a building?,,,,,And again they may have
tried but couldn't even purchase or "steal" the raw
materials to start with and this didn't go
along with the story.

[Snerdguy]

As someone who used to be a federal employee with the Defense Department, I believe I am qualified to say that the public is incredibly ignorant regarding how their federal government really works. People joke about the constant waste and foul ups of the government. But, they can't seem to grasp that it isn't the federal worker who is at fault. It's the incompetent management.

Those guards were doing what their bosses allowed. They were sloppy and inefficient because their managers didn't care enough to even check on them occasionally let alone arrange for them to have appropriate training for their jobs. This isn't an exception. Throughout the government, it's pretty much the rule.

Our federal government is very unique in that anybody can become a boss just by playing the internal politics. Intelligence is not as important as who you hang out with. There are many federal managers with important, even life and death, responsibilities who are utterly clueless. The workers do their best to keep the government running. They often work around bad managers. But, they can only do so much.

Bomb making materials could likely be slipped though the security of nearly any federal facility because managers are more concerned about show than go. Those security guards are not the problem. They are just a symptom of a much bigger problem. In the government, there are too many bosses and too much incompetence and nobody, right up to the President himself, cares enough to try to change how things are done.

By the way, if terrorists were really a threat, they could have easily bombed many federal buildings by now. So who keeps stirring this pot?

[payasyougo]

Bomb Materials Smuggled into Fed Buildings
Test of Security Measures Reveals Lax Screening, Sleeping Guards, GAO Report Says
----
What a complete waste of tax dollars. The security measures and the idiots testing the security measures.

Now what agency is monitoring the testers of the security measures?

And what agency is in charge of the monitoring agency?

[bokoo143]

This is just another false flag that will be the platform for more of our freedoms to be taken from us by our government. Most people, with the brainwashing from all our media sources will be urging our leaders to fix the problem they created and our government will be all too happy to comply by putting more restrictions on us just as they planned and have done for over 70 years now. We will of course foot the bill.

All citizens need to come together and listen to people such as Ron Paul and a few others. Open your eyes and start paying attention. Encourage others to wake up and pay attention, talk to your friends and family and ask them what they think about the latest news of the day?

Our government is going to take away our Constitution and Bill of Rights. There is a plan for One World Government, One World Bank, One World Currency, One World Leader, and they are getting closer every day. I give us maybe two years before it is announced to the world as fact, just google Bilderberg and the New World Order for starters. Or just ignore what is happening and feel warm and fuzzy that someone in Washington is taking care of it for you.

Sure go ahead and call me nuts, but I'm a wide awake nut.

[bradkt1]

Okay...you're a wide-awake nut. Say hello to the nice men in the white coats for me...and you'd better behave or they are going to make you listen to endless loops of Preisdent Obama's speeches. Pretty soon, you'll be chanting "Yes we can! in your sleep.

[gunownerdan]

MORAL OF THE STORY: It would have been even easier to smuggle bomb materials into the world trade center.

[prelgovisk]

The Congress, Senate & Obama are all outraged...

...until it comes time to make the budget, hire twice as many guards and pay them good salaries to attract quality security personal.

Then they glower at the security providers, wondering why they can't train people on minimum range to operate inadequate equipement in high traffic areas.

The Congress holds the purse strings. They can vote and spend all they want on security. But they will look to blame others. The last place they will look for the cause of the problem is among themselves.

[Joe_NY_15]

Charlie, what does this have to do with the lax security ? that they were busy and not looking at the monitors ?

[starleo146]

When a new President is elected the Federal employees stay never changed unless some illegal problem that effect the government ie: Linda Tripp, well there are Republicans in federal jobs and democrats in the past administration,who have continued with tenure, if any of you have worked in a office the disgruntled ones could have gotten wind of this and leaked this when the office of Government Accounting Office did not intend to have it happen we got Cheney lovers in the CIA who knows how many in the FBI so good luck Americans with all these reports they had to be leaked by a person who dislikes the present government. How many are feeding information to the wrong guy,just because they can. Imagine the worst and you got the worst.

[whatdableep]

People - Read, Richard Marcinko's book Red Cell about his testing tactics for supposedly secure locations when he was involved with testing security at military bases and other locations. You will see that our money is being wasted on lies and fallacies. Read it - it is a Good Book.