Click the play button on the video window to the right to see the storyPHOENIX - Members of Congress say they are outraged by lax security at federal buildings all across the country – and it's partly because of what an ABC15 Investigation uncovered.
A report released Wednesday by the
Government Accountability Office reveals undercover congressional investigators were able to walk through security check points at ten federal building with bags containing live bomb-making materials.
The investigators, who were dressed in street clothes, were apparently able to assemble bombs in the bathroom and were able to walk throughout the buildings undetected.
"It really is outrageously unacceptable," said Senator Joe Lieberman, chairman of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.
But this is not the first time the Federal Protective Service has failed to do its job.
Highly classified reports obtained exclusively by the ABC15 Investigators reveal guards were recycling threat assessments, copying and pasting information from one report to another.
Watch the original ABC15 Investigation from February 2008The reports, obtained from a highly-placed confidential source in the federal government, reveal more than 300 federal buildings where security has never been assessed.
The documents are classified "Law Enforcement Sensitive - For Official Use Only."
After ABC15's initial investigation, both the United States House of Representatives and the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs held hearings and demanded the Government Accountability Office conduct an investigation of its own.
That investigation was made public Wednesday.
Read the GAO's reportIt uncovers "substantial security vulnerabilities" at 10 undisclosed federal buildings.
According to the report, the ten buildings "included offices of a U.S. Senator
and U.S. Representative, as well as agencies such as the Departments of
Homeland Security, State, and Justice."
Mark Goldstein, a GAO Director, testified that one armed guard was found sleeping at a checkpoint after taking powerful medications.
Another guard failed to x-ray a box that contained a loaded semi-automatic pistol.
"If GAO had been successful in smuggling bomb components into one or maybe two buildings, it still would have been troubling, especially since these are high risk, high security buildings, but the fact that GAO succeeded each and every time is so troubling and it indicates a pervasive systemic problem," said Senator Susan Collins of Maine.
"It just says that basically some people have forgotten the lessons of 9/11," said Senator Lieberman.
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