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- WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Investigators
flashing fake law enforcement badges and declaring they were armed bypassed
security measures and entered Justice Department, Pentagon, CIA, FBI, and
State Department headquarters, the General Accounting Office said on Thursday.
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- The GAO, which conducts investigations for Congress,
was told to acquire fictitious law enforcement badges publicly available
on the Internet and elsewhere and try to gain access to secure facilities
in a way in which weapons, explosives, chemical and biological agents and
listening devices could be taken inside.
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- The House Judiciary crime subcommittee wanted to test
how readily available was such identification which could be used by criminals,
terrorists and foreign intelligence agents to enter secure government buildings
and airports, said Robert Hast, GAO assistant comptroller general for investigations.
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- The undercover investigators tried to get into 19 federal
buildings and two airports -- Ronald Reagan National Airport near Washington
and Orlando International Airport in Florida.
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- They succeeded entering all sites, 18 on the first attempt
and three on the second try. They were waved around metal detectors, their
bag was not searched and in some instances they were allowed to keep their
purported weapons.
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- ``At no time during the undercover visits were our agents'
bogus credentials or badges challenged by anyone,'' Hast said in testimony
for the House Judiciary subcommittee hearing on the GAO findings on Thursday.
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- ``At each visit our agents carried bogus badges and identification,
declared themselves as armed law enforcement officers and gained entry
by avoiding screening. At least one agent always carried a valise,'' he
said.
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- Badges used included a movie prop of a police badge,
a counterfeit federal badge and a fake drug task force badge. The investigators
used commercially available software to create counterfeit law enforcement
identification that bore no resemblance to any genuine credentials, he
said.
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- ``At the 21 sites that our undercover agent successfully
penetrated they could have carried in weapons, listening devices, explosives,
chemical/biological agents,'' Hast said.
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- Close To Chief Offices
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- The State Department has been under fire recently for
security lapses that included a missing laptop computer containing highly
sensitive information and the discovery of a Russian eavesdropping device
in a conference room.
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- GAO investigators were able to enter the suite of the
Cabinet secretary or agency head at the Pentagon and the Justice Department,
get near the chief's suite at the State Dept. and the FBI, but not at CIA,
the GAO said.
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- The Justice Department turned the investigators away
the first time, but the second time investigators with bogus New York Police
Dept. credentials were allowed to enter and park in the courtyard.
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- Attorney General Janet Reno, asked whether they got into
her office, said, ``I understood they stood at the doorway there and looked
at the conference room.''
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- A Justice Department official said now local law enforcement
officers visiting the building must be escorted, store their firearms in
a vault near the entrance, go through a magnetometer and there would no
longer be visitor parking.
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- The Pentagon said it was implementing changes that would
not allow law enforcement officials, including FBI agents, to enter unescorted
and they would need to have an appointment to meet someone. Guns would
be required to be checked at the entrance, Pentagon officials said.
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- The CIA said it was reminding employees about procedures
already in place for unannounced visitors.
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- ``Several GAO officials were escorted by armed CIA security
personnel to our gift shop and Cold War exhibit on the first floor of our
headquarters building,'' CIA spokesman Bill Harlow said. ``At no time did
they get anywhere near classified information or the offices of senior
officials.''
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- ``They were turned away once and came back a second day
and the security guys at the gate checked with some folks and agreed out
of brotherly support for fellow police officers to let them go to the gift
shop, but they were under armed escort at all times,'' Harlow said.
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- _____
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- Undercover Agents Penetrate19 High Security Federal Buildings,
2 Airports
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- http://dailynews.netscape.com/dailynews/cnnnews.tmpl?story=security.breaches0525
.html 5-26-00
-
- WASINGTON-- Undercover agents using phony identification
successfully penetrated 19 of the federal government's most secure buildings
and two high-profile airports, sources close to the probe by Congress'
General Accounting Office said Wednesday.
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- "This is a wake-up call. We think this is a real
serious problem," said a senior staffer on the House Crime subcommittee,
which will hold a hearing on the security breaches Thursday.
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-
- The undercover agents, who work for the GAO's Office
of Special Investigations, will brief the committee and play a videotape
showing them inside the various facilities.
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- The buildings included FBI headquarters, CIA headquarters,
the Department of Justice, the State Department and the Department of Energy.
The two airports were Reagan National Airport and Orlando International
Airport. The agents did not try to breach security at the White House or
the Capitol, because some members of the team had recently done security
work in both locations and would have been recognized.
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-
- The CIA said the undercover GAO agents were under armed
escort the entire time they were in the CIA building and were not allowed
near "any secured information." The Pentagon said its security
officers were "incensed" at the way the test was conducted but
that security procedures there have been under intensive review ever since
highly publicized security breaches at the State Department.
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- The agents posed as police officers visiting Washington,
according to sources, and flashed phony credentials from the New York Police
Department or the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency.
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- "In some cases, like the Department of Justice,
they had free rein," said a staffer, who added that the men said they
were friends of Attorney General Janet Reno and were taken into her office
suite and given a tour. They were also allowed to bring their van into
the DOJ parking lot without any security inspection.
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- In every case, the sources said, the men told security
guards they were armed, but were never searched. None were actually carrying
weapons. They carried briefcases, which a committee staffer said should
have raised concerns about vulnerability to explosives or biological weapons.
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-
- At the State Department, site of several recent security
lapses, the men were able to wander unescorted around the seventh floor,
where Secretary of State Madeleine Albright has her office.
-
-
- At the CIA, the agents told guards they wanted to buy
souvenirs from the gift shop and were eventually let in. "At one point,
they were left unescorted with their briefcases," said a committee
staffer.
-
-
- At the Pentagon, the men were allowed to move around
unescorted and paid a visit to Defense Secretary William Cohen's office.
-
-
- At the two airports, the agents never actually boarded
planes, but made it as far as the jetway unchallenged before turning back.
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-
- The agents briefed lawmakers and representatives from
the various agencies affected at a closed-door meeting Tuesday, the committee
staff said.
-
-
- "All were very interested in how the men got in.
Some were very disturbed," said one staffer.
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-
- The FBI issued a press release Wednesday announcing "additional
security measures for FBI headquarters and other FBI locations."
-
-
- The FBI said that, based on the recommendations received
Tuesday from the House subcommittee, it will now require non-FBI law enforcement
officers entering headquarters to be required to surrender their weapons
unless they have prior clearance. Also, it said "positive identification
of visitor security protocols have been supplemented."
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-
- Committee staff said the phony credentials were made
with off-the-shelf software and resembled actual NYPD and DEA badges "to
the untrained eye." They said such technology is readily available
and could be used by other governments, terrorists or criminals.
-
-
- CIA spokesman Mark Mansfield told CNN that, while "two
or three" of the undercover agents were able to talk their way onto
CIA property, they did not pose a security risk.
-
-
- After showing identification to the CIA security personnel,
"Several of them did come onto our compound," Mansfield said.
Only later did the CIA learn that the identification was false.
-
-
- The agents were "escorted at all times by an armed
security official," said Mansfield, and were allowed access only to
"the museum and the gift shop on the first floor."
-
-
- Mansfield said, "At no time were they near any classified
material, senior officials or the offices of senior officials."
-
-
- Defense Department security personnel were "incensed
at the way this review or test was done" when they learned that they
had been had, said an official who asked not to be identified.
-
-
- "If you held [the fake I.D.s] beside the real ones,"
he said, "you can't tell the difference."
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