Sarabeth at 1115.org draws attention to this downright scary story from CNN, detailing how investigators, sent to test security protocols at all sorts of federal buildings, were able to smuggle bomb parts into these facilities, put them together, and just walk all over the place, carrying bombs, just for the thrill of it!
The investigators then assembled the bombs in restrooms and freely entered numerous government offices while carrying the devices in briefcases, the report said.
The buildings contained offices of several federal lawmakers as well as agencies within the departments of State, Justice and Homeland Security, which is responsible for safeguarding federal office buildings.
This is almost as bad as that time that "God" smuggled a "Hurricane Katrina" into the United States, using this subterfuge called "meteorology."
Anyway, what the investigators did was bonkers:
In a videotape obtained by CNN, a covert GAO inspector places a bag containing bomb components on an X-ray machine conveyor belt and then walks through a magnetometer at an unidentified federal building. Unlike some covert tests that use simulated explosives, the GAO used actual bomb components in the test and publicly available information "to identify a type of device that a terrorist could use" to damage a building.
"The (improvised explosive device) was made up of two parts -- a liquid explosive and a low-yield detonator -- and included a variety of materials not typically brought into a federal facility by an employee or the public," the report says. Investigators obtained the components at local stores and over the Internet for less than $150, the report says.
After the components were smuggled into the building and assembled, the GAO says, it took steps to ensure the device would not explode. But to demonstrate the device's destructive power, the GAO videotaped the detonation of several devices at a remote site.
Also, it turns out that the guards hired to protect these facilities are similarly incompetent at protecting our nation's most vital resource -- babies:
The GAO also released a photograph of a guard asleep at his post and detailed an instance in which a woman placed an infant in a carrier on an X-ray machine while retrieving identification. Because the guard was not paying attention and the machine's safety features had been disabled, the infant was sent through the X-ray machine, according to the report.
This news precedes a GAO report that will be released into the wilds of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. Hey! Roland Burris is on this committee! I feel safer already!
Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.), who chairs the committee, said that the results of these tests were "simply unacceptable." Ranking minority member Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) suggested that the tests revealed "a disturbing pattern by the Federal Protective Service of poor training, lapsed documentation, lax management, inconsistent enforcement of security standards and little rigor."
Then there's this part:
In one case, the GAO report says, a guard was caught using government computers to manage a for-profit adult Web site.
So, that's what Collins means when she says there was a "little rigor."
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