Security Breach; Lax Security

ABC News Transcript

Show: World News With Charles Gibson

Anchors: Charles Gibson

Reporters: Pierre Thomas (Washington, DC USA)

July 8, 2009

CHARLES GIBSON (Off-camera) Good evening. If you walk into a federal office building, a passport agency or a national museum, you will see them. Federal Protective Service offers.

GRAPHICS: FEDERAL PROTECTIVE SERVICE

CHARLES GIBSON (Voiceover) With a billion dollar budget, the service protects 9,000 buildings. The agency's mission statement says the service will secure those buildings for employees, officials and visitors in a professional and cost effective manner by deploying a highly trained and multi-disciplined police force.

CHARLES GIBSON (Off-camera) Well, that's what they say. Today, Congress heard the reality is far from that. Pierre Thomas is in Washington tonight. Pierre?

PIERRE THOMAS (Off-camera) Hi, Charlie. You would think that federal buildings would be among the most secure in the nation. But this new report suggests at some locations, security is, well, laughable.

PIERRE THOMAS (Voiceover) This demonstration is one example of the powerful explosives congressional investigators easily snuck into federal buildings across the country. Undercover video shows one investigator toting a bag full of bomb components - liquid explosive and a detonator. He places it on an x-ray machine and then walks through a metal detector. Security breached in 27 seconds. Investigators said guards were simply not paying attention to items on x-ray machines that should have caused great concern.

MARK GOLDSTEIN (GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE) The guards were not even looking at the, at the screens that would show the materials passing through.

PIERRE THOMAS (Voiceover) Investigators went to ten federal buildings at undisclosed rotations across the country and got the same result.

SEN JOSEPH LIEBERMAN (IND): It's stunning. It's shocking. It just says that basically some people have forgotten the lessons of 9/11.

PIERRE THOMAS (Voiceover) Today, at an emergency congressional hearing, outrage.

SENATOR SUSAN COLLINS (REPUBLICAN) This is a crisis. It's simply unacceptable. It sounds to me like GAO did everything but put the word bomb-making materials on the packages.

PIERRE THOMAS (Voiceover) And inspectors find other stupefying examples of incompetence. One guard discovered sleeping at his post. They learned another guard accidentally fired his weapons while apparently playing quick draw in the bathroom. And they found that one guard was so distracted he allowed a baby in a carrier to go through an x-ray machine.

HARRY BRANDON (FORMER DEPUTY ASSISTANT DIRECTOR COUNTER-TERRORISM FBI): I think the central issue that I see in this, in this whole really major problem is lack of training.

PIERRE THOMAS (Voiceover) Today, the head of the Federal Protective Service said he's working to fix long-standing problems. But admitted to a less than passing grade.

GARY SCHENKEL (DIRECTOR) It's purely a lack of oversight on our part.

PIERRE THOMAS (Voiceover) Charlie, that's perhaps the understatement of the day. Homeland Security officials say they are working to overhaul this program.

CHARLES GIBSON (Off-camera) Pierre Thomas reporting from down in Washington, thanks tonight.