The disclosure that Government Accountability Office (GAO) investigators “successfully passed undetected through security checkpoints monitored by Federal Protective Service [FPS] guards at each of the ten  level IV federal facilities where GAO conducted covert testing” with “components for an improvised explosive device” that they then “assembled” into an “explosive device and walked freely around several of floors of these level IV facilities with the device in a briefcase,” wasn’t a big a surprise to federal security authorities.

One reason is because x-ray and magnetometer detection devices primarily are used to screen people, packages and deliveries. These technologies will not necessarily detect components to make a liquid-based improvised explosive (IED).

Similarly, GAO undercover investigators repeatedly were able to smuggle through dozens of airport screening checkpoints liquid bomb and other explosives components that, once on board a plane, could be assembled in as little as 10 minutes. And if successfully detonated, they could have potentially caused a “catastrophic” explosion, two senior GAO officials told lawmakers. The GAO investigators got past screeners with their liquid bomb-making components 19 times in 2007, and in 2006 they got past screeners 21 times with incendiary devices and bomb detonators that could have “caused not insignificant explosions.”

“Of the ten level IV facilities GAO penetrated” during more recent testing of federal building security, “eight were government owned, two were leased and included offices of a US Senator and US Representative, as well as agencies such as the Departments of Homeland Security, State, and Justice.”

GAO’s report on the testing that was released this week stated that “once GAO investigators passed the control access points, they assembled the explosive device and walked freely around several of floors of these level IV facilities with the device in a briefcase. In response to GAO’s briefing on these findings, FPS has recently taken some actions including increasing the frequency of intrusion testing and guard inspections. However, implementing these changes may be challenging, according to FPS.”

GAO reported to lawmakers that “FPS does not fully ensure that its contract security guards have the training and certifications required to be deployed to a federal facility. FPS requires that all prospective guards complete about 128 hours of training including eight hours of x-ray and magnetometer training. However, in one region, FPS has not provided the x-ray or magnetometer training to its 1,500 guards since 2004.”

Continuing, GAO reported that, “nonetheless, these guards are assigned to posts at federal facilities. X-ray training is critical because guards control access points at facilities. Insufficient x-ray and magnetometer training may have contributed to several incidents where guards were negligent in carrying out their responsibilities. For example, at a level IV facility, an infant in a carrier was sent through an x-ray machine due to a guard’s negligence. Moreover, GAO found that FPS does not have a fully reliable system for monitoring and verifying guard training and certification requirements. GAO reviewed 663 randomly selected guard records and found that 62 percent of the guards had at least one expired certification including a declaration that guards have not been convicted of domestic violence, which make them ineligible to carry firearms.”

While x-ray scanning can detect liquid explosives materials, unless the people conducting the screening are adequately trained to spot and are regularly made aware of intelligence on the types of liquid IED materials to look for, their configurations, etc., they will not necessarily realize they are even looking at the materials to make a liquid-based explosive.

Homeland Security Today pointed out these problems in the August 2008 report, Making Black Magic.

“Our investigators used publicly available information to identify a type of device that a terrorist could use to cause damage to a federal facility and threaten the safety of federal workers and the general public,” GAO’s new report of its undercover investigations stated, noting that “the IED 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.”

Still, without knowing what to look for, such IEDs can be overlooked, as Homeland Security Today earlier reported and according to authorities who talked to HSToday.us about the problems in spotting liquid and unique IEDs designed to be sneaked past screeners.

Most authorities said while improved training can help, the only real method of detecting a liquid-based explosive is equipment that’s specifically designed to do just that. But these new generation explosives detectors aren’t even deployed at every airport, least of every federal building.

GAO stated that “we identified substantial security vulnerabilities related to FPS’s guard program. Each time they tried, in April and May 2009, our investigators successfully passed undetected through security checkpoints monitored by FPS’s guards, with the components for an IED concealed on their persons at ten level IV facilities in four cities in major metropolitan areas.”

“The specific components for this device, items used to conceal the device components, and the methods of concealment that we used during our covert testing are classified,” GAO stated.”

GAO reported that “using publicly available information, our investigators identified a type of device that a terrorist could use to cause damage to a federal facility and threaten the safety of federal workers and the general public. The device was an IED 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 employees or the public. Although the detonator itself could function as an IED, investigators determined that it could also be used to set off a liquid explosive and cause significantly more damage. To ensure safety during this testing, we took precautions so that the IED would not explode.”

“We need to immediately remedy these very serious and alarming gaps in our security,” said Collins. The GAO findings indicate “a pervasive, systemic problem in federal building security. If the GAO inspectors had been successful in entering one or two federal buildings, then that would have been cause for concern. But 10 out of 10 times is egregious and illustrates a security crisis,” Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee ranking member Susan Collins, R-Me., said Wednesday in announcing FPS reform legislation.

“We have an urgent problem,” Collins told the FPS chief. “The threat is here and present. We can’t be just `working toward solutions.’ We have to have solutions right now … It sounds like there’s no accountability in this whole system.”

Collins and Committee Chairman Joe Lieberman, ID-Conn, told the FPS chief to report back to them in two weeks with his recommendations on how to immediately correct the situation.

“GAO has found that FPS is not doing anywhere near enough to make sure that its 15,000 or so private contract guards – the first line of defense at federal buildings - are qualified and trained for their jobs, or are actually doing what they were hired to do,” Lieberman said. “As we approach the eighth anniversary of 9/11, and some 14 years after the bombing at the federal building in Oklahoma City, it is outrageously unacceptable that the federal employees working within these buildings, and the citizens who pass through them, are still so utterly exposed to potential attack by terrorists or other violent people.”

Again, “while better training will help – if screeners know the types of liquid IED components and materials to look for – that will help, but the only definitive way of detecting liquid explosives is the detection equipment that’s been designed to spot these types of explosives,” a bomb authority at the Department of Homeland Security told HSToday.us.

Training obviously needs to be improved, the official said, but in order to stay “on top” of terrorists’ ability to change their bomb-making designs, FPS screeners also will need to have a program that provides for a steady stream of threat analysis intelligence and information made available to them at all times.

“Otherwise, as we’ve found at airports, liquid explosives are going to be sneaked past screeners,” the official said. “The alternative is installation of liquid explosives detection equipment, but they cost money.”