Homeland Insecurity: Bombs in Government Buildings

In the last year, government investigators were able to take explosives into federal buildings, build bombs there and then waltz around unmolested. The Departments of Homeland Security, Justice and State were all infiltrated, as well as the offices of two members of Congress.

A bureaucratic reshuffling may be to blame. The Federal Protective Service, which is responsible for keeping bombs out of federal buildings, lost hundreds of millions in funding after it was put under the authority of the Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Washington Post:

The police agency in charge of protecting thousands of federal buildings nationwide has failed to keep bomb-making materials out of several high-security facilities in the past year, according to a Government Accountability Office report released today. In the past year, investigators successfully smuggled bomb-making materials into ten high-security federal buildings, constructed bombs and walked around the buildings undetected, exposing weaknesses in security provided by the Federal Protective Service.

[…] Investigators carried liquid explosives and low-yield detonators — materials investigators note are not normally carried into federal buildings. The GAO said security concerns prevent it from revealing the exact locations or cities of the affected facilities, but that eight of them were government owned, while two were leased. They included offices of a U.S. senator and House member, as well as offices for the departments of Homeland Security, Justice and State, the GAO reported. In one instance, the GAO obtained a building security tape showing an investigator walking through a security checkpoint with bomb making materials.

Read more