U.S. government tightens security after breaches exposed

Phony police gain access to supposedly secure buildings, airports

May 25, 2000
Web posted at: 5:36 p.m. EDT (2136 GMT)

In this story: Counterfeit IDs looked authentic 'Deception and disguise often work' New security precautions RELATED STORIES, SITES

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Security is being tightened even further at several government buildings, including the Pentagon and FBI headquarters, after undercover federal agents using phony identification entered 19 of the government's most secure buildings and two airports.

The House committee that disclosed the security breaches planned a hearing Thursday on the issue.

"I think any time you expose vulnerabilities it's a good thing," said Attorney General Janet Reno, whose suite of offices at the U.S. Department of Justice was visited by the impostors, although she was not present at the time.

The findings of investigators from the General Accounting Office were revealed Tuesday at a closed-door briefing on Capitol Hill. "This is a wake-up call," a senior staff member from the crime subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee said Wednesday. "We think this is a real serious problem."

Posing as plainclothes law enforcement personnel from the New York Police Department or the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency, undercover GAO agents flashed phony credentials and were waved around metal detectors at several top security government buildings including the FBI, CIA, State Department, Justice Department and Pentagon, sources told CNN.

The agents also avoided detection at Reagan National Airport in Washington and Orlando International Airport in Florida.

"I was surprised that there were so many" places they could get into, Reno said at her weekly news briefing.

Counterfeit IDs looked authentic

Although the impostors said they were armed, they actually carried no weapons.

Their briefcases were not searched, meaning the "undercover agents ... could have carried in weapons, listening devices, explosives, (and) chemical/biological agents," the GAO report said.

Their counterfeit identification was created with easily available computer software, CNN was told. "If you held (the fake IDs) beside the real ones, you can't tell the difference," said a Pentagon official who asked not to be identified.

The GAO investigators, many of them former Secret Service agents, did not try to breach security at the White House or the U.S. Capitol building, because some of them had recently done security work in both locations and would have been recognized.

They will brief the committee and play a videotape showing them inside the various facilities.

'Deception and disguise often work'

At some locations, such as the CIA building, escorts were required when the agents visited, but elsewhere -- at places such as the Energy Department and NASA -- the impostors were able to move about the buildings freely. They were able to reach -- but did not enter -- the head office of every agency except the CIA.

They were also allowed to drive their rental van into the Justice Department's interior courtyard parking lot without a security inspection.

At the airports, the investigators made it as far as the jetway unchallenged before turning back.

"The results of the probe are disturbing, but they are not surprising," said terrorism expert Brian Jenkins. "People believe what they see or what they think they see. Deception and disguise often work," he told CNN.

New security precautions

The Pentagon, FBI and Justice Department all said they had tightened security based on the GAO findings and recommendations.

While Reno declined to give specifics for the Justice Department building, the FBI said that henceforth at its Washington headquarters: