"No Specific Credible Threats" Means No Specific Credible Security Measures

The Department of Homeland Security announced this week that it has heightened security around federal buildings in response to last week's attack by a lone nut on the Canadian parliament in Ottawa, and other global events. Needless to say, this heightened security - whatever it may consist of - is "not based on any specific, credible information at this time indicating any active plot against government officials and law enforcement in the United States."

Doesn't pretty much every public warning or security advisory ever put out by DHS say that it is not based on any specific credible threat information? Yes, they do. In fact, let me Google that for you.

Threats aside, what does this "heightened security" mean for my fellow Feds in the many government office buildings in and around Washington DC? Realistically speaking, it means nothing. The government agency responsible for security of the federal government's 9,500 workplaces, the Federal Protective Service, is just as under-resourced this week as it has been for many years now, and it is simply not equal to the task of heightening security at all those places.

In particular, it lacks the personnel to provide more than a token presence at most government buildings. According to DHS's written testimony before a House subcommittee in May of this year, “FPS directly employs more than 1,000 law enforcement officers, inspectors, and special agents who are trained physical security experts and sworn Federal law enforcement officers. Approximately 13,000 FPS-contracted [Protective Security Officers] staff guard posts at FPS-protected Federal facilities.” That's 13,000 guards for 9,500 office buildings, minus the few belonging to agencies that provide their own building security. You do the math.

And that's putting the best spin on the situation. The head of the employees union that represents FPS put it more bluntly in an interview with Federal News Radio:

David Wright, president of the American Federation of Government Employees Local 918, told the panel buildings security reviews have also suffered because of understaffing at the agency. Wright, who works as an FPS inspector, said the organization is top-heavy and more employees need to be deployed to the field.

All told, more than 21 percent of staff is assigned to headquarters staff, "which robs federal buildings of necessary security," Wright testified.

Meanwhile, he said, employees in the field struggle to perform all their duties. Most inspectors are assigned to oversee an average of nearly two dozen buildings and are responsible for conducting security assessments, overseeing contractors and a host of other duties.

"How do inspectors accomplish all their tasks? They don't, because there are simply not enough of them," Wright said.

A bit too blunt, perhaps. However, the General Accountability Office agrees that FPS is a troubled agency.

This week's announcement by DHS is obviously more security theater than anything else. When DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson calls on Congress and the Administration to give FPS the funding it needs to truly heighten security around federal buildings, then I'll get interested.

Until then, keep calm and carry on, you Feds, and don't expect to see any more security presence than usual.

The GAO Bombs Out

I brought bomb-making materials into my government office building today, and the security guards didn't catch me. It was no big deal. I do it every day, at least, I do if you use a sufficiently broad definition of "bomb-making materials."

The security hoopla of the hour in Washington is the new General Accountability Office report on deficiencies at the Federal Protective Service, the small agency (only 1,236 direct-hire employees) with the large responsibility to protect the USG's 9,000-some office buildings and 1 million-plus employees. The attention-grabbing part of the report was a stunt in which the GAO had people enter several government office buildings carrying unnamed liquids and other purported bomb-making components.

From the Washington Post report:

"I think we would be able to say that FPS is simply an agency in crisis," said Mark L. Goldstein, who led the GAO investigation. ... Goldstein's team carried bomb-making materials into ten high-security federal buildings in the last year. The materials could be purchased at stores or on the Internet and cost roughly $150, Goldstein said. In only one instance did a security guard question a GAO investigator carrying suspicious materials.

And this demonstrates what, exactly? Only that we don't prohibit liquids or most common objects from government office buildings. Should we? The smuggling stunt begs the question whether it would be reasonable to ban liquids, etc., from our public buildings. Is there a risk here that outweighs the imposition on employees and visitors?

It seems not. No one has actually carried out such an attack (except in aircraft, where the small amounts of explosive that are feasible to smuggle on board can be enough to do critical damage, unlike in office buildings) and, so far as I know, no one has cited any evidence or intelligence suggesting such an attack in the future.

Furthermore, it's impossible to ban all "bomb-making materials" from office buildings under any practical circumstances. For starters, we'd have to ban anything that might contain precursor chemicals, including sugar and sugary products, aspirin and all kinds of medications, anything containing hydrogen peroxide (like contact lens solution), petroleum jelly, and all liquids and all solid organic materials that haven't been screened with a trace explosives detector. Lock up the first aid kits and close the cafeterias, since both are mother lodes of bomb-making materials. Next, ban anything containing batteries, and all lighters and matches. For good measure, ban all objects that could be used to conceal mechanical components, such as pens, watches, computers, and office equipment in general.

We could do all of that and still not have disarmed those fiendish terrorists. My old U.S. Army technical manual on improvised munitions (TM 31-210) explains how to process urine to produce the explosive material urea nitrate. So we'd better set up outdoor latrines, and guard them to make sure that particular source of liquid explosive isn't misused.

The Federal Protective Service used to be an office inside the General Services Agency, which made sense since the GSA is the government's landlord. But when it was moved under Homeland Security it became something of an orphan agency, with no real 'owner' and no real budget. So long as the administration and congress keep running the Federal Protective Service on a shoestring, they have no business complaining about its deficiencies, I say.

The agency draws most of its revenue from the tenants of federal buildings, who pay it for the protection on a per-square foot basis. [Federal Protective Service] has 1,236 full-time employees and employs approximately 15,000 contract guards. Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), the Homeland Security committee's ranking Republican, wants the government to better determine the agency's future use of private security guards.

“We taxpayers are simply not receiving the security we paid for and the security we expect FPS to provide," she said.

Really? With 15,000 contract guards to cover 9,000 federal office buildings, we could theoretically have 1.6 guards per building, assuming they all worked 24 hours a day and 365 days a year. In practical terms, we could have one eight-hour guard post for every other building. That's not nearly enough personnel to do even the most minimal access control, much less a thorough inspection of all one million employees and who knows how many daily visitors.

It seems to me that we're receiving exactly the security we paid for and should expect FPS to provide.