Department of Energy

The Department of Energy (DOE) has established various national security controls for foreign travel to guard against foreign intelligence interests' obtaining information that would be detrimental to U.S. security or business. In this report, GAO (1) describes the types of foreign-intelligence-gathering incidents that have occurred during foreign travel by contractor employees, (2) discusses DOE's controls that apply to foreign travel by contractor employees, and (3) identifies areas in which these controls can be strengthened. GAO found that during fiscal years 1995 through 1999, DOE counterintelligence officials and records identified over 75 incidents of attempted espionage by foreign nationals against travelers from the four laboratories it reviewed. In addition, DOE and its laboratories have instituted several national security controls over official foreign travel by laboratory employees. Also, GAO identified several areas where existing controls over foreign travel can be strengthened. For example, some travelers may not be receiving the necessary preparation to recognize and thwart espionage efforts.

GAO noted that: (1) the threat of foreign intelligence interests' targeting laboratory travellers is well founded; (2) during fiscal years 1995 through 1999, DOE counterintelligence officials and records identified over 75 incidents of attempted espionage by foreign nationals against travellers from the four laboratories GAO reviewed; (3) these foreign nationals used a variety of methods, including the elicitation of information from travellers, offers of sexual favors to travellers, surveillance of travellers' movements, searches of travellers' hotel rooms and belongings, electronic interception of telecommunication systems, eavesdropping on or the recording of travellers' activities, and the monitoring of travellers' conversations and behavior through interpreters; (4) for example, a number of laboratory travellers' computers were tampered with or broken into while left in hotel rooms in foreign countries; (5) in other cases, eavesdropping equipment was observed in conference rooms; (6) DOE and its laboratories have instituted several national security controls over official foreign travel by laboratory employees; (7) they include threat assessment and analysis provided by DOE's Office of Counterintelligence, security and counterintelligence awareness training, a review and approval process for foreign travel requests, face-to-face or written pretravel briefings, a classification review of publications or presentations, face-to-face or written post-travel debriefings, and trip reports prepared by the traveller; (8) all official contractor travel is subject to these controls; (9) GAO identified several areas where existing controls over foreign travel can be strengthened; (10) for example, some travellers may not be receiving the necessary preparation to recognize and thwart espionage efforts; (11) foreign travel controls generally focus on travel to "sensitive" countries--those countries considered by DOE to be a risk to national security like Russia and China; (12) GAO found that travellers to nonsensitive countries often confront similar types of incidents as travellers to "sensitive" countries because foreign intelligence entities can operate worldwide; (13) only one laboratory of the four GAO reviewed requires foreign travel requests to be reviewed and approved by counterintelligence officials, and only two require foreign travel requests to undergo an independent subject-matter review for sensitive information; and (14) these reviews add value because, as a result, some trips were cancelled or modified to avoid problematic situations.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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