Security Protection

From fiscal years 1997 through 1999, 42 executive branch positions at 31 executive branch agencies--including all 14 Cabinet secretaries, four deputy or under secretaries, and 24 other high-ranking officials (mainly heads of agencies)--had security protection. Personnel from 27 different agencies protected them: 36 officials by their own agencies or departments and six from other agencies or departments, such as the Secret Service and the Marshals Service. Protective personnel increased 73 percent from fiscal year 1997 through 1999. Funding rose from $19.1 million in 1997 to $28.5 million in 1999, largely due to increased travel. Only the Secret Service and State Department have specific statutory authority to protect executive branch officials. Agencies reported that their officials received different levels and frequency of protection and that protection was needed to respond to possible and actual threats. Most agencies favored establishing a repository of protective intelligence to facilitate sharing of threat information about their officials. Also, agencies reported that their protective personnel received different amounts of protection training and from different sources. Field staff received less training than did the agencies' full-time personnel based in Washington. Most agencies favored establishing a standardized protection training program. Most agencies opposed centralizing security protection under one agency. No single agency or official is responsible for handling issues relating to routine protection of executive branch officials. This fragmentation has serious implications because 14 of the protected officials are in the line of presidential succession. Moreover, the lack of thorough threat assessments documenting the level of protection needed makes it difficult to determine the basis for and reasonableness of protection being given. GAO summarized this report in testimony before Congress; see: Security Protection: Standardization Issues Regarding Protection of Executive Branch Officials by Bernard L. Ungar, Director of Government Business Operations and Robert H. Hast, Assistant Comptroller General for Special Investigations, before the Subcommittee on Criminal Justice Oversight, Senate Committee on the Judiciary. GAO/T-GGD/OSI-00-177, July 27 (10 pages).

GAO noted that: (1) from fiscal years 1997 through 1999, agency security officials said that security protection was provided to officials holding 42 executive branch positions at 31 executive branch agencies; (2) the 42 officials were protected by personnel from 27 different agencies; (3) agencies reported that the number of full-time protective personnel increased by 73 percent from fiscal years 1997 through 1999; (4) the 27 agencies also reported spending a total of at least $73.7 million to protect those officials during that 3-year period; (5) only two agencies--the Secret Service and the Department of State--had specific authority to protect executive branch officials; (6) the other agencies relied on a variety of other authorities in providing protection to officials; (7) according to agencies with security protection as one of their primary missions, threat assessments form the basis for determining the need and scope of protection; (8) however, nearly three-fourths of the agencies that provided protection said they had not prepared detailed, written threat analyses justifying their decisions to apply certain levels of protection and expend resources; (9) most agencies favored establishing a central repository of protective intelligence to facilitate sharing of threat information about their officials; (10) security officials said the implications of establishing a central repository of protective intelligence to facilitate sharing of such information among agencies would involve a number of issues; (11) protective personnel from the agencies with security protection as one of their primary missions reported having more training than those employed by the other agencies; (12) most agencies favored establishing a standardized protection training program so that different agencies' protective personnel would be trained in the same procedures and would react in a similar manner in case of an emergency; (13) security officials at most of the agencies in GAO's review said they opposed centralizing security under one agency because it would be more effective to use the agencies' own personnel; (14) the implications of centralizing security protection governmentwide involves many issues; (15) GAO found that no single agency or official was responsible for handling issues relating to the routine protection of executive branch officials; and (16) this fragmentation of protective responsibilities among multiple executive branch agencies has implications regarding the functioning of government, in part, because 14 of the protected officials are in the line of presidential succession.

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.

Director: Team: Phone: