Security Protection: Standardization Issues Regarding Protection of
Executive Branch Officials (Letter Report, 07/11/2000,
GAO/GGD/OSI-00-139).
Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed security protection
for selected officials from all of the civilian executive branches from
fiscal years 1997 through 1999, focusing on: (1) how many federal
government officials were protected, who protected them, and how many
security personnel protected them; (2) the cost to protect these
officials; (3) under what legal authorities were agencies providing
security protection; (4) under what circumstances were officials
protected; (5) how agencies were preparing threat assessments, and what
are the implications of standardizing and centralizing threat
assessments; (6) what training did protective personnel receive, and
what the implications of standardizing and centralizing security
protection training are; (7) the implications of centralizing protection
services under one agency; and (8) the views of the protected officials
regarding the need for and adequacy of their protection.
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.
--------------------------- Indexing Terms -----------------------------
REPORTNUM: GGD/OSI-00-139
TITLE: Security Protection: Standardization Issues Regarding
Protection of Executive Branch Officials
DATE: 07/11/2000
SUBJECT: Centralization
Domestic intelligence
Public officials
Law enforcement personnel
Human resources training
Interagency relations
Standards and standardization
IDENTIFIER: Personnel Security Program
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United States General Accounting Office
GAO
Report to the Chairman, Subcommittee on Criminal
Justice Oversight
Committee on the Judiciary
U.S. Senate
July 2000
GAO/GGD/OSI-00-139
SECURITY PROTECTION
Standardization Issues Regarding Protection of
Executive Branch Officials
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Contents
Page 441GAO/GGD/OSI-00-139 Protection of Executive Branch Officials
Letter 1
Appendixes Appendix I: Scope and Methodology 46
Appendix II: Comments From the Secret 50
Service
Appendix III: Comments From the 51
Marshals Service
Appendix IV: Comments From the 54
Department of Commerce
Appendix V: Comments From the 56
Department of Education
Appendix VI: Comments From the 57
Department of Energy
Appendix VII: Comments From the 58
Federal Law Enforcement Training
Center
Appendix VIII: Comments From the Board 61
of Governors of the Federal Reserve
System
Appendix IX: Comments From the Office 62
of National Drug Control Policy
Appendix X: Comments From the 64
Tennessee Valley Authority
Appendix XI: Comments From the U.S. 65
Agency for International Development
Tables Table 1: Amounts of Protection 19
Training Provided by the Secret
Service, Marshals Service, State
Department, and the Army
SECURITY PROTECTION Standardization Issues Regarding Protection of Executive
Branch Officials GAO/GGD/OSI-00-139
B-283892
Page 42GAO/GGD/OSI-00-139 Protection of Executive
Branch Officials
B-283892
July 11, 2000
The Honorable Strom Thurmond
Chairman, Subcommittee on Criminal Justice
Oversight
Committee on the Judiciary
United States Senate
Dear Mr. Chairman:
As you requested, this report updates our December
1994 report in which we reviewed security
protection for officials at 10 of the 14 Cabinet-
level departments.1 You asked that we expand our
1994 report by addressing standardization and
centralization issues regarding security
protection. As agreed with the Subcommittee, this
report includes data on the protection of all
civilian executive branch officials except the
President, Vice President, Central Intelligence
Agency (CIA) officials, and U.S. ambassadors to
foreign countries.
This report provides information from agency
security officials and protected officials on the
following questions pertaining to fiscal years
1997 through 1999: (1) How many federal
government officials were protected, who protected
them, and how many security personnel protected
them? (2) How much did it cost to protect these
officials? (3) Under what legal authorities were
agencies providing security protection? (4) Under
what circumstances were officials protected? (5)
How were agencies preparing threat assessments,
and what are the implications of standardizing and
centralizing threat assessments? (6) What
training did protective personnel receive, and
what are the implications of standardizing and
centralizing security protection training? (7)
What are the implications of centralizing
protection services under one agency? and (8) What
are the views of the protected officials regarding
the need for and adequacy of their protection?
We collected this information by asking security
officials from the 27 agencies that provided the
protection to complete detailed questionnaires on
these issues, reviewing documents, and visiting
protection training facilities. We also sent
letters directly to officials who were protected
from fiscal years 1997 through 1999 requesting
their views on their protection and security
standardization issues. Although we asked
agencies for the bases of their decisions to
protect officials, we did not independently assess
whether particular officials should be protected
or whether the level of protection being provided
and resources being expended were appropriate.
Due to the sensitive nature of this information,
we agreed to respond in two reports. This report
addresses all eight questions by providing
aggregate data. It does not provide information
by agency or identify specific protected
officials. A separate, classified report
addressed to you on May 31, 2000, provided
specific information on the security provided by
position held and agency.
Results in Brief
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.
These officials included all 14 Cabinet
secretaries, 4 deputy or under secretaries, and 24
other high-ranking officials (mainly heads of
agencies). The 42 officials were protected by
personnel from 27 different agencies. Thirty-six
officials were protected by personnel from their
own agencies or departments; and 6 officials were
protected by personnel from other agencies or
departments, such as the U.S. Secret Service and
the U.S. Marshals Service.
Agencies reported that the number of full-time
protective personnel increased by 73 percent from
fiscal years 1997 through 1999. The 27 agencies
also reported spending a total of at least $73.7
million to protect those officials during that 3-
year period. The agencies reported they spent
$19.1 million in fiscal year 1997, $26.1 million
in fiscal year 1998, and $28.5 million in fiscal
year 1999-a 49-percent increase between those 3
years. The agencies with the largest increases
in costs and full-time protective personnel during
those 3 years generally said that these increases
were the result of increased travel by the
protected officials and the provision of enhanced
security to respond to potential terrorist
threats.
Only two agencies-the Secret Service and the State
Department-had specific statutory authority to
protect executive branch officials. The other
agencies relied on a variety of other authorities
in providing protection to officials, such as
having their protective personnel deputized by the
U.S. Marshals Service to provide them with law
enforcement authority.
Agencies reported that their officials received
different levels and frequencies of protection and
that protection was needed to respond to possible
and actual threats. 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.
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. Security personnel
generally reported that their ability to prepare
threat assessments depended in part on their
access to information from other agencies about
potential and actual threats against their
officials, known as protective intelligence.2
Three agencies cited specific examples of when
they had been unable to obtain needed intelligence
from another agency about potential threats
against their officials.
With regard to standardizing threat assessments,
it is uncertain how agencies could obtain the
protective intelligence they need from
governmentwide sources to prepare the assessments
and who would prepare them. Most agencies favored
establishing a central repository of protective
intelligence to facilitate sharing of threat
information about their officials. Security
officials said the implications of establishing a
central repository of protective intelligence to
facilitate sharing of such information among
agencies would involve determining who should
administer the repository, how it would operate,
whether specific statutory authority would be
needed, and the cost of establishing and
administering it.
The agencies in our review reported that their
protective personnel received different amounts of
protection training and from different sources.
Generally, 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. The agencies with
security protection as one of their primary
missions reported that their training consisted of
instruction in firearms; threat assessments;
emergency medical training; practical protection
exercises; security advance, motorcade, airport,
and foreign travel procedures; defensive driving
skills, defensive tactics, and legal authorities.
Further, several agencies reported that their
field staff, who provided protection as part of
their collateral duties, received less protection
training than the agencies' full-time protective
personnel based in Washington, D.C., or that their
field staff had received no protection training.
Six agencies said they had difficulty obtaining
protection training for their personnel because of
class availability, funding, or workload problems.
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. With regard to
standardizing training for protective personnel,
the implications of what subjects the training
should include, what agency should provide the
training, and the cost would need to be
considered.
Security officials at most of the agencies in our
review said they opposed centralizing security
protection under one agency. They said it was
more effective to use protective personnel who
were employed by the officials' own agencies
because the personnel were knowledgeable about the
agencies' culture and operations. Protected
officials who responded to our queries about the
adequacy of their protection generally said they
were satisfied with their protection and would
like to continue with the current arrangements.
The implications of centralizing security
protection governmentwide involve many issues,
including who would decide who is to be protected
and the level of protection to be provided; who
would provide the services; whether Congress would
need to grant statutory authorities; and whether
centralization would be the most cost-efficient
and effective way of providing these services over
the current, more decentralized approach.
We found that no single agency or official was
responsible for handling issues relating to the
routine protection of executive branch officials.
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. Moreover, the lack of thorough threat
assessments documenting the level of protection
needed makes it difficult to determine the basis
for and reasonableness of the protection being
given, especially considering the growth in the
costs of protection in recent years.
We are recommending that the Director of the
Office of Management and Budget (OMB), in
consultation with the President, designate an
official or group to assess how protective
intelligence should be shared among agencies, how
best to link threat assessment with the need for
protection and level of protection provided, who
should provide protection, whether agencies should
be provided with specific statutory authority to
provide protection, what training should be
provided to personnel protecting federal
officials, and who should provide it. We are also
recommending that this official or group report
its findings to the OMB Director and that the
Director report his recommendations on these
subjects to Congress. Once the Director submits
his recommendations to Congress, Congress should
enact legislation that would enable whatever
agency or agencies that provide protection to have
appropriate statutory authority and consider
making the necessary resources available to
effectively carry out these responsibilities.
Background
According to the Secret Service, assassination of
political leaders and other public figures has
been a significant problem in the United States.
Since 1835, 11 attacks on U.S. presidents have
occurred, 4 of them resulting in the death of the
president. In the past half-century, two
presidential candidates and two Members of
Congress have been attacked; several national
political leaders have been assassinated; several
state and federal judges have been murdered; and
several celebrities, business leaders, and state
and local elected officials have been attacked.
In addition, an unknown number of would-be
attackers have been deterred from carrying out
harm through the intervention of law enforcement
and security personnel. Recent terrorist
incidents in the United States have also
heightened concern about protecting high-ranking
government officials.
Historical data on assassinations and
assassination attempts against federal officials
suggest that elected officials have been victims
of attack more frequently than those holding high
appointed positions.3 We found only one instance
in U.S. history when a Cabinet secretary was
physically harmed as part of an assassination
attempt, which occurred when then-Secretary of
State William Seward was attacked in his home by
one of the Lincoln assassination conspirators in
1865. More recently, in 1987, a man was arrested
in Washington, D.C., for threatening to kill the
President and the U.S. Secretary of State. He was
found in possession of a cache of weapons. And in
1988, a bomb exploded alongside a motorcade
carrying the Secretary of State in Bolivia. The
Secretary of State was not injured in that bombing
incident.
Although we did not find that top appointed
federal officials historically have been frequent
victims of harm, security officials stressed that
effective security protection serves as a
deterrent to harm. Moreover, research on threat
assessments suggests that top appointed federal
officials may be vulnerable to attack. In 1998,
the U.S. Secret Service published a report on its
study of the thinking and behavior of people who
were known to have attacked or approached to
attack public officials in the United States from
1949 to 1996.4 The study found that many
attackers and would-be attackers considered more
than one target before attacking. Assailants
often made final decisions about whom to attack
because an opportunity presented itself or because
they perceived another target was unapproachable,
the study indicated. These findings have
implications for high-ranking government
officials, who may become targets of attack by
potentially dangerous individuals who transfer
their focus among different government officials.
In addition, security protection for Cabinet
secretaries has national security implications
because they are in the line of presidential
succession.5
We asked the agencies in our review to indicate
the number of direct threats (e.g., threat of
direct physical harm, kidnapping, extortion, etc.)
they had received against their officials from
fiscal years 1997 through 1999 and the number of
arrests that were made to protect their officials.
Of the 27 agencies in our review that provided
protection, 18 agencies reported having received
at least 1 direct threat against their protected
officials during this 3-year period. The agencies
reported receiving a total of 134 direct threats
from fiscal years 1997 through 1999--72 in fiscal
year 1997, 33 in fiscal year 1998, and 29 in
fiscal year 1999. During the 3-year period, six
arrests were made for threatening three of the
protected officials.
Generally, personal security protection consists
of having armed personnel within the vicinity of
an official and in locations where the official
plans to travel. In addition, protection involves
making related security plans and analyzing
possible and actual threats.
We requested comments on a draft of this report
from the heads of all of the agencies that either
provided protection services or had protected
officials during fiscal years 1997 through 1999,
the OMB Director, the Director of the Federal Law
Enforcement Training Center (FLETC), and the
Assistant to the President for Cabinet Affairs and
Cabinet Secretary. Comments from the agencies
that chose to provide them are discussed at the
conclusion of this report. The written comments
we received are contained in appendixes II through
XI. We did our work in the Washington, D.C.,
area; Beltsville, MD; and at FLETC in Glynco, GA,
from September 1999 through May 2000. We
performed our audit work in accordance with
generally accepted government auditing standards.
Our investigative work was done in accordance with
investigative standards established by the
President's Council on Integrity and Efficiency.
Our detailed scope and methodology for this review
are contained in appendix I.
How Many Officials Were Protected, Who Protected
Them, and How Many Protected Them
From fiscal years 1997 through 1999, security
protection was provided on at least 1 occasion to
officials holding 42 different positions at 31
executive branch agencies. These officials
included all 14 Cabinet secretaries, 4 deputy or
under secretaries, and 24 other high-ranking
officials (mainly heads of agencies). 6 The 42
officials were protected by personnel from 27
different agencies. Protection was provided to
officials holding 34 positions in fiscal year
1997, 37 positions in fiscal year 1998, and 39
positions in fiscal year 1999.
Thirty-six officials were protected by personnel
from their own agencies or departments (primarily
within offices of security or Inspectors General);
and 6 officials were protected by personnel
employed by other agencies (the Secret Service,
State Department, Marshals Service, and Federal
Protective Service).7 To avoid possibly
compromising their security, we are not providing
specific information in this report about which
officials were protected, who protected them, or
how many security personnel protected them.
Agencies reported that the number of full-time
protective personnel increased by 73 percent from
fiscal years 1997 through 1999. Information
regarding the number of part-time protective
personnel and the amount of time they spent on
protection could not be quantified governmentwide.8
In our 1994 report, 10 Cabinet departments
reported that they employed a total of 11 full-
time personnel to protect their officials.9 Our
review found that those same 10 Cabinet
departments employed substantially more full-time
protective personnel in fiscal year 1999. We are
not disclosing in this report the number of
employees being used to provide protection to
avoid possibly compromising the officials'
security.
Protective personnel at the 27 agencies that
provided protection were employed by 6 offices of
security, 5 offices of investigation, 3 offices of
Inspectors General, 3 police offices, and 10 other
offices. Fourteen agencies primarily employed
criminal investigators (job classification 1811)
to protect their officials; 6 agencies primarily
employed security specialists (job classification
0080); and the remaining 7 agencies primarily
employed protective personnel with other job
classifications.
Security officials at two agencies that employed
security specialists said they would prefer to
hire criminal investigators to protect their
officials, but that Office of Personnel Management
(OPM) personnel rules prohibited them from hiring
criminal investigators for this purpose. These
officials said that being able to hire criminal
investigators as protective personnel would help
in recruiting and retaining those employees
because criminal investigators have better pay and
retirement benefits, compared to the security
specialists. In addition, these officials said
they could impose physical fitness standards on
criminal investigators that they could not impose
on security specialists, and that criminal
investigators generally have better investigative
and analytical skills than security specialists
do.
Costs of Protection
We asked the 27 agencies in our review to provide
data on the protection costs that they incurred
for salaries and overtime of security personnel;
travel; special executive protection training; and
other expenses, such as equipment and residential
security. They reported spending a total of at
least $73.7 million from fiscal years 1997 through
1999 to protect officials holding 42 positions
from fiscal years 1997 through 1999.
Agencies reported that the amount of money spent
to protect officials that they were able to
identify increased by 49 percent from fiscal year
1997 to fiscal year 1999 (a 46-percent increase in
1999 dollars). To protect these officials,
agencies reported they spent $19.1 million in
fiscal year 1997 ($19.5 million in 1999 dollars),
$26.1 million in fiscal year 1998 ($26.4 million
in 1999 dollars), and $28.5 million in fiscal year
1999. However, these figures are understated
because some agencies said they did not record and
could not reconstruct certain protection costs.
The agencies with the largest increases in costs
and full-time protective personnel during those 3
years generally said that the increases were the
result of increased travel by the protected
officials and the provision of enhanced security
to respond to potential terrorist threats, in
light of international terrorist incidents.
Costs varied substantially among agencies because
of the different levels of protection provided and
other factors, such as the amount of foreign
travel. Salaries and travel expenses represented
the greatest portions of the total expenses. We
are not disclosing in this report how much was
being spent to protect specific officials to
prevent the cost data from being extrapolated to
possibly determine the level of protection being
provided.
A comparison of costs incurred by 10 Cabinet
departments for security protection that were
included in our 1994 report showed that their
costs of protection nearly tripled from fiscal
years 1992 to 1999, after being adjusted for
inflation. In 1994, we reported that 10 Cabinet
departments (the Departments of Defense, Justice,
State, and the Treasury were excluded) spent a
total of $1.5 million in fiscal year 1992, $1.6
million in fiscal year 1993, and $2 million during
the first 9 months of fiscal year 1994. (In 1999
dollars, the value of $1.5 million in 1992 would
be $1.7 million; the value of $1.6 million in 1993
would be $1.8 million; and the value of $2 million
in 1994 would be $2.2 million.) By contrast,
these same 10 Cabinet departments spent a total
$2.8 million in fiscal year 1997 ($2.8 million in
1999 dollars), $3.6 million in fiscal year 1998
(also $3.6 million in 1999 dollars), and $4.6
million on protection in fiscal year 1999.10
These 10 Cabinet departments represented 16
percent of the total expenditures for protection
incurred by all of the executive branch agencies
in our review in fiscal year 1999.
Legal Authorities for Providing Protection
We asked agencies to provide their legal
authorities for providing personal security
protection. In response, agencies cited various
legal authorities that they believed gave them the
authority to provide such protection. Some
agencies cited the Inspector General Act of 1978,11
the general authority of agency heads to issue
regulations,12 a 1972 letter from the Secretary of
the Treasury to Cabinet secretaries,13 a 1970
memorandum from the White House Counsel to a
Cabinet department,14 special deputation from the
Marshals Service,15 and a specific delegation of
authority set forth in the Code of Federal
Regulations.16 The Marshals Service, through its
Deputy U.S. Marshals, is authorized by statute17 to
provide security in various U.S. courts and to
provide personal protection of certain government
officials and other individuals in certain
circumstances.18 However, beyond protection of
federal judges and government witnesses, the
Marshals Service relies upon the direction of the
Attorney General before undertaking personal
protection details for other persons. The
Marshals Service cites an 1890 Supreme Court
decision19 as supporting its inherent authority to
provide personal protection to persons as directed
by the Attorney General to assure the faithful
execution of the federal law, even in the absence
of a specific federal authorizing statute. The
Marshals Service also cites a recent memorandum
from the Justice Department's Office of Legal
Counsel as further supporting its authority to
protect agency officials.20
Only two executive branch agencies in our
review-the Secret Service21 and the State
Department22-had specific statutory authority to
protect executive branch officials, including the
authority to carry firearms in carrying out their
protective responsibilities. The Secret Service
has broad authority to make arrests in connection
with its protective functions, but the State
Department told us that its protective agents can
make such arrests only for crimes committed in
their presence. Although none of the other
agencies cited specific statutory authority to
protect their officials, that does not mean that
the agencies are not authorized to provide such
services. In decisions of the Comptroller
General, we have recognized that under certain
circumstances, agencies can expend appropriated
funds to protect their officials as a necessary
expense.23 Such protection is warranted if it is
administratively determined that the efficiency of
the agencies would be affected because of threats
or other legitimate concerns over the safety of
officials that would impair their abilities to
carry out their duties.
When agencies provide protection to their
officials without specific statutory authority to
do so, potential problems can arise, particularly
with respect to whether their protective personnel
have the necessary law enforcement authorities to
make arrests, conduct investigations, and use
force. The military agencies in our review, for
example, indicated that their protective personnel
had the authority to arrest military personnel,
but not civilians, and that they had only the
authority to detain civilians who constitute an
immediate threat to the safety of a protected
official. A security official at another agency
said that the Marshals Service deputations of some
of his protective personnel had expired, so that
if these personnel needed to make an arrest, they
would have to make a "citizen's arrest" and
contact the local police.24 Eight agencies also
said that they did not have the authority to
investigate threats against their protected
officials. Those agencies said that they referred
threats to the Federal Bureau of Investigation
(FBI) and other agencies for investigation.
A security official at one agency that did not
have specific statutory authority to provide
protection said that he was concerned about
potential legal liabilities if his personnel would
have to use force, including the use of firearms,
to protect the head of his agency. This official
said that being given specific statutory authority
by Congress to provide security protection would
give his agency and personnel more protection
against possible lawsuits associated with the use
of force. In addition, this official said that
being given specific statutory authority to
provide protection would help his agency obtain
authority from OPM to hire criminal investigators
to provide protection, rather than security
specialists.
Similarly, the Marshals Service advised us that to
avoid potential problems in providing protection,
agencies should have specific statutory authority
to do so whenever possible. The Marshals Service
also said that a statutory change would be
necessary if the responsibility for investigating
threats related to protecting executive branch
officials became a permanent part of the Service's
mission. Further, the Marshals Service said that
to provide and plan protection, agencies need to
have arrest and threat investigation authority.
The primary protective personnel employed at 11
agencies, including 2 offices of Inspectors
General, were deputized as U.S. Marshals to
provide them with needed law enforcement
authorities. Agencies must apply to the Marshals
Service to deputize their protective personnel and
renew the deputations periodically.25 According to
Marshals Service officials, the Marshals Service
may not renew these deputations after January 1,
2001, to highlight the need for Congress to
provide agencies' offices of Inspectors General
with their own statutory authority to provide
protection. Marshals Service officials said that
if Congress does not provide statutory law
enforcement authority to those agencies by January
1, 2001, it might be appropriate for the Marshals
Service to assume those agencies' protective
responsibilities at that time. Further, the
Deputy Director of the Marshals Service said the
issue regarding some agencies' lack of statutory
authority to provide protection has not received
severe scrutiny because no incidents have occurred
that would bring this matter to the forefront.
We contacted an Associate Deputy Attorney General
about this issue, who said that the administration
sent a proposal to Congress that would provide
statutory law enforcement authority to the 18
presidentially appointed Inspectors General if
they met certain conditions regarding training,
firearms, and operating procedures. However, the
Associate Deputy Attorney General said that this
legislative proposal would not provide specific
authority to offices of Inspectors General to
provide protection. He said that specific
statutory authority for the Inspectors General to
provide protection could be provided only by
amending the Inspector General Act.
In providing comments on a draft of this report,
three agencies expressed concern about how their
protective operations would be affected if the
Marshals Service deputations of their protective
personnel were not renewed. One of those
agencies, for example, said that nonrenewal of
Marshals Service deputations would make it
impossible for agencies to carry out their
protective responsibilities by eliminating the law
enforcement powers of their protective personnel
to carry firearms and make arrests.
Circumstances Under Which Officials Were Protected
The agencies in our review reported that their
officials received different levels and
frequencies of protection, which generally
included protection while they worked in their
offices, attended public events, and traveled on
official business. Certain officials were also
protected during private time. To avoid
compromising their security, we are not disclosing
any specific information about when the officials
were protected.
How Agencies Were Preparing Threat Assessments and
the Implications of Standardizing and Centralizing
Threat Assessments
Security officials generally said they determined
their officials needed protection as a result of
possible threats and actual threats received from
individuals who were (1) opposed to the policies
and issues being handled by their agencies, (2)
apparently suffering from mental problems, (3)
opposed to the officials personally, and (4)
terrorists. Security officials also said the
level of protection provided was determined by a
variety of factors, including the sensitivity of
issues being handled by the agency, the visibility
of the protected officials to the public, travel
needs, and the officials' personal preferences.
According to the Secret Service, threat assessment
is "the process of gathering and assessing
information about persons who may have the
interest, motive, intention, and capability of
mounting attacks against public officials and
figures."26 The Secret Service believes that
gauging the potential threat to and vulnerability
of a targeted individual is key to preventing
violence. The Air Force, which requires that
detailed, written threat assessments be prepared
regarding its protected officials, indicates that
the assessment is "the initial element of any
protective operation. It forms the basis for
determining the need and scope of a formal
protective service operation."27 Air Force policy
requires that threat assessments include a
discussion of risk factors, including the
officials' visibility, vulnerability to attack,
and threat motivation factors; a categorization of
the types of threats; and a discussion of
procedures for the collection and evaluation of
protective intelligence.
The agencies with security protection as one of
their primary missions (the Secret Service,
Marshals Service, and the State Department's
Diplomatic Security Service) and most of the
Department of Defense (DOD) agencies had prepared
written, detailed threat assessments regarding
their protected officials. We reviewed threat
assessments prepared by the seven agencies in our
review that had detailed, written threat
assessments on their protected officials. These
assessments generally contained discussions of the
officials' backgrounds, their visibility to the
public, potential threats to the officials posed
by individuals and groups, current events
affecting the agencies, and other data. Some
agencies also rated the levels of threat against
their officials in low, medium, or high
categories, both overall, and for specific trips
that the protected officials planned to take.
Officials at some of those agencies told us that
threat assessments should be prepared when
protective assignments begin and be a continuous
process of gathering and analyzing information
about potential threats against the protected
officials and the locations they plan to visit.
However, 20 of the 27 agencies said they had no
detailed, written threat assessments on their
protected officials or documentation of their
decisions to provide certain levels of protection.
Security officials at agencies without such
documentation said that protection was provided to
respond to specific or perceived threats,
available protective intelligence, and the
protected officials' wishes. In addition, the
seven agencies that did have written threat
assessments did not detail how decisions were made
regarding the size of the protective force needed.
Without assessments that link the level of threat
to the size of the protective force, it would be
difficult to determine whether the level of
protection provided and the amount of money spent
on protection were appropriate.28
At least two agencies protected officials only
after their officials received direct threats.
However, research on protective intelligence and
threat assessments suggests that the number of
threats received against protected officials may
not be the most accurate measure of the level of
threat against officials. According to the Secret
Service, persons who pose actual threats often do
not make threats, especially direct threats. In
the Secret Service's study of the 83 attackers and
near-lethal approachers of prominent public
officials and figures from 1949 to 1996, less than
one-tenth communicated a direct threat to the
target or to a law enforcement agency.29
Who decided the level of protection to be applied
varied from agency to agency. Security officials
at 6 of the 27 agencies indicated that the
protected officials decided their overall level of
protection on the basis of their personal
preferences and sometimes upon the recommendations
of their security staffs. At eight agencies,
security officials said the level of protection
provided was decided jointly by them and the
protected officials on the basis of actual and
perceived levels of threat against the agencies
and the protected officials. With regard to the
other 13 agencies that provided protection,
including the agencies with security protection as
one of their primary missions, security officials
said they, and occasionally with input from other
staff, decided the level of protection on the
basis of protective intelligence.
Several agencies with protective responsibilities
did not have the authority and resources to gather
protective intelligence nationwide. Without such
information, the Secret Service said, a competent
threat assessment cannot be done regarding a
person's capacity and intent to act violently
toward a public official. Security officials at
three agencies provided specific examples of when
they had not received timely protective
intelligence from another agency about potential
threats against their officials.
The Secret Service indicated that it would be
helpful for agencies to share information about
people who come to their attention because of
inappropriate behavior or communication.
According to the Secret Service's 1998 study,
attackers and would-be attackers often consider
multiple targets, who may live in different
jurisdictions with various law enforcement
agencies and security agencies responsible for
physical protection and protective intelligence.
To facilitate the detection of patterns of
behavior in known would-be attackers, the study
said, law enforcement agencies should implement
information-sharing programs with other such
agencies.
To facilitate this sharing of protective
intelligence, the Secret Service is considering
the creation of a protective intelligence
repository, which would permit agencies to
determine whether a person of possible protective
concern to them had previously come to the
attention of any other agency for protective
reasons. According to the Secret Service, each
protective agency would share information with
other agencies consistent with its own protocols.30
However, Secret Service officials said that a
protective intelligence repository would have to
be designed with privacy and other legal
considerations in mind. A Secret Service official
said the agency may not be able to release all of
the information it has if it involves individuals'
medical records, for example.
The Secret Service also said that it already has
been sharing protective intelligence with
agencies. It recently formed the Protective
Detail Intelligence Network, consisting of
protective personnel from all agencies, to
formalize the sharing of protective intelligence.
The Network, led by the Secret Service, plans to
meet quarterly to discuss protection issues and
share protective intelligence.31
Implications of Standardizing and Centralizing
Threat Assessments
In our discussions with security officials, the
issue of standardizing threat assessments focused
on how agencies can obtain the protective
intelligence they needed from governmentwide
sources to prepare thorough analyses. One means
discussed to facilitate the sharing of such
information involved the idea of establishing a
central repository of protective intelligence.
The implications of establishing a central
repository of protective intelligence primarily
involved issues of control and legal authority.
On one hand, security officials said that
establishing a central repository for protective
intelligence could provide a formal mechanism for
sharing threat data, which could give agencies
additional information about threats against their
officials and other individuals who may be in the
officials' presence. On the other hand, some
security officials feared that a central
protective intelligence repository could result in
the creation of a new bureaucracy and said that
privacy and recordkeeping concerns would need to
be taken into consideration in the design of the
repository. Additional considerations involve
whether legislation would be needed to authorize
an agency to establish the repository and the
costs of establishing and administering it.
We asked the 27 agencies that provided protection
whether they favored the establishment of a
central repository of protective intelligence as a
means of facilitating the sharing of threat
information among agencies. Security officials at
18 of the 27 agencies that provided protection
said they favored the establishment of a central
protective intelligence repository, security
officials at 4 agencies said they did not favor
it, and 5 had no opinion. Security personnel at
agencies favoring the establishment of a central
protective intelligence repository said it would
(1) allow access to protective intelligence by
agencies that cannot afford to establish their own
intelligence-gathering operations, (2) provide
uniformity in the dissemination and access to
intelligence, and (3) allow agencies to be
informed about threats against other individuals
who are in the presence of their officials.
Security officials at seven agencies said the
Secret Service should be given the responsibility
of administering a central protective intelligence
repository. Some of these officials said the
Secret Service should administer the repository
because it already has a database of such
information regarding its protected officials.32
Security officials at three agencies said that the
repository should be administered by the FBI,
which collects information on potential terrorist
activity through its Terrorism Task Force. At
three other agencies, security officials suggested
that administering a repository of protective
intelligence should be an interagency effort.
In providing comments on a draft of this report,
the Marshals Service said that a central
repository of protective intelligence would be a
valuable resource. However, the Marshals Service
said that an evaluation of controversial issues
and events outside the normal realm of law
enforcement data would need to be included to make
the database applicable to a wide range of
protected officials. The Marshals Service said
that representatives from executive branch
agencies would need to routinely update
intelligence managers on issues, policies, and
events that could trigger controversy among groups
or individuals.
Security officials at the three agencies that did
not favor the establishment of a protective
intelligence repository gave several reasons. An
official at one agency said such a repository
probably would become a bureaucratic clearinghouse
through which important information could easily
"slip through the cracks" because the personnel
might not recognize something that would be of
interest to a particular agency. An official at
another agency said it did not need access to a
protective intelligence repository because that
agency was already part of the government's
intelligence community. An official at the third
agency questioned whether all agencies would share
protective intelligence, given certain legal
restrictions on the disclosure of information
regarding their clients.
What Training Did Protective Personnel Receive and
What Are the Implications of Standardizing and
Centralizing Protection Training
We did not identify any governmentwide standards
or criteria for training federal protective
personnel. The 27 agencies that provided
protection generally required their full-time
protective personnel to receive basic military or
law enforcement training, plus specific protection
training.33 However, the amount of protection-
related training received by protective personnel
governmentwide varied considerably. In addition,
some agencies that did not provide their own
protection training reported difficulty in
obtaining training they needed from other sources.
Eleven of the 27 agencies reported that they
provided some or all of their own protection
training to their personnel in the form of initial
instruction or annual refresher training, or both.
The other 16 agencies obtained their protection
training from other sources. The Secret Service,
Marshals Service, State Department's Diplomatic
Security Service (DSS),34 and the Army35 were the
primary providers of protection training for
federal protective personnel. These agencies'
protection training consisted of instruction in
firearms; threat assessments; emergency medical
training; practical protection exercises; security
advance, motorcade, airport, and foreign travel
procedures; defensive driving skills, defensive
tactics, and legal authorities.36 Table 1 shows
the amounts of training protection training
provided by the Secret Service, Marshals Service,
State Department, and the Army to their protective
personnel.
Table 1: Amounts of Protection Training Provided
by the Secret Service, Marshals Service, State
Department, and the Army
Agency Initial Annual refresher
protection training
training
Secret Service 7.8 weeksa 3 to 5 days
Marshals Service 7.6 weeks 2 to 3 daysb
State Department 3 weeksc 2 to 5 days
Army 6 weeksd 2 to 3 days
aThe Secret Service indicated that its full-time
protective personnel received about 11 weeks of
agency-oriented training on the agency's dual
missions relating to protection and
counterfeiting. The agency reported that 71
percent of this training was devoted to
protection, or 7.8 weeks. Secret Service special
agents who protect the President and Vice
President receive continuous advanced protection
training. Secret Service agents who protect
former Presidents, presidential and vice
presidential candidates, and foreign dignitaries
also received annual refresher training. In
addition, Secret Service agents in field offices
received annual refresher protection training.
bAmount of refresher training received by U.S.
Marshals who protect an executive branch official
full-time. In addition, the Marshals who protect
the executive branch official received 2 weeks of
advanced training every 4 years.
cThe State Department reported that its full-time
protective personnel received 15 weeks of
training, 3 weeks of which is protection-related.
In addition, all of the DSS agents receive 2 weeks
of refresher training every 5 years, 2-« days of
which is protection-related.
dThe Army reported that its protective personnel
received 8 weeks of basic military training; 16
weeks of criminal investigative training, 1 week
of which is protection-related; 3 weeks of
protection training; 4 days of antiterrorism
evasive driving training; 1 week of training in
combating terrorism on military installations; and
1 week of combat lifesaver training.
Sources: Secret Service, Marshals Service, State
Department, and the Army.
Security personnel at six agencies reported
difficulty in obtaining training because of class
availability, funding, or workload problems. Some
security officials said they had to rely on
personal contacts with agencies that offered
protection training to secure the training needed
by their personnel or obtain training outside the
Washington, D.C., area. Because of the lack of
available executive protection training in the
Washington, D.C., area, for example, one agency
sent its protective personnel to West Sacramento,
CA, to receive training by the California Highway
Patrol.37 A law enforcement agency received
protection training from a diverse array of
sources, including the CIA and Scotland Yard in
Great Britain; and another agency had its
protective personnel trained by a private security
company. Security officials at five agencies
also said they had hired personnel who had
previous protection training and work experience
at the Secret Service, State Department, or
Marshals Service.
Twenty of the 27 agencies that provided protection
said they relied on their field personnel to
provide or supplement protection when their
protected officials leave the Washington, D.C.,
area. Security officials said the number of field
staff who supplemented protection ranged from 3 at
1 agency to about 250 at another. The amount of
protection training received by field personnel
who provided protection varied considerably among
the 27 agencies. Agencies with security
protection as one of their primary missions
indicated that their field personnel received more
training and protection experience than field
agents at some other agencies.
Security officials at one agency that did not have
security protection as one of its primary missions
and used many field staff for protection said it
was too expensive to provide the same level of
protection training to field personnel that is
provided to the full-time staff based in
Washington, D.C. Several agencies did not provide
specific data on the amount of protection training
that their field staff had received, if any; but
two agencies without security protection as one of
their primary missions indicated that their field
personnel received about 2 to 3 days of protection
training.38 Three agencies reported that their
field personnel who were used to provide
protection had received no protection training.39
We did not conduct an exhaustive analysis of the
content of courses that protective personnel in
our review had received because some of the
courses were taken several years ago and because
some agencies did not maintain records of the
specific courses that their protective personnel
had received. However, as examples of protection-
related skills in two areas, we specifically asked
agencies about whether their protective personnel
were tested regularly in firearms proficiency and
were trained in emergency medical treatment. All
of the agencies said they required their personnel
to requalify regarding firearms proficiency at
least annually.40 With respect to emergency
medical treatment, 2 of the 27 agencies reported
that none of their primary protective personnel
were trained in cardiopulmonary resuscitation
(CPR). At 12 agencies, none of the primary
protective personnel were trained in the use of a
First Aid Trauma (FAT) kit or a defibrillator. By
contrast, the Secret Service, Marshals Service,
and DSS reported that all of their primary
protective personnel had received training in CPR
and using the defibrillator, and most had received
training in using the FAT kit.
A 1985 report on security issues at the Department
of State41 recommended that 12 to 15 percent of
diplomatic protective personnel's time be devoted
to training. In January 2000, the Commission on
the Advancement of Federal Law Enforcement, an
independent advisory body established under the
Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of
1996, criticized the lack of standardized training
for federal law enforcement officers, which
includes protective personnel.42 The Commission
recommended that a Federal Law Enforcement Officer
Training Board, consisting of law enforcement
experts from federal, state, and local agencies,
among others, review training, certify the
adequacy of both basic and in-service training
programs, identify innovative training programs
and curricula, and recommend needed additional
training programs to agencies.
Implications of Standardizing and Centralizing
Protection Training
Security officials said the implications of
establishing a standardized protection-training
program involve questions of whether providing the
same training to all federal protective personnel
would result in more consistency of protection
procedures governmentwide and whether particular
agencies' special training needs would be
addressed. In addition, if a standardized
protection-training program were established, it
is uncertain what it would cost in terms of
facilities and human resources or which agency
should provide the training. The issue of
centralizing protection training involves whether
one agency should provide a standard protection-
training program and, if so, who should provide
it, and how would the additional capacity needed
be funded.
We asked the 27 agencies that provided protection
whether they favored the establishment of a
standardized protection training program for all
federal protective personnel. Security officials
at 21 of the 27 agencies said that they favored
the establishment of a standard protection
training program for all federal agencies,
security officials at 2 agencies said they did not
favor it, and security officials at 4 other
agencies had no opinion. The agencies favoring a
standard protection training program said it would
provide consistency in training curricula,
including protection concepts and terminology;
that it would train protective personnel to
perform their duties in a uniform fashion and
react the same way in case of emergency; and would
make protection training more available. Security
officials from the Marshals Service, the Secret
Service, and DSS, who favored the establishment of
a standard protection training program for federal
agencies, said they have observed a lack of
uniformity in how other federal agencies' security
personnel protected their officials in terms of
advance work and operating procedures.
Security officials at the two agencies who did not
favor a standardized training program said that
training was important, but that they preferred to
conduct their own training tailored to address
their own needs and unique environments. One of
those agencies, for example, said that as a
military organization, it must train its personnel
to provide protection in combat situations.
Security officials at 12 agencies favored having
the Secret Service conduct a standard protection
training program. Some of these officials said
they favored having the Secret Service conduct the
training because of its expertise in the field and
its existing training facilities.43 At three
agencies, security officials suggested that the
State Department conduct the training because of
its experience with protecting foreign
dignitaries, which generally involves using fewer
resources than the Secret Service uses to protect
the President and Vice President; its training may
be more pertinent to protecting Cabinet officials;
and because the State Department has experience
providing protection overseas.44
The Secret Service said that it was interested in
providing standardized protection training for
federal agencies. Although the Secret Service
said that its current protective training
curriculum is focused on providing protection with
a large number of personnel, such as that provided
for the President, when requested, it has provided
protective detail training on a smaller scale for
other federal agencies.45 If given responsibility
for providing protection training to other federal
agencies, the Secret Service said it would consult
with the participating agencies and modify its
curricula accordingly. It also said that
additional employees and funding would be required
to create an adequate infrastructure to support
such an effort. We toured the Secret Service's
training facility in Beltsville, MD, to learn
about its protection training curricula. An
official at that facility said that standardized
protection training for all federal protective
personnel would enhance operational cooperation
and develop the skills needed for personnel to
react the same way in emergencies.
Officials from the Marshals Service said it could
conduct training for personnel protecting agency
heads at FLETC46 in Glynco, GA, but thought that
the training should take place near Washington,
D.C., where most of the protective personnel are
located. The FLETC Director told us that FLETC
currently does not have the facilities, expertise,
or funding to train all federal personal security
personnel at its Glynco facility. However, the
Director also expressed an interest in having
FLETC coordinate personal security training at a
new facility in the Washington, D.C., area. He
said that one site that is being considered for
such a facility is located at an abandoned Navy
facility in Indian Head, MD.
A State Department training official suggested
that a standard protection training program be
conducted by FLETC with input from the State
Department, because of its experience in providing
protection overseas, and the Secret Service,
because of its experience in providing protection
domestically.47 The official also said that the
State Department, which currently trains its
protective personnel at facilities in Dunn Loring,
VA, and Summit Point, WV,48 could train other
agencies' protective personnel at the proposed
Center for Anti-terrorism and Security Training,
an interagency facility planned for the
Washington, D.C., area to be managed jointly by
DSS and the U.S. Capitol Police. The official
estimated that to accommodate protection training
for other agencies at the Indian Head site, for
example, it would cost at least $13 million over
and above the $30 million that is being proposed
to build the antiterrorism facility.49
The State Department indicated that if it were to
conduct a standardized protection training program
for federal agencies, it would offer a 3-week
entry-level protection course for protective
personnel who have not received formal protection
training. The course would consist of training in
firearms; first aid; chemical/biological weapons;
legal issues; driving; motorcades; and
fundamentals of protection, including a 2-day
practical protection exercise. The Department
would also offer a 2-week intermediate class for
protective personnel who have had some formal
protection training or had considerable on-the-job
experience. This course would be devoted
primarily to specialized areas, such as preparing
advance work for major events, surveillance
detection, and chemical and biological weapons
countermeasures. Finally, it would offer a 1-week
refresher course on the subjects covered in the
basic and intermediate courses.
We asked a random sample of four agencies that did
not offer their own protection training what
issues they would like included in a standard
protection training program. They generally said
the curriculum should include, but not be limited
to, security advance procedures, air travel,
protection in foreign countries, defensive driving
skills, motorcade procedures, emergency medical
treatment, protective technology, protective
intelligence, and threat assessments.
We also contacted six state and local law
enforcement agencies that protect governors or
mayors about their protection training needs.50
Officials from five of six agencies (the
California Highway Patrol operated its own
protection training program) said that a national
protection training program should be established
because protection training was not readily
available for their personnel. We also contacted
the National Governors' Security Association, an
association of law enforcement officials from all
50 states involved in protecting governors, which
recommended the establishment of a national
protection training program.
Implications of Centralizing Security Protection
Under One Agency
The implications of centralizing security
protection governmentwide involve many issues,
including who would decide who is to be protected
and the level of protection to be provided; who
would provide the services; whether Congress would
need to grant statutory authorities; and whether
centralization would be the most cost-efficient
and effective way of providing these services over
the current, more decentralized approach. The
agencies with security protection as one of their
primary missions said they could not precisely
predict the level of protection they would
provide, if they were given the responsibility of
protecting officials governmentwide, without
having specific protective intelligence regarding
all of the potential protected officials.
Further, the cost implications could not be
determined without the agencies knowing the level
of protection that would be provided and number of
protected officials.
Security officials at 20 of the 27 protective
agencies said they did not favor centralizing
security protection under 1 agency and preferred
to retain responsibility for protecting their
officials. The Marshals Service was the only
agency that favored centralizing security
protection services. The Marshals Service said it
was interested in assuming responsibility for
protecting agency officials, provided that it
received the needed resources to accomplish this
mission.51 Security officials at six agencies that
provided protection did not offer an opinion on
centralizing security protection services
governmentwide.
The agencies that did not favor centralizing
security protection generally said each agency has
its own needs and unique environments where they
protect their officials. They said it was
advantageous for them, as employees of the
protected officials' agencies, to know the
policies, programs, and culture of those agencies
and how to coordinate protection internally within
the organizations. Further, some of these
security officials said that if protection were
transferred to another agency, (1) the protected
officials would lose some control over their own
protection, (2) the existing professional
relationships that the protected officials
currently have with the protective personnel would
be disrupted, and (3) a new bureaucracy would be
created in the form of the agency that would
provide the protection. Another security official
said that if protection were centralized under one
law enforcement agency, protection might be based
on the protected official's office, rather than
the actual threat, for resource allocation
purposes.
We met with the Assistant to the President for
Cabinet Affairs and Cabinet Secretary to determine
whether the administration had adopted any
policies regarding the routine protection of
Cabinet secretaries. This White House official
said that to his knowledge, no such policy had
been adopted governmentwide and that individual
agencies may decide the level of protection needed
for their officials. He added that the government
could benefit from coordinating protection among
agencies, particularly when protected officials
are in the same locations.
Marshals Service officials said that if they were
tasked with the responsibility for protecting
other agency officials, they would use well-
trained protective personnel who would operate in
a consistent and coordinated fashion
governmentwide and could provide certain economies
of scale in terms of resources and equipment. In
addition, the officials said the Marshals Service
could draw on a pool of personnel to supplement
protection in certain threat situations.
Moreover, the Marshals Service stressed that it
has nationwide law enforcement authority.
We met with senior aides to an executive branch
official who is protected by the Marshals Service.52
The aides said that the protected official was
very satisfied with the Marshals Service's
training, access to intelligence, legal
authorities, and ability to respond rapidly to
threat situations. In addition, these aides said
that it was not necessary for the Marshals
Service's protective personnel to be knowledgeable
about that agency's programs to effectively
protect the agency head. Representatives of
officials who were protected by the Secret Service
and State Department also expressed satisfaction
with their training, legal authorities, resources,
and access to protective intelligence.
The Secret Service, which protects the President,
Vice President, and other individuals, said it was
not currently interested in assuming
responsibility for protecting all agency heads.
However, the Secret Service said an advantage of
centralizing security protection services would be
streamlined communications among different
protection details and with the White House and
the establishment of a focal point for funding and
inquiries. At the same time, the Secret Service
said that effective protection requires close
proximity of the protected officials and their
protective personnel, facilitated by the trust and
confidence developed between them. The Secret
Service said that its experience has shown that a
bond of trust is greater when security personnel
are from the official's department and that a
direct correlation exists between the trust and
confidence and the effectiveness of the security
detail.
A security official at one agency did not provide
a definitive opinion on whether security
protection services should be centralized under
one agency but offered opinions on some advantages
and disadvantages. This official said an
advantage would be that the agency would not have
to be concerned about staffing and training its
own protective personnel, and the resources of
another agency such as the Secret Service would be
available across the country. On the other hand,
this security official said, giving protective
responsibility to another agency would result in
the loss of his agency's control over that
protection. He also questioned whether another
agency would provide sufficient resources to
protect his agency's official.
A security official at an agency that did not
provide protection during the period of our
review, but has protective personnel available if
needed, said he would favor having another agency
provide protection when required.53 According to
that security official, a single agency could
provide a well-trained cadre of security personnel
who are good at their jobs and become better
through experience. That same official said a
disadvantage would be that the personnel from
another agency would have to work with many
different protected officials and develop a
working relationship with each of them. However,
the Marshals Service said that protected officials
of other agencies would become comfortable with
their protective personnel because the protected
officials would be confident about the Marshals'
training.
Marshals Service officials said that if they
assumed responsibility for protecting agency
heads, they would need to enhance their own
intelligence-gathering operations. At the same
time, Marshals Service officials said, agencies
with substantial intelligence-gathering
capabilities, such as the State Department, could
continue to gather intelligence and share that
information with the Marshals Service. Further,
Marshals Service officials said that protection
training and experience are more important than
knowledge about agencies' particular issues or
programs.
The State Department official in charge of
protection said that in an ideal situation, it
would be beneficial for one agency to provide
protection because all of the protective personnel
would have received the same training. But the
official also said that it would not work because
the agencies would want to continue using their
own employees. This official also said that if
the State Department received the necessary
resources, it might be interested in protecting
Cabinet secretaries. The official stressed the
State Department's protection expertise,
especially internationally, with agents in place
worldwide to assist, and the Department's domestic
field offices. This State Department official
said that if security protection were centralized
under one agency, Cabinet departments might feel
more comfortable with DSS providing the
protection, compared to a traditional law
enforcement agency.
For comparison purposes, we contacted security
officials from five other democratic,
industrialized countries to determine whether
their highest officials received security
protection and, if so, who protected them.54
Security officials in all five countries reported
that their Cabinet ministers and heads of state
were protected at various levels by special units
within their countries' national police agencies.
They said the level of protection provided to
these officials depended on their positions in
government and that special units within the
national police agencies investigated threats made
against their officials. These officials said
that they consulted with the Secret Service in
formulating their protection training curricula.
Protective Responsibilities of Offices of
Inspectors General
Some security officials expressed a concern about
having personnel from agencies' offices of
Inspectors General providing protection because of
a potential conflict of interest. They said if
offices of Inspectors General were investigating
officials whom they also were protecting, it could
result in an atmosphere of distrust between the
protective personnel and the officials. However,
security officials from the three offices of
Inspectors General with protective
responsibilities disagreed. Security officials at
two of those agencies that employed criminal
investigators for protection said their offices'
protective responsibilities were separate from
their investigative functions, which removed a
potential conflict of interest. An official at
the third agency said a potential conflict of
interest did not exist because its protective
personnel were employed as miscellaneous
administrative staff (job classification 0301),
not as criminal investigators.
In providing comments on a draft of this report,
the Marshals Service provided a March 2000 legal
memorandum from the Department of Justice's Office
of Legal Counsel (OLC)55 regarding special
deputation of Inspector General personnel to
protect agency heads that addressed this issue.
The memorandum indicated that:
"In effectively allowing IG agents to participate
in program operating responsibilities, these
temporary [protection] details arguably could
compromise the IG's independence and objectivity
in performing an agency watchdog function.
Indeed, it is not difficult to imagine a situation
in which these internal details would give rise to
at least an appearance of conflict of interest for
an IG. The IG may be responsible, for example,
for investigating alleged fraud in the security
office to which IG agents have been detailed or
for auditing the costs, including those of a
detailed IG security agent, associated with a trip
taken by the Agency head. In those instances,
because of conflicting loyalties, the IG
conceivably might prove less aggressive in
carrying out his or her statutory responsibility
of uncovering fraud, abuse, waste, and
mismanagement. Even in situations that do not
involve actual conflicts, the appearance of
conflicts could undermine the effectiveness of an
IG in pursuing his or her mission. Such an
arrangement, however, might be acceptable in the
short term to address the immediate dangers facing
agency officials, especially if, in any subsequent
investigation by the IG of the office responsible
for security, IG personnel detailed to that office
were recused from taking part. We would, however,
caution against using this sort of arrangement on
a long-term basis because it might appear to
circumvent Congress' prohibition against vesting
program operating responsibilities in the IGs. If
the Department and Agencies wish to continue to
rely on these special deputations, we recommend
that they seek legislation to expand the scope of
IG authority."
Cost Implications of Standardizing Security
Protection Services
We were unable to determine how the costs of
protection would be affected if a single agency
protected agency heads because of the number of
variables involved, such as the threat level
against different protected officials and the
protected officials' preferences regarding their
protection. The Secret Service said that it could
not provide a meaningful estimate of the costs of
protecting other officials without having specific
protective intelligence about them. In addition,
the Secret Service said that any single agency
that would be given full responsibility for the
training, intelligence assessments, and protection
of all Cabinet-level officials would require
significant increases in funding and staffing and
substantial lead time. According to the Secret
Service, this would enable the agency to properly
develop an infrastructure to adequately support
this activity. The Marshals Service provided an
estimate of the number of protective personnel it
believed it would need to protect agency heads
governmentwide, which we are not disclosing in
this report for security reasons.
From our review of data provided on agencies'
protective personnel, we observed that Marshals
Service personnel who were protecting an executive
branch official were mainly employed at the GS-12
level, compared to protective personnel at the
Secret Service, who were generally employed at the
GS-13 level. This would suggest that the Marshals
Service might have lower personnel costs for
protection. However, the Marshals Service also
said that it would probably provide a level of
protection to agency heads that exceeds what is
currently being provided to some officials by
their own agencies, which could increase costs.
Views of the Protected Officials Regarding Their
Protection and Standardization Issues
We asked the protected officials in our study
whether they believed that security protection
should be provided automatically to the persons
holding their positions, and why or why not. In
addition, we asked them whether they believed
their protective personnel have adequate
resources, training, legal authorities, and access
to protective intelligence to protect them. We
also asked the officials who were not protected by
one of the agencies with security protection as
one of their primary missions whether they
believed it would be better to have the Secret
Service, Marshals Service, or State Department
protect them, and why or why not. Twenty-one
protected officials or members of their immediate
staffs responded to our queries.56
Most of the protected officials or their staffs
said the individuals holding these positions
automatically should receive security protection
because of their visibility and the types of
issues that they handled. They said that
officials who deal with the public-particularly
those charged with enforcing laws and
regulations-are potential targets for harm. In
addition, they said they needed to travel to parts
of the country where conflict and controversy
existed over the proper role of the federal
government. The officials also said they traveled
sometimes or frequently to foreign countries with
a high risk of threat.
Top aides to some agency heads who responded to
our queries said that the functioning of
government and the economy could be negatively
affected if the officials were harmed. According
to one agency's Chief of Staff, "the potential of
a threat to the safety and security of the
government and its leaders by terrorists,
subversive groups, and members of the public is a
reality. An attack on the chief official of an
agency could seriously affect public confidence in
the [agency's program]." A top aide to a military
official said that this official holds one of the
most visible sub-Cabinet positions in government;
and because of his authorities and
responsibilities, he is often perceived as being
responsible for government actions and decisions
affecting individuals, corporations, and foreign
governments, including judicial punishment for
personal misconduct, adverse personnel actions,
corporate financial problems, and foreign military
defeats.
One official who is the head of a law enforcement
agency said there was an inherent threat to the
person holding that position. The official said
that if harm would come to the person holding that
position, "it would bring embarrassment and
disruption to [the agency's] mission, [the
department], the government in general, and to the
health, safety, and welfare of the public." The
Chief of Staff for another law enforcement agency
head said that his agency is involved in
investigating "some of the most violent criminal
organizations in the world," which have threatened
agency heads in the past, and therefore the agency
head is entitled to security protection.
Presidential succession was cited as another
reason for protecting Cabinet secretaries. By
contrast, an aide to another official said that
agency's top official did not need regular
protection because that agency's mission is not as
controversial, compared to other agencies'
missions. That aide said it was a personal
decision of the agency head whether to receive
security protection.
The protected officials or members of their staffs
who responded to our queries generally said they
believed their protective personnel had adequate
training, access to intelligence, and legal
authorities to carry out their jobs.57 Officials
who were protected by personnel from their own
agencies that did not have security protection as
one of their primary missions said they would like
to continue having their own agencies' personnel
protect them. The head of one agency, for
example, said that he would like to continue
having his agency's personnel protect him because
his protection is tailored to his needs and
preferences. Other respondents said that it was
advantageous for protective personnel to be
employed by the protected officials' respective
agencies because the protective personnel had a
greater personal interest and sense of loyalty to
the agencies and the protected officials and were
knowledgeable about the organizations' missions,
cultures and operations.
We met with one Cabinet secretary who said that
personal security protection must be balanced with
a need for privacy. At the same time, this
Cabinet secretary said that for someone in that
position, the question about whether to be
protected was not entirely a personal decision,
and protection for Cabinet secretaries
governmentwide needed to be assessed considering
presidential succession issues.
Conclusions
The safety of the government's highest officials
is important to maintain the orderly functioning
of the government. Individuals serving in the
government's highest offices can be vulnerable to
threats from individuals who are opposed to their
agencies' policies and actions, emotionally
unstable people, and terrorists. Because 14 of
the protected officials in our review are in the
line of presidential succession, their protection
has national security implications. At the same
time, protection for federal officials should be
based on thorough threat assessments using
protective intelligence from governmentwide
sources documenting the need and plan for
protection. Threat assessments should also show
linkages between identified threats and the nature
and level of protection to be provided. Moreover,
thorough threat analyses should be conducted
regarding the need and plan for protection for all
officials who routinely receive security
protection, regardless of whether the officials
are in the line of presidential succession.
Our review indicated that some of the government's
highest officials were being protected by
personnel who said they did not have sufficient
access to protective intelligence and protection
training. Further, some agencies said they lacked
the legal authority to make arrests and conduct
threat investigations to protect their officials.
Additional sharing of protective intelligence,
establishing a standardized protection training
program, and providing agencies with specific
statutory authority to provide protection could
help enhance security protection for top federal
officials.
Access to protective intelligence among agencies
is an essential element in preparing threat
analyses. Without assessments that link the level
of threat to the size of the protective force, it
would be difficult to determine whether the level
of protection provided and the amount of money
spent on protection were appropriate. Further, a
standardized security protection training program
could instruct federal protective personnel in the
same basic techniques and procedures, which would
help to ensure effective coordination of
protection when protective personnel from multiple
agencies are working at the same events. However,
it is less clear what the training curricula
should be, who would provide that training, or
whether a central threat repository is the best
means of sharing protective intelligence among
agencies. It is also not clear whether
centralizing security protection under one agency
would be more cost-effective or would better
address the needs of the protected officials than
the current arrangements. In addition, some
security officials questioned whether offices of
Inspectors General should protect agency heads
because of a potential conflict of interest
between investigative and protective
responsibilities.
It is important that the government is assured
that it has a reasoned approach to protecting its
highest officials, considering the national
security implications of protecting officials who
are in the line of presidential succession and the
substantial recent increases in resources being
expended to protect them. However, no one in the
executive branch is currently responsible for
handling issues relating to the routine protection
of executive branch officials. Because the
protection of executive branch officials involves
the expenditure of substantial amounts of
appropriated funds and considering the national
security implications involving presidential
succession, we believe that the OMB Director, in
consultation with the President, should designate
an appropriate official or group to assess issues
relating to security protection for executive
branch officials. These issues should include how
protective intelligence should be shared among
agencies, how best to link threat assessment with
the need for protection and the level of
protection provided, what training should be
provided to federal protective personnel and who
should provide it, who should provide protection,
and whether agencies and/or Offices of Inspectors
General should be provided with specific statutory
authority to provide protection. The designated
official or group could provide the information
needed for the OMB Director to act or to make
recommendations to the next administration and
Congress on issues that cannot be addressed during
this administration or that would require
legislation or additional funding.
Recommendations
We recommend that the OMB Director, in
consultation with the President, designate an
appropriate official or group to assess security
protection issues for top-level federal officials.
At a minimum, this assessment should include such
issues as
ú how agencies can best obtain protective
intelligence from governmentwide sources needed to
prepare thorough threat assessments, including an
assessment of whether a central protective
intelligence repository should be established and,
if so, who should administer it;
ú how best to ensure that a clear linkage
exists between the documented threat assessments
and the need for and level of protection for the
routine protection of top executive branch
officials;
ú what training should be provided to federal
protective personnel, to what extent the training
should be standardized, and who should provide it;
ú whether security protection should be
centralized under one agency or, if not, whether
any changes in the way protection is currently
being provided should be made;
ú whether agencies and/or offices of Inspectors
General should be provided with specific statutory
authority to provide protection, and whether the
Marshals Service should continue to renew its
deputation of agencies' protective personnel;
ú whether the administration should adopt a
policy regarding the routine protection of top
executive branch officials; and
ú whether an official or group should be
designated to oversee security protection issues
for top executive branch officials on an ongoing
basis.
To ensure that the benefits of this assessment are
realized, we further recommend that the individual
or group conducting the assessment produce an
action plan that identifies any issues requiring
congressional action.
Matters for Congressional Consideration
Once the OMB Director has submitted his
recommendations to Congress, Congress should
consider enacting legislation that would provide
whatever agency or agencies that provide
protection with specific statutory authority to
effectively carry out these responsibilities. In
addition, should it be determined that centralized
protection training, threat assessment, or
protection services are appropriate, Congress
should consider making the resources available to
the appropriate agency or agencies that are
designated to provide these services and provide
any needed legislative changes.
Agency Comments and Our Evaluation
We requested comments on a draft of this report
from the heads of agencies with protected
officials and agencies that provided protection,
the OMB Director, FLETC, and the Assistant to the
President for Cabinet Affairs and Cabinet
Secretary. We received written comments on the
report from the Departments of Commerce,
Education, and Energy; FLETC; the Board of
Governors of the Federal Reserve System; the
Marshals Service; the Office of National Drug
Control Policy (ONDCP) of the Executive Office of
the President; the Secret Service; the Tennessee
Valley Authority (TVA); and the U.S. Agency for
International Development. We received oral
comments from the Federal Protective Service
(FPS); from OMB's General Counsel and from
security officials at the Department of
Agriculture (USDA), DOD and the Department of
Veterans Affairs (VA). The State Department, the
White House, and the remaining agencies that had
protected officials did not provide comments on
the report. The agencies that provided comments
generally agreed with the report's conclusions and
recommendations.
On June 23, OMB's General Counsel provided oral
comments on the draft report. He said that OMB
concurred with the recommendations, with three
conditions. First, he said that OMB would need
sufficient resources to conduct the assessment,
which could include retaining a panel of outside
experts. Second, OMB would need more time to
complete the assessment than the December 31,
2000, time frame that we proposed in our draft
report. And finally, the General Counsel said
that as an outcome of the assessment, OMB could
(1) develop the process and broad principles that
agencies should follow in determining whether and
how much protection should be provided to
executive branch officials and (2) address the
other issues that we recommended OMB should
assess. However, the General Counsel said that
OMB would not be in a position to determine
whether particular officials should be protected
or the level of protection they should receive.
We believe that OMB's comments are reasonable and
recognize that OMB would need sufficient resources
to conduct the assessment and that it may take
longer than December 31, 2000, to complete the
assessment. We revised the report to remove
mention of a specific time frame to complete the
assessment, but believe that the assessment should
be completed as soon as practical. Although we
did not recommend that OMB determine whether
particular officials should be protected or the
level of protection that should be provided, we
believe the specific information that we provided
in our classified report regarding the protection
of executive branch officials should be helpful to
OMB in its overall assessment. Further, we
believe that the process and principles that OMB
develops through its assessment should be helpful
to those executive branch officials who make and
review decisions regarding who should be protected
and how much protection they should receive, as
well as to Congress in carrying out its
legislative and oversight functions.
The Secret Service Director said the report
incorporated all of the relevant issues related to
security protection. The Director also said that
he firmly believed that one agency should be
responsible for the overall threat assessment of
all executive-level and Cabinet-level officials
and for the training of the personnel who protect
those officials. In addition, the Director said
that the Service leaves to the discretion of the
White House and OMB whether one agency or various
agencies should provide protection for all
executive and Cabinet-level officials.
The Marshals Service Director said that the draft
report was well researched and is a fair
assessment of the current state of executive level
personal protection. The Director also provided
some comments and clarifications regarding the
implications of standardizing and centralizing
threat assessments, the amount of training that
its protective personnel received, and the
potential conflict of interest involved in using
deputized U.S. Marshals in agencies' offices of
Inspectors General to provide protection. We
incorporated those comments and clarifications in
the report.
The Marshals Service also provided some additional
information about its legal authority to provide
protection, which we generally incorporated. The
Marshals Service cited an 1890 Supreme Court
decision as supporting its inherent authority to
provide personal protection to persons as directed
by the Attorney General to ensure the faithful
execution of federal law, even in the absence of a
specific federal authorizing statute. It also
cited a recent OLC memorandum as further
supporting its authority to protect agency
officials. The OLC memorandum concluded that
under federal statutes criminalizing attacks on
agency officials, the performance of protective
functions for agency heads falls within the
mandate of the Marshals Service.
We noted the Marshals Service's interpretation of
the Supreme Court decision in the report.
Although it is not clear to us that the Supreme
Court's 1890 decision should be interpreted as
authorizing the Marshals Service to protect
officials who are outside of the judicial branch
of government, we believe that the rationale of
the cited OLC opinion provides an adequate basis
for the Marshals Service's authority to perform
protective functions for executive branch
officials. The OLC memorandum also addressed the
use of protective personnel from agencies' offices
of Inspectors General. We have included an
excerpt from that memorandum in the final report.
We also revised our recommendation to OMB that it
assess whether agencies should be provided with
specific statutory authority to provide protection
to also include an assessment of whether statutory
authority to provide protection should be provided
to offices of Inspectors General.
The Secretary of Commerce said that the Commerce
Department was concerned about its lack of
specific statutory authority to provide protection
to the Secretary. He said that the Department
relies on Marshals Service deputation of security
specialists and that if the deputation is not
renewed after January 1, 2001, the Department
would be without authority. The Secretary said
that the Department would like to retain its
protective responsibilities and therefore supports
the establishment of appropriate legislative
authority. The Secretary also said that the
Department supports legislation that would
authorize the Secret Service to maintain a
repository of protective intelligence and share
the information with participating agencies.
The Secretary of Commerce also said the Department
supports the development of government standards
or criteria for training federal protective
personnel. He said that creating a standardized
protection training curriculum for non-law
enforcement agencies at FLETC or the Secret
Service's training facility in Beltsville, MD,
would significantly enhance the skills of the
Department's personnel. He added that a joint
agency training effort by the Secret Service,
Department of State, and the Marshals Service is a
viable option, but if a single agency is
designated as the training provider, the
Department believes the Secret Service is best
suited for that assignment. The Secretary also
said that the Department does not support the
centralization of Secretarial protection under one
agency. He said that as long as the Department
continues to receive external protective
intelligence and training support, it believes
that its security detail should be staffed from
within the Department, which would allow it to
have the flexibility and institutional knowledge
afforded by its own personnel.
The Department of Education's Executive Officer
said that the Department agreed with the
information contained in the report.
The Department of Energy's Director of the Office
of Security and Emergency and Operations said the
report was a thoughtful treatment of the major
issues facing federal executive protection
programs and that the Department was in complete
agreement with the issues raised in the report as
well as with the recommendations for addressing
them.
FLETC's Senior Associate Director, Washington
Operations, said that the report accurately
reflected the information provided by its
officials. FLETC indicated that although it does
not have the facilities, expertise, or funding to
conduct standard protection training, it does
offer several law enforcement courses that include
protection issues. In addition, FLETC noted that
the section of the report containing the agencies'
views on establishing a standardized protection
training program were statements of opinion and
priority related to the various needs and desires
of the agencies that were interviewed. FLETC said
that the agencies' statements should be considered
in light of the fact that they may be driven by
each agency's particular agenda.
We recognize that the security officials who
provided their views on the standardization issues
could be making statements on the basis of their
agencies' agendas, as FLETC indicated, or could be
affected by their personal interests. We
attempted to balance the security officials'
opinions with views from multiple sources,
including the protected officials and White House
officials.
The Staff Director for Management of the Board of
Governors of the Federal Reserve System said that
the Board generally concurred with the report's
conclusions and recommendations and emphasized
that it would like to continue protecting its own
officials. The Board said that protection is best
achieved when protective personnel are within the
agency's chain of command and are subject to its
rules of procedure. The Board also said that it
was concerned that the report indicated that the
Marshals Service may not renew the deputations of
protective personnel after January 1, 2001. The
Board said that nonrenewal of deputations would
eliminate the law enforcement powers of its
protective personnel and would make it impossible
for the agency to carry out its protective
responsibilities.
ONDCP's Deputy Chief of Staff said the Office did
not believe that centralizing security protection
under one agency is needed or beneficial. It said
that centralizing security protection would raise
too many questions about the scope and power the
single agency would have and would limit the
flexibility of high level appointed officials over
their own security needs. ONDCP said that if a
single agency were to assume responsibility for
protecting all Cabinet-level officials, a
substantial amount of funding and resources would
be required to accomplish this. Further, ONDCP
said that a standardized protection training
program and facility would be beneficial and
economical for the government, and it agreed with
the idea of establishing a protective intelligence
repository. ONDCP noted that Congress would need
to provide a protection training facility and
protective intelligence repository with sufficient
funding.
TVA's Chief Administrative Officer and Executive
Vice President, Business Services, said that TVA
concurred with the general consensus of the survey
results that agencies with sworn officers should
continue to provide protection for the
presidential appointees of their respective
agencies. The official also said that TVA agrees
with the agencies that recommended that the Secret
Service provide standardized training for
executive protection and develop a repository of
threat information for use by all federal agencies
with protective responsibilities. In addition, he
said that Congress should provide statutory
authority to agencies that provide executive
protection.
The U.S. Agency for International Development's
Acting Assistant Administrator, Bureau for
Management, said that the report represented a
balanced and thoughtful evaluation of the subject
and endorsed the recommendations.
In providing oral comments on the draft report,
the Special Agent in Charge, Investigative
Operations Division, Office of Inspector General,
at USDA said on June 27, 2000, that the report may
have inaccurately conveyed the impression that
appointed Cabinet officials did not face a serious
level of threat, compared to the level faced by
elected officials. This official said that the
Secretary of Agriculture had been described
recently in a national news report as being the
most attacked Cabinet-level official; has been
assaulted four times in recent years; and has been
the target of 78 written, verbal, and physical
threats since 1995. In addition, he said that in
January 1999, a heavily armed individual was
arrested for repeatedly threatening to use deadly
force against the Secretary or any other
government employee who attempted to foreclose on
his farm.58 With regard to the level of threat
faced by Cabinet officials, we note that the
report discusses (1) the finding of the Secret
Service's 1998 study that many attackers and would-
be attackers considered more than one target
before attacking, which suggests that high-ranking
government officials may become targets of attack
by potentially dangerous individuals who transfer
their focus among different government officials;
(2) the number of direct threats received against
executive branch officials during a 3-year period;
and (3) the views of the protected officials on
their need for protection.
The USDA official also said the Department
supported centralized protection training to
enhance the effectiveness of joint operations
conducted with other agencies. In addition, the
official asked that we note that the authority of
USDA's Office of Inspector General to provide
protection is based on a delegation of authority
from the Secretary of Agriculture set forth in the
Code of Federal Regulations, which we included in
the report.
In oral comments, the Assistant to the Secretary
of Defense for Personal Security said on June 16,
2000, that the Department generally agreed with
the content of the report and emphasized DOD's
opposition to centralizing security protection
services under one agency. This official said
that protecting DOD officials is unique and
indigenous to the defense environment and agenda.
He said that DOD protective personnel frequently
must operate in hostile fire zones and military
environments. Thus, he said these personnel are
selected, trained, and employed in much different
circumstances compared to what might be expected
for protective personnel of other top-level
federal officials. In addition, he said that the
same DOD personnel who protect the Department's
civilian officials also protect the senior
military leadership; and continuity of personnel,
training background, communications, and
operability is integral to the protective mission.
Further, the official said that DOD's protected
officials are satisfied with the quality and level
of protection being provided and that training and
development of the Department's protective
personnel is highly adequate. He said that the
protective support mechanism at DOD has been in
place for over 30 years and is considered to be
both highly effective and cost efficient.
The General Services Administration's (GSA) Deputy
Assistant Commissioner, Office of the Federal
Protective Service (FPS), said in oral comments on
June 16, 2000, that FPS provides protection to
thousands of government buildings, federal
courthouses, and their occupants; investigates
threats against public officials that occur within
GSA properties; protects officials when requested
by the threatened individuals or other federal law
enforcement agencies; and protects public
officials when the President, Vice President, and
other high-ranking officials visit federal
buildings. The FPS official said that if
centralized or specialized training for protective
personnel is developed, the agency would like that
training to be made available to its special
agents. In addition, he said that if legislation
is developed to correct any deficiencies in the
law, FPS would like its special agents to be
consulted and included in any corrective
legislation.
On June 8, 2000, the Deputy Assistant Secretary
for Security and Law Enforcement at VA provided
oral comments and said the report was fair and
candid, and he agreed with the recommendations.
This official was concerned about how the
Department's protective operations would be
affected if the Marshals Service did not renew the
deputations of VA's protective personnel after
Janaury 1, 2001. The official added that he
believed that agencies' offices of Inspectors
General should not be responsible for protecting
officials because of potential conflicts of
interest that could arise from having protective
and investigative responsibilities part of the
same office.
We modified the report to reflect some agencies'
concern that the Marshals Service may not renew
the deputations of their protective personnel
after January 1, 2001, and about whether potential
conflicts of interest existed between
investigative and protective responsibilities of
offices of Inspectors General. We also revised
our recommendation to OMB that it assess whether
agencies should be provided with specific
statutory authority to provide protection by
adding that the assessment should also include the
issues of whether the renewal of Marshal Service
deputations of agencies' protective personnel
should continue and whether statutory authority to
provide protection should be provided to offices
of Inspectors General.
Agencies' comments generally supported the
report's conclusions, which indicated that a
standardized security protection training program
could help to ensure effective coordination of
protection when protective personnel from multiple
agencies are working at the same events. In
addition, USDA, the Secret Service, ONDCP, and TVA
specifically mentioned their support for
centralizing or standardizing protection training
in their comments. Therefore, we included in our
recommendation to OMB that it also assess the
extent to which training should be standardized.
With regard to the several agencies that indicated
in their comments that they believed security
protection services should continue to be provided
in the current, decentralized fashion, we believe
that OMB should consider those views, as well as
the government's overall security and financial
interests.
As agreed with the Subcommittee, unless you
publicly announce its contents earlier, we plan no
further distribution of this report until 30 days
after its issue date. At that time, we will send
copies of this report to the President; the
Honorable Jacob Lew, Director of OMB; Senator
Charles Schumer, Ranking Minority Member,
Subcommittee on Criminal Justice Oversight, Senate
Committee on the Judiciary; Representative Henry
Hyde, Chairman, and Representative John Conyers,
Ranking Minority Member of the House Committee on
the Judiciary; and to the heads of the agencies
covered in our review. Copies will be made
available to others upon request.
Key contributors were Robert G. Homan of the
General Government Division and Thomas J. Wiley
and Patrick F. Sullivan of the Office of Special
Investigations. Please contact me on (202) 512-
8387 or Robert Hast on (202) 512-7455 if you have
any questions about this report.
Sincerely yours,
Bernard L. Ungar
Director, Government Business
Operations Issues
Robert H. Hast
Acting Assistant Comptroller General
for Special Investigations
_______________________________
1 Security Protection: Costs of Services Provided
for Selected Cabinet Officials (GAO/GGD-95-50,
December 30, 1994).
2 A Secret Service official defined protective
intelligence as the programs and efforts that seek
to identify, assess, and manage persons and/or
groups who make or pose threats to public
officials.
3 A 1998 Marshals Service report, Hunters and
Howlers, Threats and Violence Against Federal
Judicial Officials in the United States, 1789-
1993, quoted a 1970 report on political violence
(commissioned by President Johnson after the
assassination of Robert F. Kennedy) indicating
that "the more powerful and prestigious the
office, the greater the likelihood of
assassination..[T]here is a much greater
likelihood that the occupant of or aspirant to an
elected public office will be the victim of an
assassination than will the occupant of an
appointed position, even though the position may
be a powerful one, such as Secretary of State,
Justice of the Supreme Court, or Attorney
General." In its report, the Marshals Service
said that "[t]wenty years later and three
assassinated federal judges later, it is doubtful
that the commission would change its conclusions."
4 Protective Intelligence and Threat Assessment
Investigations, U.S. Secret Service, July 1998.
One Cabinet secretary was identified in the study
as the victim of a near-lethal approacher-the
Secretary of State in the 1987 incident described
above. The study was funded by the National
Institute of Justice.
5 Under 3 U.S.C. 19, the line of presidential
succession is as follows: Vice President,
Speaker of the House of Representatives, President
pro tempore of the Senate, Secretary of State,
Secretary of the Treasury, Secretary of Defense,
Attorney General, Secretary of the Interior,
Secretary of Agriculture, Secretary of Commerce,
Secretary of Labor, Secretary of Health and Human
Services, Secretary of Housing and Urban
Development, Secretary of Transportation,
Secretary of Energy, Secretary of Education, and
the Secretary of Veterans Affairs.
6 We counted each of the Cabinet departments and
their respective agencies separately in the total
number of agencies. Several positions were held by
different individuals during the 3-year period, so
we counted the number of protected positions, not
officials.
7 Another agency had a private security firm on
retainer if it needed additional protective
services.
8 Many of the agencies reported using employees,
mainly in the field, to assist in providing
protection as part of their collateral duties.
9 This included four departments with full-time
protective personnel and six departments that used
personnel who provided protection as part of their
collateral duties. The 1994 report excluded data
on protection provided at the Departments of
Defense, Justice, State, and the Treasury.
10 In 1986, we reported that 15 agencies (including
8 of the 10 Cabinet departments in the 1994
report) indicated they spent a total of $1.6
million to protect officials in each of fiscal
years 1984 and 1985, and estimated they would
spend $1.6 million in fiscal year 1986. (In 1999
dollars, the value of $1.6 million in 1984 would
be $2.4 million, and the value of $1.6 million in
1985 and 1986 would be $2.3 million.) See
Bodyguard Services: Protective Services Provided
Selected Federal Officials (GAO/GGD-86-55FS, Feb.
28, 1986). The 1986 report excluded the costs of
protecting officials at the Departments of
Defense, State, and the Treasury.
11 5 U.S.C., App. 3.
12 5 U.S.C. 301.
13 The November 27, 1972, letter from Secretary of
the Treasury George Shultz to all Cabinet heads
renewed an offer to have the Secret Service
provide training for the departments' protective
personnel. The memo also indicated that following
a discussion at the White House, "it was decided
that each Department would provide and maintain a
protective force, composed of their own employees.
At the same time the President offered the
assistance of [the] Secret Service in making
available a protective training course for
applicable personnel from other Departments.."
14 The December 1, 1970, memorandum from White
House Counsel John Dean to a Cabinet department
indicated that the Secret Service planned to
conduct a training session for executive
departments' protective personnel.
15 Special Deputy U.S. Marshals are appointed
pursuant to 28 U.S.C. 561 (g) (the Marshals
Service "shall command all necessary assistance to
execute its duties" and 28 C.F.R. 0.112. See also
7 OLC 86 (1983). Special Deputy U.S. Marshals are
sworn and appointed to perform specific functions
and have federal law enforcement authority to
perform those functions. According to Marshals
Service policy directive 99-13, issued February 5,
1999, deputized U.S. Marshals may, among other
things, seek and execute arrest and search
warrants; make arrests without warrant if there
are reasonable grounds to believe that the person
to be arrested has committed or is committing a
violation of federal law; serve subpoenas and
other legal writs; and carry firearms for personal
protection or the protection of persons covered
under the federal assault statutes. However, the
policy also states that agency personnel who
receive special deputation for personal protection
do not have general arrest authority. The policy
directive also indicates that applicants for
deputation must, among other requirements, be
employed by a federal, state, or local law
enforcement agency or an agency approved by the
Department of Justice; have successfully completed
a basic law enforcement program; have previous law
enforcement experience; qualify with firearms; and
agree to comply with the sponsoring agencies' or
the Department of Justice's policy on use of
deadly force.
16 Under 7 C.F.R. 2.33 (a)(2), the Secretary of
Agriculture delegated authority to protect the
Secretary and Deputy Secretary to the Department's
Office of Inspector General.
17 28 U.S.C. 566 (a), (e)(1)(B).
18 Under 28 U.S.C. 566(a), the Marshals Service
provides for the "security" of the U.S. District
Courts, U.S. Court of Appeals, and the Court of
International Trade. Under 28 U.S.C. 566
(e)(1)(A), the Marshals Service may protect
"Federal jurists, court officers, witnesses, and
other threatened persons in the interests of
justice where criminal intimidation impedes on the
functioning of the judicial process or any other
official proceeding." In addition, under 18
U.S.C. 3053, U.S. Marshals may carry firearms and
make arrests without warrants for "any offense
against the United States committed in their
presence, or for any felony cognizable under the
laws of the United States if they have reasonable
grounds to believe that the person to be arrested
has committed or is committing such felony."
19 The case is Cunningham v. Neagle, 135 U.S. 1
(1890).
20 March 23, 2000, memorandum from Daniel Koffsky,
Acting Deputy Assistant Attorney General, to
Deborah Westbrook, General Counsel, U.S. Marshals
Service.
21 Under 18 U.S.C. 3056, the Secret Service may
protect the President, Vice President (or other
official next in the order of succession to the
President), the President-elect, the Vice
President-elect, former presidents, and their
immediate families; visiting heads of foreign
states or foreign governments; "other
distinguished foreign visitors to the United
States and official representatives of the United
States performing special missions abroad" when
directed by the President; and major presidential
and vice presidential candidates. Under this same
statute, the President, Vice President (or other
official next in the order of succession to the
President), the President-elect, and the Vice
President-elect may not decline this protection.
22 Under 22 U.S.C. 2709, the State Department may
protect the Secretary of State, the Deputy
Secretary of State, official representatives of
the U.S. Government in the United States or
abroad; heads of a foreign state; official
representatives of a foreign government; "other
distinguished visitors to the United States;" and
to the immediate families of all of the preceding;
and foreign missions within the United States.
23 54 Comp. Gen. 624 (1975), as modified, 55 Comp.
Gen. 578 (1975).
24 The official in charge of security protection at
that agency said that the Marshals Service
deputations of his personnel had not yet been
renewed because the Marshals Service had imposed a
new requirement that the personnel receive law
enforcement training, which some of his personnel
had not received. This official said that he
planned to have these personnel receive this
training.
25 Marshals Service policy provides different
periods of expiration for special deputation.
Deputation for Special Agents employed by Offices
of Inspectors General and federal security and
protection agencies expires after 3 years.
26 Protective Intelligence and Threat Assessment
Investigations, U.S. Secret Service, July 1998.
27 Air Force Office of Special Investigations
Policy Manual 71-123, Volume 2, February 18, 1997.
28 We have also stressed the government's need to
prepare thorough risk assessments with respect to
combating terrorism and information security as a
means of ensuring that expenditures are justified.
See Combating Terrorism: Need for Comprehensive
Threat and Risk Assessments of Chemical and
Biological Attacks (GAO/NSIAD-99-163, Sept. 14,
1999); Combating Terrorism: Threat and Risk
Assessments Can Help Prioritize and Target Program
Investments (GAO/NSIAD-98-74, April 9, 1998);
Combating Terrorism: Spending on Governmentwide
Programs Requires Better Management and
Coordination (GAO/NSIAD-98-39, Dec. 1, 1997) and
Information Security Risk Assessment: Practices
of Leading Organizations (GAO/AIMD-00-33,
Nov.1999).
29 Protective Intelligence and Threat Assessment
Investigations, U.S. Secret Service, July 1998.
30 Proposed legislation in the 106th Congress, H.R.
3048, would authorize the Secret Service to
establish a National Threat Assessment Center to
facilitate the sharing of threat information by
federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies
with protective responsibilities. This bill
passed the House of Representatives on June 26,
2000.
31 The Network held its first meeting in February
2000. It held a second meeting in April 2000 to
share protective intelligence relating to, among
other things, the International Monetary Fund and
World Bank meeting in Washington, D.C.
32 Security officials at two additional agencies
suggested that the Secret Service administer the
repository with the FBI. A security official at
one of those agencies said administering the
repository should be an interagency effort.
33 Twenty-four of the 27 agencies reported that
their primary protective personnel received basic
military or law enforcement training. At 1 of the
agencies that employed security specialists to
provide protection as collateral duties, 4 of the
12 employees had not received basic military or
law enforcement training. At another agency, two
of the three security specialists had not received
basic military or law enforcement training.
34 DSS is the State Department bureau responsible
for providing security protection.
35 The Navy's protective personnel also receive
their protection training from the Army.
36 Seven other agencies offered initial or
refresher training that lasted between 2 days to 3
weeks.
37 The California Highway Patrol protects
California state officials.
38 One agency said that it assists the Secret
Service every 4 years in protecting presidential
candidates. This agency reported that in 1998,
450 of its criminal investigators received 2 days
of protection training, and 12 criminal
investigators received 7 days of protection
training from the Secret Service. The agency
indicated that these personnel are also used to
help protect its top official when that official
travels outside of Washington, D.C. That agency
also reported that all of its criminal
investigators receive 8 hours of protection
training as part of their basic training.
39 At one of these three agencies, the official in
charge of protection indicated that these field
agents had received Special Weapons and Tactics
(SWAT) training, which he considered to suffice as
protection training.
40 Over half of the agencies said they required
their protective personnel to requalify with
firearms proficiency at least quarterly.
41 Report of the Secretary of State's Advisory
Panel on Overseas Security, ("The Inman Report"),
June 1985.
42 Law Enforcement in a New Century and a Changing
World: Improving the Administration of Federal
Law Enforcement, Commission on the Advancement of
Federal Law Enforcement, January 2000.
43 Security officials at four additional agencies
suggested that the Secret Service conduct a
standardized protection training program with
other agencies, including the State Department,
the Marshals Service, and FLETC.
44 Security officials at two additional agencies
suggested that the State Department conduct a
standardized protection training program with
other agencies, including the Secret Service and
FLETC.
45 The Secret Service said it also provides
protection for other officials using fewer
resources than those used to protect the
President, such as for former presidents.
46 FLETC is a Treasury agency that conducts law
enforcement training for 73 federal agencies.
47 The State Department official said the
Department would need to add about 15 full-time
equivalents to provide this training for other
federal agencies if it were a FLETC program with
input from State.
48 The State Department uses office space in Dunn
Loring, VA, for classroom instruction and a
privately owned facility in Summit Point, WV, for
its practical protection and driving training.
49 This official said that the actual costs of
developing the Indian Head site are unknown and
could be higher. A State Department budget
official said that $30 million for the
antiterrorism facility was included in the
President's fiscal year 2001 budget submission.
50 We judgmentally selected these six agencies to
provide a mix of jurisdictions with small, medium,
and large populations.
51 One agency that protected an official during
fiscal years 1997, 1998, and part of 1999, before
those protective responsibilities were transferred
to another agency, said it favored standardizing
security protection under one agency because it
would result in uniformity of training, equipment,
and radio frequencies.
52 This agency reimburses the Marshals Service for
the cost of providing protective services.
53 The official said that with the change in the
administration next year, the next head of that
agency may choose to be protected, as previous
heads of that agency had.
54 We chose these five countries because they were
also democratic, industrialized nations and
because we had contacts with the police liaison
officers in their embassies.
55 March 23, 2000, memorandum from Daniel Koffsky,
Acting Deputy Assistant Attorney General, to
Deborah Westbrook, General Counsel, U.S. Marshals
Service.
56 We sent letters to 33 officials who were
protected from fiscal years 1997 through 1999 and
were still serving in office during our review.
We asked that if the officials designated someone
on their immediate staffs to respond, they not be
directly involved in the officials' protection.
Four of the officials met with us or sent us
letters directly, and 17 officials responded to us
through their designees.
57 An aide to one agency head said that his agency
lacked the personnel and proper training to
effectively protect that official on a continuous
basis, but U.S. Marshals were used to augment
protection when needed. An aide to another
official who had been protected temporarily by the
Federal Protective Service (FPS) because that
official's agency had no protective personnel said
the agency probably would use FPS in the future if
needed. However, an FPS official said that it did
not have the resources to provide protection on a
regular basis. Another protected official said
that he was "personally unaware" of whether his
agency's protective personnel have adequate
resources, training, legal authorities, and access
to intelligence.
58 According to the Agriculture Department, this
individual pled guilty to felony charges and
served 13 months in a federal psychiatric
facility.
Appendix I
Scope and Methodology
Page 47GAO/GGD/OSI-00-139 Protection of Executive
Branch Officials
We initiated this review by sending questionnaires
to all executive branch agencies and departments
asking whether any of their officials received
security protection from fiscal years 1997 through
1999 and, if so, who protected them.1 We then
contacted security officials from the agencies
that provided the protection and asked them to
complete detailed questionnaires about their legal
authorities to provide protection; threat
assessment procedures; the circumstances and type
of protection provided; number and training of
protective personnel; security equipment; costs of
protection; and views on standardization and
centralization of security protection threat
assessment, training, and protection services. We
did not obtain information on the protection of
the President, Vice President, Central
Intelligence Agency officials, U.S. ambassadors to
other countries, uniformed military officials, or
officials working in the judicial or legislative
branches of government.
For background information on security protection
for federal officials, we reviewed relevant
reports issued by GAO, the Department of Justice,
Secret Service, State Department, Congressional
Research Service, Marshals Service, and Commission
on the Advancement of Law Enforcement. We also
reviewed historical literature on assassinations
and assassination attempts against federal
officials. In addition, we analyzed the legal
authorities that the agencies cited for providing
security protection and related legislative
material.
For comparison purposes, we also contacted
security officials from five other countries to
determine whether their top officials received
security protection and, if so, who protected
them. We obtained information from those
countries because they were also democratic,
industrialized nations and because we had contacts
with the police liaison officers in their
embassies. We also contacted law enforcement
agencies in 4 states and 2 large cities. These
six agencies were judgmentally selected to provide
a mix of jurisdictions with small, medium, and
large populations. We recognize that this
information is not projectable to all countries,
states, or cities. In addition, we contacted the
National Governors' Security Association (NGSA) to
ask about protection training needs because NGSA
represented security officials involved in
protecting governors in all 50 states.
To determine the costs of protecting federal
officials, we asked agencies to provide data on
salaries, overtime, and travel of protective
personnel; special executive protection training;
equipment; and residential security costs. We
asked the agencies to provide costs in these
categories, based on records of actual costs
incurred in those categories, or estimates if
actual cost data were not available. Agencies
that used part-time staff to protect their
officials were asked to provide the number of
protective personnel used, by fiscal year, and to
provide prorated shares of their salaries based on
timekeeping records or estimates of the amount of
time spent on protection. We included the
salaries of the protectees' drivers if they were
members of the protection unit, were law
enforcement personnel, or had received special
protection-related driving training.
We asked agencies to provide information on travel
expenses (per diem and transportation expenses)
incurred by security personnel while protecting
officials and to include the cost of vehicles only
if the protectees were transported in armored
vehicles. In instances when Department of Defense
(DOD) officials were transported in DOD aircraft,
agencies did not report their operating costs.
Instead, DOD reported only the costs incurred by
protective personnel traveling on commercial
carriers.
Training costs included tuition and related travel
expenses for specialized, executive protection
courses. Costs for residential security consisted
of expenses incurred for the installation of
command posts and security systems and security
system monitoring. Agencies also reported other
costs for security equipment acquired during the
period, such as radios and ammunition, which we
included. We did not verify the accuracy of the
cost data provided. In this report, we report the
aggregate costs of protection governmentwide. We
did not report the costs incurred by specific
agencies to avoid compromising their security.
With regard to threat assessment procedures, we
reviewed the threat assessments that seven
agencies2 had prepared regarding their protected
officials to determine what factors were
considered. We also collected data from agencies
about the number of direct threats that their
officials had received during the 3-year period.
We defined direct threats as threats of direct
physical harm, kidnapping, and extortion.
To assess what training federal protective
personnel had received, we asked agencies to
provide specific information on what training
their protective personnel had received, including
the training providers, names of the courses,
dates when the courses were taken, and the number
of course hours. We also asked a random sample of
four agencies that did not have security
protection as one of their primary missions what
subjects they believed a standardized training
protection program should include. We also
visited the Secret Service's training facility in
Beltsville, MD; the State Department's Diplomatic
Security Service's facilities in Dunn Loring, VA,
and Summit Point, WV; and the Federal Law
Enforcement Training Center (FLETC) in Glynco, GA,
to observe their executive protection training and
review their training curricula.
We reported on the implications of standardizing
threat assessment, training, and protection
services by asking each of the agencies providing
protection for their views on these issues and
from using our own analysis of the data provided.
In addition, we sent letters to 33 officials who
received security protection during fiscal years
1997 through 1999 and were still serving in those
positions during our review. In our letters to
the protected officials, we asked whether they
believed that security protection should be
provided automatically to the persons hold their
positions, and why or why not. In addition, we
asked them whether they believed their protective
personnel had adequate resources, training, legal
authorities, and access to protective intelligence
to protect them. For those protected officials
who were not protected by one of the agencies with
security protection as a primary mission (Secret
Service, Marshals Service, and State Department's
Diplomatic Security Service), we asked whether
they believed it would be better to be protected
by one of those agencies, and why or why not. We
asked these officials whether they would like to
meet with us without their security staffs to
discuss their protection, designate someone such
as their Chiefs of Staff who was not directly
involved in their protection to meet with us, or
provide comments in writing. Twenty-one of 33
protected officials, or their designees, met with
us or responded in writing to our letters. We
also met with White House officials to ask about
the administration's policy on security protection
for Cabinet officials.
We did our work from September 1999 through May
2000 in the Washington, D.C., area; Beltsville,
MD; Summit Point, WV; and Glynco, GA, in
accordance with generally accepted government
auditing standards. Our investigative work was
done in accordance with investigative standards
established by the President's Council on
Integrity and Efficiency. We provided a draft of
this report to each agency that provided
protection services or had officials who were
protected during fiscal years 1997 through 1999,
the Director of the Office of Management and
Budget, the Assistant to the President for Cabinet
Affairs and Cabinet Secretary, and the FLETC
Director.
_______________________________
1 We obtained information that an agency that was
abolished in December 1999 protected two of its
officials during fiscal years 1997 through 1999,
but we were unable to obtain cost information or
views on security standardization issues from that
agency because it no longer exists. Therefore,
this report contains a discussion of information
about protected officials from 31 agencies, rather
than 32, regarding 42 officials, rather than 44.
We also refer to views obtained from security
officials at 27 agencies that provided protection,
rather than 28. Some agencies protected more than
one official. We counted officials who had been
protected at least on one occasion during that 3-
year period lasting at least 1 day.
2 These were the seven agencies in our review that
had prepared detailed, written threat assessments
regarding protected officials.
Appendix II
Comments From the Secret Service
Page 50GAO/GGD/OSI-00-139 Protection of Executive
Branch Officials
Appendix III
Comments From the Marshals Service
Page 53GAO/GGD/OSI-00-139 Protection of Executive
Branch Officials
Enclosure not included.
Appendix IV
Comments From the Department of Commerce
Page 55GAO/GGD/OSI-00-139 Protection of Executive
Branch Officials
Appendix V
Comments From the Department of Education
Page 56GAO/GGD/OSI-00-139 Protection of Executive
Branch Officials
Appendix VI
Comments From the Department of Energy
Page 57GAO/GGD/OSI-00-139 Protection of Executive
Branch Officials
Appendix VII
Comments From the Federal Law Enforcement Training
Center
Page 59GAO/GGD/OSI-00-139 Protection of Executive
Branch Officials
Appendix VIII
Comments From the Board of Governors of the
Federal Reserve System
Page 61GAO/GGD/OSI-00-139 Protection of Executive
Branch Officials
Appendix IX
Comments From the Office of National Drug Control
Policy
Page 63GAO/GGD/OSI-00-139 Protection of Executive
Branch Officials
Appendix X
Comments From the Tennessee Valley Authority
Page 64GAO/GGD/OSI-00-139 Protection of Executive
Branch Officials
Appendix XI
Comments From the U.S. Agency for International
Development
Page 65GAO/GGD/OSI-00-139 Protection of Executive
Branch Officials
*** End of Document ***