CHICAGO — Fifteen years ago, an American militia sympathizer four days shy of his 27th birthday drove a Ryder truck into the parking complex of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. Timothy McVeigh and passenger Terry Nichols were neither halted by security for clearance, nor approached after they parked the truck and walked away – to a different car.
Days after the Ryder’s deadly contents destroyed the Murrah (and 168 people within), the U.S. government began to rethink the security of its federal buildings. In October 1995, former President Bill Clinton created the Interagency Security Committee to standardize rules for nationwide federal-facility security.
The ISC, which since Sept. 11, 2001, has been branched under the Department of Homeland Security, comprises security officers and executives from 45 federal agencies and makes decisions about improving building safety.
To coincide with the Oklahoma City bombing’s 15th anniversary, DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano announced two new federal-building-protection standards: the Physical Security Criteria for Federal Facilities and the Design-Basis Threat Report.
“These standards leverage over a decade of collaboration and research by experts across the federal government to establish adaptable security measures that will better secure our federal infrastructure,” said Napolitano in an April 12 press release.
The specific details of the new initiatives have not been released to the public. Basically, every federal facility is to implement security measures based on the new physical security criteria (which apply to site, structure, facility entrance, interior, security equipment and administration) and the new threat report, which establishes a profile of the type, composition and capabilities of potential terrorists.
The day after Napolitano’s announcement, the Government Accountability Office released a report evaluating one aspect of federal building security: the Federal Protective Service’s (also under DHS) contract security guard program. Federal agents visited six out of the 11 regions in the U.S. that employ contract guards. Part of the findings showed that many of the guards lacked training, particularly in regard to X-ray machines and metal detectors: In some cases, undercover officers were able to pass security checks with fake guns in their pockets and fake explosives in their briefcases.
The GAO concluded that there needs to be more oversight and a reassessment of this program. The FPS has a budget of $1 billion. In 2009, $659 million went to its guard program, which employs about 15,000 security guards at 2,360 federal facilities across the U.S, according to the report
Because the details of federal building security plans are confidential, it’s unclear whether the GAO’s findings will be incorporated into the new standards. Requests for comment from DHS were not returned by press time.
There are more than 9,000 government facilities in the U.S., according to FPS. Charles Paidock works in one such building: the John C. Kluczynski Federal Building in downtown Chicago.
Paidock – who works for the General Services Administration as a national administrator to federal employees – says that when he started in 1980, there was very little security at the Kluczynski, which houses offices for Air Force recruitment, passport issuance, the Internal Revenue Service, state senators, and an underground post office.
“You could just walk in,” he says.
He doesn’t remember much heightened security after the 1995 bombing in Oklahoma City, but everything changed after 9/11.
“There’s guys with uniforms that weren’t there before,” Paidock says. “As employees we’re issued special cards. They were re-issued recently. Now we have high-tech ones that show our data and information.”
There are also security cameras throughout the exterior and interior of the building and a barrier was constructed around the building. All visitors must enter through metal detectors. When President Obama, who used to work in the Kluczynski as a senator, first became president-elect, even employees had to go through the detectors, Paidock said.
“Oklahoma City was disconcerting to us understandably,” Paidock says. “But you can’t really seal off a public building. One thousand people come in and out of here every day. We have to serve the public.”
August Vernon, assistant coordinator and operations officer at the County Office of Emergency Management in Norh Carolina, says all federal buildings are vulnerable to a host of devastating threats – some from the forces of nature and others from individuals who wish to harm the U.S. government. Vernon’s office plans for the prevention of such emergencies.
“The strategy is more awareness,” Vernon says. “[Before the Oklahoma City bombing], at a lot of federal buildings you could park right under the building and walk out. Now we don’t allow people to just pull in to the parking lot underneath the building.”
For the past 10 years with the OEM, Vernon has studied patterns that lead up to man-made disasters. In many incidents, Vernon says, shooters or bombers visit their targeted site beforehand, observing the building’s perimeters and questioning building attendants about security. Vernon’s office trains law enforcement and schools on ways to prevent these types of attacks – by taking notice to suspicious behavior.
Vernon’s office is part of the DHS’s vast network of federal security, which for the next two years will be implementing the new facility-protection standards. In 2012, DHS will evaluate the efficacy of its security programs, largely through field testing.
