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Editorials
Friday, February 11, 2000Security lapses have
become intolerableSECURITY lapses are a perennial problem in the federal government, but nothing in recent memory can match the latest series of failures. One of the most stunning reports went right to the top -- to the director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Director John Deutch, it has been learned, stored highly secret documents on an unsecured home computer that was connected to the Internet. This was not discovered until Deutch left the agency in December 1996.The issue: A recent series of security failures has aroused concern in Congress.
The Deutch scandal is only one of several embarrassments. First there were the reports about lax controls over technology exports to China. These were followed by the alleged mishandling of nuclear secrets at the Los Alamos nuclear weapons lab, leading to the indictment of a dismissed Los Alamos scientist for improper computer behavior, with the implication that he had fed secrets to China.
In December, a listening device was found at the State Department in a seventh-floor conference room. This led to the expulsion of a Russian who had been sitting in his car outside the department monitoring the transmissions.
An internal inspector's general report found that the State Department had allowed visitors, contractors and maintenance workers to walk through its building unescorted. Then it was learned that a Pentagon review board had granted security clearances to employees of defense contractors with histories of criminal convictions, financial problems and drug abuse.
Last week it was disclosed that Deutch still held Pentagon security clearances. He had been stripped of his CIA clearances last summer after it was discovered he had classified documents on his home computer. On Tuesday Deutch requested that the Pentagon clearances be withdrawn.
Clearly there is cause for concern about this series of fiascoes. Now the Senate Intelligence Committee will investigate whether there was a cover-up of the Deutch affair by his successor as CIA director, George Tenet. Chairman Richard Shelby, R-Ala., said the CIA's own internal review indicated that Deutch was "treated with kid gloves."
Meanwhile the CIA announced it had requested its own new investigation into the matter, by a presidentially appointed panel that oversees the intelligence community. Other investigations are planned by the Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee on international operations and by the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Rep. Porter J. Goss, R-Fla., chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, contends there's a thread running through all of these security lapses, and others. It's what he calls "a culture of disdain about security" that he claims has marked the Clinton administration from the beginning. Whoever is at fault, the problems can no longer be ignored or tolerated.
Public safety
STATE Auditor Marion Higa has issued a report finding that public safety has been compromised by inadequate record-keeping by the state prison system, an accusation that state Public Safety Director Ted Sakai denies. Sakai has answered Higa's accusations in detail; Higa says only that she stands by her audit. Legislative hearings should be conducted to resolve this conflict and maintain public confidence in the prison system.
Higa's most serious accusation seems to be that the system has done a poor job at keeping track of things -- keys that could be used to breach security, weapons and tools that could be turned into weapons. Sloppy record-keeping in such areas could have dangerous consequences.
When it comes to details, however, the picture becomes hazy. For example, Higa says 10 of 120 randomly selected firearms could not be accounted for in the prison's books. Sakai ordered a review of the weapons inventory and found that only two guns were missing, one since 1970 and the other for 10 years.
Sakai said records indicated that some tools were missing because they had been thrown away. He said keys that the audit had shown to be missing were not crucial to security but were used to enter such places as a food hatch, with scant potential for harm.
The Public Safety director agrees that improvement of the system's bookkeeping system is needed. "We acknowledge that we have some administrative problems," he said, "but these administrative problems don't justify their findings that public safety is jeopardized." He pointed out that inmates always are searched after seeing visitors and before being allowed to leave areas where tools are available. They are also subject to periodic room inspections.
Bookkeeping problems may not necessarily result in a breakdown of security, but can complicate administration of a system with many real troubles. The Legislature should demand that measures are taken to correct those deficiencies before they do serious damage.
Published by Liberty Newspapers Limited PartnershipRupert E. Phillips, CEO
John M. Flanagan, Editor & Publisher
David Shapiro, Managing Editor
Diane Yukihiro Chang, Senior Editor & Editorial Page Editor
Frank Bridgewater & Michael Rovner, Assistant Managing Editors
A.A. Smyser, Contributing Editor
