The bipartisan leaders of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee have asked GAO to evaluate how well agencies have been assessing the risks to their buildings.
More than 30 federal agencies, including the Federal Protective Service in DHS have some responsibility for security of non-defense facilities—DoD has its own separate authority–but it is unclear how they apply standards developed by the Interagency Security Committee to conduct periodic risk assessments, they said in requesting the study.
Those assessments are designed to determine whether a facility has sufficient measures and if not, to identify the best response, such as active patrols, use of identification badges, and physical improvements such as blast-proof windows and intrusion detection systems.
The letter asked GAO to look into the extent to which agencies conduct assessments in compliance with those standards, what countermeasures they use in response to perceived weaknesses, the challenges they face in doing so, what the committee could do to improve compliance, and related questions.
