At a hearing earlier today, Norman Rabkin of the Government Accountability Office (GAO), Congress' investigative arm, testified (pdf) on GAO's problems accessing information at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), a part of the government that desperately needs solid oversight. From his testimony:
Unlike those of many other executive agencies, DHS’s processes for working with us includes extensive coordination among program officials, liaisons, and attorneys at the departmental and component levels and centralized control for all incoming GAO requests for information and outgoing documents. In an April 2004 directive on GAO relations, DHS established a department liaison to manage its relationship with us.
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At most federal agencies and in some cases within DHS, we obtain the information we need directly from program officials, often on the spot or very soon after making the request.
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...the process used in most of our interactions with DHS is layered and timeconsuming. As discussed earlier, we are asked to submit each request for documents to the component coordinator rather than directly to program officials even if we have already met with these officials. Also as mentioned earlier, the component coordinator often refers our request to component counsel. And the Assistant General Counsel for General Law in DHS’s General Counsel’s office may become involved. The result is that we often wait for months for information that in many cases could be provided immediately. In some cases, DHS does not furnish information until our review is nearly finished, greatly impeding our ability to provide a full and timely perspective on the program under review.
Rabkin then outlined two examples where DHS has hindered or delayed GAO research. He also said that GAO has "experienced delays with DHS components that include CBP, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), FEMA, and TSA on different types of work such as information sharing, immigration, emergency preparedness in primary and secondary schools, and accounting systems."
Earlier this year, my colleague John Pruett pointed out two hearings in February on this same issue where the following is adapted from. In one hearing, Richard Skinner, Inspector General for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and David Walker, Comptroller General with the Government Accountability Office (GAO), appeared before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee to discuss management and contract problems within DHS. The particular programs under scrutiny were the Secure Border Initiative (SBI) and Deepwater, but the hearing also highlighted more fundamental concerns about contracting and transparency in the Department.
In his written testimony (pdf) for another hearing in the House Homeland Security Committee, Walker stated:
...DHS has not made its management or operational decisions transparent enough so that Congress can be sure it is effectively, efficiently, and economically using the billions of dollars in funding it receives annually, and is providing the levels of security called for in numerous legislative requirements and presidential directives. Our work for Congress assessing DHS’s operations has been significantly hampered by long delays in granting us access to program documents and officials, or by questioning our access to information needed to conduct our reviews. We are troubled by the impact that DHS’s processes and internal reviews have had on our ability to assess departmental programs and operations. Given the problems we have experienced in obtaining access to DHS information, it will be difficult for us to sustain the level of oversight that Congress has directed and that is needed to effectively oversee the department, including the level of oversight needed to assess DHS’s progress in addressing the existing transformation, integration, and programmatic challenges identified in this statement.
Walker’s testimony further relates that these sort of impediments were encountered during his investigation of the Deepwater and SBI programs. An article by Chris Strohm for the publication CongressDaily looks at one of the main individuals at DHS behind both Skinner and Walker’s investigative difficulties:
Walker said the problem is "systemic" and not the fault of any single individual. But he complained that GAO has had to go through the office of General Counsel Philip Perry [POGO note: who the day of the first of the two February hearings mentioned above, moved back to his old law firm Latham & Watkins]. Perry is married to Elizabeth Cheney, a former State Department official who is one of the vice president's two daughters. Walker said it is his understanding that people from Perry's office have to review documents GAO seeks before they are released and selectively sit in on interviews with department employees.
"When you have more lawyers in a meeting than program people, you know you got a problem. Something needs to be done about this," Walker said. "There needs to be an understanding that if the general counsel's office is going to get involved, it's clearly got to be the exception rather than the rule," he added. "Right now the system is structured to delay, delay, delay ... We haven't had a situation where they refuse information but it might take months to get it."
Homeland Security Inspector General Richard Skinner said his investigations have also been hindered. "We're experiencing the same problem," said Skinner, who added his office is "oftentimes" told who they can interview and that it sometimes takes weeks to get documents.
The general counsel of an agency is meant to protect the integrity of the organization he works for, but not at the expense of accountability. It is possible that Perry, son-in-law of the Vice President, learned a thing or two from Cheney in keeping the GAO at bay.
-- Nick Schwellenbach
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