I am a contract guard but I won't say where. We are hired by a contractor not the Federal Protection Service. That is the root of the problem. They need to get rid of the contracting companies and hire us as direct employees of the FPS. Much of the training is conducted by the managers of the contractors not FPS personnel, and the contracting managers do NOT take the training seriously! I have run the X-ray machine at my location, and have never been trained on it.

The scope of the training does not include day-to-day situations that I might encounter on the job and how to respond to them. Contract managers won't tell you how to respond to different scenarios so they maintain plausible deniability. Most managers can't even tell me what my specific duties are on any given post. They tell us to ask another guard.

You SERIOUSLY want to improve it, get rid of the contractors!

Shocking. How can they possibly smuggle bombs in without detection? Why don't they take these threats seriously?

I thought they told us Al-Quaeda was coming in through Mexico with suitcase bombs?

good work GAO

To beck & Scheurer: Your quote can now be modified:
"Only the GAO Can Save Us Now!!!"

Thank goodness Obama is protecting us! What a joke! He would rather attend global warming conferences than worry about protecting Americans from terrorism.

Civil Service employees are virtually UN-FIREABLE once gaining tenure (roughly three years), just like long term teachers and professors! Only the young get the boot!

Damn right federal buildings have grave security problems. The assholes inside them will do anything for money, just like Somali pirates.

Why do these buildings need security protection in the first place?

The beauty of them Governbment Contracts is they're virtually all Cost-Plus (if you know how to play the game). Like Health Insurance, everything costs more that way and that is the point.

Thank you Captain Obvious. We should put Marvin Bush in charge of security of all the nations building and force terrorists in the USA to present a "I'm carrying nano-thermite" card before they are allowed to blow up anything.

Solution: close them down or rent them to poor. Do not spend any more taxpayer's money on these cow-palaces.

If you keep on changing the guard the enemy will find a way to defeat you.

Is there anyone in the US that really cares if the government buildings along with most of the government just go away?