U.S. government facilities may be at risk because of "staffing and operational issues" within the Federal Protective Service, according to a preliminary report released today by the Government Accountability Office.

"In many federal facilities FPS is not currently providing proactive patrol to detect and prevent criminal incidents and terrorist attacks before they occur," the report says.

Government auditors report that the number of people who work for this branch of the Homeland Security Department, which is responsible for protecting 8,800 federal facilities, has fallen by nearly 20% since 2004.

"FPS has also reduced its hours of operation in many locations and has not always maintained security countermeasures and equipment such as security cameras, magnetometers, x-ray machines, radios, building security assessment equipment, and access control systems at some facilities we visited," the GAO report says.

"For example, at one location we visited, a deceased individual had been found, after three months, in a vacant GSA facility that was not regularly patrolled by FPS," the reviewers write.

http://blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadline/2008/02/dead-body-sat-u.html