Senators warn, FBI and other agencies work in buildings owned by

Posted: Mar 4, 2017

Federal officials are putting sensitive materials in foreign-owned buildings, making them vulnerable to cyberattack and espionage, senators warned Friday. Their alarm bells were set off by a report that said the General Services Administration has been placing FBI agents and other "high-security" government officials in buildings owned by foreign entities in China and other countries. The GSA didn't tell the tenants, according to the government report, so the officials aren't taking addition security precautions. "Yet, in some cases the space is used for classified operations and to store sensitive data," Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., and Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., wrote in a Thursday letter to acting GSA Administrator Timothy Horne. "Given the highly sensitive information that is often stored at high-security leased sites, we are concerned with the lack of policies and procedures concerning the ownership of these sites." The foreign-owned buildings have national security and privacy implications, as they house agencies ranging from FBI and Drug Enforcement Agency field offices to a Social Security Administration office in Seattle, Wash. Even the U.S. Secret Service rents space from companies based in Germany and China, according to the Government Accountability Office, which is the research arm of Congress. ;