BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: They are the agencies that help make up the very first line of defense when it comes to U.S. national security: the Department of Justice, the FBI, the CIA, just to name a few. And according to the latest results of a clandestine test, they are alarmingly vulnerable. CNN Justice correspondent Pierre Thomas, more now on the undercover testing of some of the nation's most sensitive sites and the failing marks that will be reported to Congress a bit later today. Pierre, hello.</s>PIERRE THOMAS, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Bill, the exercise was quite stunning for some of the law enforcement and government agencies. The GAO officers, general accounting officers, posed as agents and also as police officers. This apparently took some of the security officials by surprise and they simply walked in. This morning, the attorney general of the United States acknowledged that security is an ongoing issue.</s>JANET RENO, ATTORNEY GENERAL: We must review the processes which we have done, see what can be done to prevent it, but also to recognize that there is just so much you can do if you have people who are -- who understand how the system works, understand some of the issues and try to do it in a very intentional, very methodical way.</s>THOMAS: Well, the congressional investigators apparently understand things very well. They were able to get up to the attorney general's suite of offices; also the suite of offices for the defense secretary -- Bill.</s>HEMMER: Pierre, we've heard about breaches at the State Department in recent months. What prompted this clandestine test, to go in and test the security measures there?</s>THOMAS: We understand that a congressional subcommittee on crime was concerned about the use of fake IDs to get into government facilities. So they asked the General Accounting Office to devise a plan to see just how vulnerable the nation's government offices were. The General Accounting Office came up with a plan, implemented it, and we see the results: 19 federal buildings throughout Washington penetrated.</s>HEMMER: And we can assume more fallout from that. Pierre Thomas in Washington. Pierre, thank you.
Investigators Penetrate 19 Federal Buildings in Clandestine Test