http://www.ft.com/cms/s/152f3264-f200-11db-b5b6-000b5df10621.html By Stephanie Kirchgaessner in Washington April 24 2007 The White House was yesterday accused by a senior Democratic congressman of systematically ignoring security breaches and violations involving classified material, including leaving "sensitive" classified information unattended in a hotel room. Henry Waxman, chairman of the House oversight committee, said interviews with current and former White House security personnel raised questions about alleged failures by the Bush administration to investigate security violations. In a letter to Andrew Card, former White House chief of staff, Mr Waxman asked him to testify voluntarily before the House committee for government reform. Mr Waxman's inquiry into White House security policies followed a hearing last month in which James Knodell, chief security officer at the White House, said his office had never conducted an internal investigation to identify who leaked the name of Valerie Plame,a former covert CIA agent, to several reporters. The matter was investigated by a special prosecutor at the Justice Department, Patrick Fitzgerald, who oversaw the conviction of Lewis "Scooter" Libby, a former aide to vice-president Dick Cheney, on obstruction and perjury charges. Mr Waxman said security officers told the House committee they were prohibited from conducting unannounced inspections of the White House's West Wing. The unnamed officials told Mr Waxman that, while security specialists had access to the West Wing during the Clinton administration, access was revoked by the Bush administration. In one case, an unnamed senior White House official instructed the security office to block inspection of the West Wing by officers of the Information Security Oversight office, which has authority to conduct inspections of all executive offices. Officials who spoke to Mr Waxman criticised Mr Knod-ell and his deputy, Ken Greeson, as "poor managers . . loath to inconvenience or embarrass White House officials". "I have to give Representative Waxman credit for persistence, if not creativity. We haven't arrived at any new policies to make Senior White House officials available to testify to Congress since Representative Waxman's previous letter. And I don't expect a new policy when we receive tomorrow's letter," the White House security said. Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007 __________________________ Subscribe to InfoSec News http://www.infosecnews.org
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