We found that from the issuance of the OIG’s March 2004 report through October 2006, the USMS’s efforts to improve its capabilities to assess reported threats and identify potential threats languished. Threat assessments took longer to complete, and over half of the threats reported by USMS districts remained pending as of October 1, 2006. Also, the USMS did not implement an effective program to develop protective intelligence that identifies potential threats against the judiciary. The USMS acknowledges these deficiencies and plans to revise its threat assessment process. During this review, the USMS also informed the OIG of numerous initiatives it plans to implement by FY 2010 to enable it to collect and analyze information on potential threats to the judiciary.

Also since our March 2004 report, the USMS has implemented several security measures to protect the federal judiciary. The USMS has implemented a congressionally authorized home alarm program and worked with a contractor that installed about 95 percent of the home alarms requested by federal judges. The USMS is also enhancing its TOG and developing a Rapid Deployment Team program to support the judicial security mission.

We believe that to fulfill its critical mission of protecting the judiciary, the USMS must exhibit a greater sense of urgency in implementing its plans for improving its capability to assess reported threats, creating and sharing protective intelligence on potential threats, and completing the implementation of enhanced security measures.

To improve the USMS’s capacity to protect the federal judiciary, we recommend that the USMS take the following actions:

1. Develop a formal plan that defines objectives, tasks, milestones, and resources for the new threat assessment process.

2. Create a workload tracking system for threat assessments.

3. Develop a formal plan that defines objectives, tasks, milestones, and resources for implementing a protective intelligence function to identify potential threats.

4. Modify USMS databases to support the new threat assessment process and protective intelligence function to identify potential threats.

5. Require the home alarm contractor to notify the USMS of alarm events after notifying the local law enforcement agency.

6. Issue operational guidance for requesting and deploying Technical Operations Group resources and Rapid Deployment Teams.