Committee on Governmental Affairs: Alleged Senate Compromise of NASA
Complainant's Identity (Letter Report, 07/01/94, GAO/OSI-94-30).

GAO was asked by the chairman of the Senate Committee on Governmental
Affairs to inquire into the alleged unauthorized disclosure of
nonclassified Committee-sensitive information to determine if the
chairman or a member of his staff compromised the identity of a National
Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) employee after the employee
reported to the committee allegations of wrongdoing by her employer, the
NASA Office of Inspector General. The NASA employee refused to cooperate
with the GAO investigation, limiting GAO in its ability to develop facts
relating to the allegation. This limitation, in addition to unresolved
conflicting testimony obtained during the investigation, made it
difficult to reach a definitive conclusion. However, GAO's investigation
found no credible evidence to support the allegation of the NASA
employee regarding unauthorized disclosure of information.

--------------------------- Indexing Terms -----------------------------

 REPORTNUM:  OSI-94-30
     TITLE:  Committee on Governmental Affairs: Alleged Senate 
             Compromise of NASA Complainant's Identity
      DATE:  07/01/94
   SUBJECT:  Computer security
             Confidential records
             Disclosure law
             Investigations into federal agencies
             Oversight of Congress
             Crimes or offenses
             Legal rights
             Inspectors General
             Whistleblowers

             
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Cover
================================================================ COVER


Report to the Chairman, Committee on Governmental Affairs, U.S. 
Senate

July 1994

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
- ALLEGED SENATE COMPROMISE OF
NASA COMPLAINANT'S IDENTITY

GAO/OSI-94-30

Alleged Senate Compromise of NASA Complainant Identity

(600352)


Abbreviations
=============================================================== ABBREV

  AIGI - Assistant Inspector General for Investigations
  GAO - General Accounting Office
  NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration
  PCIE - President's Council on Integrity and Efficiency
  OIG - Office of Inspector General
  OSI - Office of Special Investigations

Letter
=============================================================== LETTER


B-257750

July 1, 1994

The Honorable John Glenn
Chairman, Committee on Governmental Affairs
United States Senate

Dear Mr.  Chairman: 

This report responds to your April 21, 1994, request that we inquire
into the alleged unauthorized disclosure of nonclassified
Committee-sensitive information.  Specifically, you asked us to
determine if you or a member of your staff compromised the identity
of Ms.  Margaret Barnes after she reported to you what she perceived
as suspected wrongdoing by her employer, the National Aeronautics and
Space Administration (NASA), Office of Inspector General (OIG). 

In summary, because Ms.  Barnes refused to cooperate with our
investigation, we were limited in developing facts relating to the
allegation that you or a member of your personal staff or the
Committee staff compromised her identity.  This limitation, in
addition to unresolved conflicting testimony obtained during our
investigation, made it difficult for us to reach a definitive
conclusion.  However, our investigation found no credible evidence to
support the allegation. 


   BACKGROUND OF THE ALLEGATION
------------------------------------------------------------ Letter :1

Margaret Barnes, a GS-12 Computer Specialist with the NASA OIG,
addressed a letter to you dated September 2, 1993.  (See app.  I.) In
this letter, Ms.  Barnes expressed concerns about what she perceived
as improper management and morale factors within the NASA OIG.  In
the last paragraph of the letter, Ms.  Barnes requested anonymity. 
The exact date of the letter's arrival in your personal office is
unknown.  Because the letter's subject matter involved an Office of
Inspector General, the letter was forwarded to the Committee on
Governmental Affairs, which has oversight responsibility for such
matters. 

According to Counsel Betty Ann Soiefer, the Committee staff person
responsible for Inspectors General issues, Ms.  Barnes' letter was
placed in a stack of things to do because of more pressing Committee
business.  On January 4, 1994, after the congressional recess, Ms. 
Soiefer contacted
Ms.  Barnes regarding her letter.  During this contact, Ms.  Barnes
informed
Ms.  Soiefer that on September 23, 1993, she had been called into the
office of the NASA Inspector General, Bill D.  Colvin, who confronted
her about her letter to you.  Ms.  Barnes' supervisor, Diane Hordan,
and the NASA Assistant Inspector General for Investigations (AIGI)
were also present at the meeting in Mr.  Colvin's office. 

According to Ms.  Soiefer, during the January 4, 1994, contact, she
requested Ms.  Barnes' approval to refer a copy of the September 2,
1993, letter, along with a transmittal letter signed by you, to the
President's Council on Integrity and Efficiency (PCIE) with copies of
the transmittal letter being provided to the NASA Inspector General
and Ms.  Barnes.  Ms.  Soiefer stated that Ms.  Barnes informed her
that this arrangement was acceptable to her since the Inspector
General was already aware of the letter.  On January 5, 1994, Ms. 
Soiefer prepared a referral letter to PCIE for your signature. 
However, the letter was not forwarded for your signature because Dr. 
Leonard Weiss, Staff Director of the Committee, was concerned about
providing Ms.  Barnes' letter to PCIE since the NASA Inspector
General served as its Vice Chairman. 

The PCIE referral letter and Ms.  Barnes' September 2, 1993, letter
to you remained with Dr.  Weiss without further action until
mid-March 1994.  On March 11, 1994, a reporter began making inquiries
of your personal office staff and the Committee staff about an
allegation that you or a member of either staff had provided a copy
of Ms.  Barnes' letter to the NASA Inspector General.  You and
members of both staffs denied the allegation. 

On April 7, 1994, The Washington Post printed a story by a syndicated
columnist that stated, ".  .  .  [Ms.] Barnes says she believes
[Senator Glenn's office] is responsible for leaking the letter to
Colvin.  Because [Senator] Glenn's office was the only one to receive
a copy of the letter, she sees no other way it could have gotten back
to Colvin."


   TESTIMONY AND FINDINGS
------------------------------------------------------------ Letter :2

In response to your request, we began our investigation on April 25,
1994, to determine how Ms.  Barnes' letter addressed to your office
might have come into the possession of the NASA Inspector General. 
Our investigation included taking sworn testimony from you and
members of your personal staff and the Committee staff, including Dr. 
Weiss and Ms.  Soiefer.  The depositions failed to elicit any
information as to how the NASA Inspector General may have obtained a
copy of Ms.  Barnes' September 2, 1993, letter. 

We also obtained sworn testimony from several NASA OIG employees,
including the NASA Inspector General.  Mr.  Colvin in his deposition
stated,

     "On or about September 23, 1993, Danny P.  Danigan, Assistant
     Inspector General for Management, either gave me personally or
     left in my office a copy of Exhibit A.[\1 ] I am maintaining the
     original document that Mr.  Danigan gave me in my files.[\2 ]
     Mr.  Danigan informed me that he had received this document from
     Joseph P.  Herman, Office of Inspector General (OIG) Center
     Director for Headquarters Center.  Mr.  Danigan informed me that
     Joseph Herman told him that the document was found on the
     virtual disk[\3 ] of a computer assigned to Mr.  Herman's
     office.  I did not receive a copy of this document from Senator
     Glenn.  I did not receive a copy of this document from anyone on
     Senator Glenn's staff."

Mr.  Colvin later clarified that he had not received the copy from
anyone on either Senator Glenn's personal staff or the Committee's
staff. 

Testimony provided by Messrs.  Danigan and Herman is in agreement
with Mr.  Colvin's account of how he obtained a copy of Ms.  Barnes'
letter.  In his testimony, Mr.  Herman stated that he discovered the
Barnes letter on the virtual disk of the NASA OIG IBM System 36
computer when he entered the system to convert a document that he had
on a diskette.  Mr.  Herman explained that he copied the file of the
Barnes letter, deleted it from the virtual disk, and gave Mr. 
Danigan a copy of the letter.  Mr.  Herman stated that he provided
the copy to Mr.  Danigan because Ms.  Barnes was indirectly under Mr. 
Danigan's supervision.  Upon receipt of the letter,
Mr.  Danigan then provided a copy to Mr.  Colvin. 

Inspector General Colvin, in his deposition, further stated that the
Barnes letter he had in his possession was an unsigned version
obtained from the NASA OIG computer system.  Additionally, the NASA
AIGI who was present at the September 23, 1993, meeting between Ms. 
Barnes and Mr.  Colvin, stated "I didn't see sufficiently what he
[Mr.  Colvin] had in his hand to see a signature." However, in her
deposition, Ms.  Barnes' supervisor, Diane Hordan, who was also
present, asserted that she had seen Margaret Barnes' signature on the
copy of the letter that Mr.  Colvin had in his possession during the
meeting. 

We found that in addition to the original Barnes letter that was sent
to you and the copy that the Inspector General stated was obtained
from the NASA OIG computer system, Ms.  Barnes made at least three
other copies available to others shortly after the September 23,
1993, meeting.  Of the five copies, three appear to have an original
signature of Margaret Barnes; two are unsigned, one being the copy
provided to us by Mr.  Colvin.  Examination of the five known copies
of the Barnes letter reflects the use of three different computer
print types.  The copy that Mr.  Colvin provided to us differs from
that sent to you in its print type and pagination.  (See app.  I and
II.) All copies of the Barnes letter that we have located are dated
September 2, 1993.  With the exception of the copy provided by Mr. 
Colvin and without talking to Ms.  Barnes, we have no indication as
to where the copies were created or printed. 

At our request, a Technical Assistant Director with GAO's Accounting
and Information Management Division reviewed the NASA OIG computer
system to validate the possibility that the Barnes letter could have
been retrieved from the OIG Headquarters Center system.  According to
the GAO official, such retrieval was plausible if at any time the
Barnes letter had been placed onto the system.  Our attempt to
retrieve the letter from the system, to which Ms.  Barnes and other
NASA OIG employees had access, was unsuccessful because the computer
backup tapes for the time period in question had been routinely
erased and reused. 

Our ability to fully investigate this matter was hampered by
conflicting testimony obtained during our investigation and Ms. 
Barnes' lack of cooperation.  At the onset of our investigation, we
contacted Ms.  Barnes; and she advised us that we should speak with
her personal attorney.  In telephone conversations and in response to
our May 3, 1994, written request, Ms.  Barnes' attorney declined to
make his client available for an interview or to respond to questions
posed in our letter. 


--------------------
\1 Unsigned copy of September 2, 1993, letter from Margaret Barnes to
Senator John Glenn.  (See app.  II.)

\2 On June 29, 1994, Inspector General Colvin provided GAO the
original document as an attachment to his deposition.  (See app. 
II.)

\3 NASA personnel use the "virtual disk"--the D drive of a single
computer hard drive that has been configured to look like two hard
drives, C and D--to move print files from a computer system and
diskettes to personal computers for printing. 


   INVESTIGATIVE METHODOLOGY
------------------------------------------------------------ Letter :3

We conducted our investigation between April 25, 1994, and June 29,
1994.  We obtained sworn testimony from you, staff members of the
Committee, your personal staff, the NASA Inspector General, NASA OIG
employees, GAO personnel, and other individuals familiar with this
investigation.  We also interviewed, and obtained information from,
other individuals.  All persons providing sworn testimony were given
the opportunity to read and make appropriate corrections prior to
signing their depositions.  Ms.  Hordan declined to read or sign her
deposition because she "was sworn to it when it was taken.  .  .  ."

We also reviewed pertinent records, including appointment calendars,
telephone logs, notes, and memorandums. 


---------------------------------------------------------- Letter :3.1

As agreed to by your office, we plan no further distribution of this
report at this time.  Unless you publicly announce the report's
contents earlier, we will make the report available to others, on
request, 30 days from the date of this letter. 

If you have any questions concerning this matter, please contact me
or Assistant Director Houston R.  Fuller of my staff on 202-512-6722. 

Sincerely yours,

Richard C.  Stiener
Director




(See figure in printed edition.)Appendix I
BARNES LETTER AS ARRIVED IN
SENATOR GLENN'S OFFICE
============================================================== Letter 



(See figure in printed edition.)



(See figure in printed edition.)





(See figure in printed edition.)Appendix II
BARNES LETTER AS PROVIDED BY NASA
OIG
============================================================== Letter 



(See figure in printed edition.)



(See figure in printed edition.)


MAJOR CONTRIBUTORS TO THIS REPORT
========================================================= Appendix III

OFFICE OF SPECIAL INVESTIGATIONS,
WASHINGTON, D.C. 

Houston R.  Fuller, Assistant Director
Thomas L.  Sipes, Senior Investigator
Cecelia J.  Porter, Senior Investigator
Shelia A.  James, Senior Evaluator
M.  Jane Hunt, Special Assistant for Investigative Plans and Reports

OFFICE OF THE GENERAL COUNSEL,
WASHINGTON, D.C. 

Glenn G.  Wolcott, Assistant General Counsel
Leslie J.  Krasner, Attorney Adviser


*** End of document. ***