US faces huge security bill

The State Department may get hundreds more security officers

Officials at the US State Department have asked for $300m to improve security, following a number of embarrassing lapses.

The money would be used to hire 900 security guards, including special agents and technicians, in addition to the 500 who already patrol the State Department building in Washington, the officials said.

Laptops have gone missing

The three-year revamp would also involve physical and technical improvements to the security system in the eight-storey building.

Earlier this year the US Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, ordered a big security review following the disappearance of a portable computer containing classified government information.

The laptop computer is still missing. It contained information on biological, chemical and nuclear weapons proliferation.

Listening device

Last year a Russian listening device was discovered in a conference room, and in 1998 a man walked out of the building with secret documents.

A State Department official said the spending plan had not passed through all State Department procedures and had not gone to Congress, which would have to approve the spending.

The State Department has been tightening security gradually for more than a year.

Madeleine Albright ordered a top-to-bottom security review

The week before Mrs Albright was presented with the security recommendations in late May, the State Department said an inventory had shown that 15 other laptops - not containing classified material - were also missing.

The recommendations include creating guard posts outside the State Department's headquarters for identification checks and bag searches, and instituting thorough checks of cars that park in the building's underground garage.

In May the Federal Bureau of Investigations called for security to be tightened at the State Department, alleging that foreign spies were working there as journalists.

FBI section chief Timothy Bereznay said a security problem was being posed because foreign correspondents were exempt from a policy requiring all foreign nationals to be escorted within the headquarters building.

"This exception affords unescorted access to the State Department by a number of known foreign service intelligence officers," Mr Bereznay said.

He would not disclose the countries nor media companies for which the alleged spies were working. There are currently 56 foreign journalists with department accreditation.