United States General Accounting Office

GAO Report to the Honorable

Dianne Feinstein, U.S. Senate

August 1998 CUSTOMS SERVICE

Internal Control

Weaknesses Over

Deletion of Certain

Law Enforcement

Records

GAO/GGD-98-187

GAO United States

General Accounting Office

Washington, D.C. 20548

General Government Division

B-279230 

August 21, 1998

The Honorable Dianne Feinstein

United States Senate

Dear Senator Feinstein:

You asked us to conduct a broad review of the drug enforcement

operations of the U.S. Customs Service along the Southwest border of the

United States. This report is one of several that we have issued in response

to your request.1

 This report discusses the results of our evaluation of the

internal control techniques Customs has in place to safeguard certain law

enforcement records in the Treasury Enforcement Communications

System (TECS) from being inappropriately deleted.

As part of our review, we examined records designated by Customs as

containing lookout data, which identify persons and vehicles known or

suspected of illegal activity. TECS is designed to enable Customs inspectors

to compare records containing lookout data with persons and vehicles

entering the United States during primary screening inspections at ports of

entry. Matches found during this comparison process can lead to a

secondary inspection, with an intensive search and the arrest of the

person and seizure of the vehicle and other property if drugs or other

contraband are discovered during the search. TECS lookout records at

ports of entry can be very important to law enforcement efforts to detect

smuggled narcotics crossing the border. For example, the value of a

lookout record was recently demonstrated when Customs inspectors

seized 112 pounds of cocaine from a vehicle arriving from Mexico. A

thorough inspection of the vehicle was performed because of the active

TECS lookout record on the vehicle, leading to the discovery of 46 packages

of cocaine.

In developing the information in this report, we (1) interviewed key

officials and reviewed TECS internal control documents at Customs’

headquarters and at three Customs Management Centers (CMC) located

along the Southwest border and (2) visited three ports of entry: Otay Mesa,

CA; Nogales, AZ; and Laredo, TX. We selected the Otay Mesa port of entry

because it was of specific interest to you. We selected Laredo because it is

the busiest cargo port of entry on the Southwest border, and we selected

Nogales to provide information on a smaller, yet busy port of entry. At

1

Customs Service Drug Interdiction: Internal Control Weaknesses and Other Concerns With Low-Risk

Cargo Entry Programs (GAO/GGD-98-175, July 31, 1998); Customs Service: Process for Estimating and

Allocating Inspectional Personnel (GAO/GGD-98-107, Apr. 30, 1998); and Customs Service: Information

on Southwest Border Drug Enforcement Operations (GAO/GGD-97-173R, Sept. 30, 1997).

Page 1 GAO/GGD-98-187 Law Enforcement Records
B-279230 

each port, we interviewed key officials to obtain information on chains of

authority for the deletion of records from TECS; reviewed TECS internal

control documents; and observed Customs inspectors’ use of TECS.

We requested comments on a draft of this report from the Secretary of the

Treasury. These comments are discussed near the end of this letter. We

performed our work between February 1998 and July 1998 in accordance

with generally accepted government auditing standards.

Results in Brief Customs did not have adequate internal controls over the deletion of TECS

lookout records. Standards issued by the Comptroller General2 require

that (1) key duties and responsibilities in authorizing, processing,

recording, and reviewing transactions should be separated among

individuals; (2) internal control systems and all transactions and other

significant events should be clearly documented, and the documentation

should be readily available for examination; and (3) supervisors should

continuously review and approve the assigned work of their staffs.

However, Customs guidance on TECS does not require these safeguards

and Customs officials at the three ports we visited had not implemented

these controls. As a result, Customs employees could inappropriately

remove lookout records from TECS.

Although our review was limited to Customs headquarters, three CMCs, and

three ports of entry, because of the lack of adequate systemwide internal

control standards over deletion authority, it is possible that TECS lookout

records may not be adequately safeguarded in other ports of entry as well.

Accordingly, this report recommends that Customs develop and

implement guidance and standards to help ensure adequate internal

controls over the deletion of TECS lookout records.

Background A major goal of Customs is to prevent the smuggling of drugs into the

country by attempting to create an effective drug interdiction, intelligence,

and investigation capability that disrupts and dismantles smuggling

organizations. Although Customs inspectors have the option to conduct

examinations of all persons, cargo, and conveyances entering the country,

the inspectors may selectively identify for a thorough inspection those that

2

Standards for Internal Controls in the Federal Government, United States General Accounting Office

(1983). Although these standards remain conceptually sound and are used throughout the federal

government, they are currently being updated and enhanced to (1) recognize recent internal control

evaluation guidance developed by the private sector with our assistance and the assistance of other

organizations and (2) give greater recognition to the increasing use of information technology.

Page 2 GAO/GGD-98-187 Law Enforcement Records
B-279230 

they consider high risk for drug smuggling. This identification is generally

done through the use of databases available to Customs, such as TECS.

TECS is designed to be a comprehensive enforcement and communications

system that enables Customs and other agencies to create or access

lookout data when (1) processing persons and vehicles entering the

United States; (2) communicating with other computer systems, such as

the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s National Crime Information Center;

and (3) storing case data and other enforcement reports. In addition to

Customs, TECS has users from over 20 different federal agencies, including

the Immigration and Naturalization Service; the Bureau of Alcohol,

Tobacco and Firearms; the Internal Revenue Service; and the Drug

Enforcement Administration.

The TECS network consists of thousands of computer terminals that are

located at land border crossings along the Canadian and Mexican borders;

sea and air ports of entry; and the field offices of Customs’ Office of

Investigations and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. These

terminals provide access to records and reports in the TECS database

containing information from Customs and other Department of the

Treasury and Department of Justice enforcement and investigative files.3

How TECS Records Are

Used at Land Border Ports

of Entry

According to the TECS user manual, all TECS users (e.g., Customs inspectors

and special agents) can create and query subject records, which consist of

data on persons, vehicles, aircraft, vessels, businesses or organizations,

firearms, and objects. According to TECS Data Standards, records should

be created when the subject is deemed to be of law enforcement interest.

This interest may be based on previous violations, such as drug smuggling

or suspicion of violations, or subjects that are currently or potentially of

investigative interest. One of the reasons for creating a TECS lookout

record is to place a person or vehicle in the system for possible matching

at Customs’ screening locations, such as land border ports of entry. For

example, if a vehicle’s license plate that was placed on lookout for

possible drug smuggling were later matched during a primary inspection4

3

In March 1998, Treasury’s Office of Inspector General reported that, despite improvements made

during fiscal year 1997, security weaknesses continued to exist that could allow for unauthorized

modification and deletion of data in customs’ computer systems, including those for law enforcement

activities.

4

Primary inspection is the initial screening by Customs inspectors of vehicles and persons that enter

U.S. ports of entry.

Page 3 GAO/GGD-98-187 Law Enforcement Records
B-279230 

at a land border port of entry, that vehicle could be referred for additional

scrutiny at a secondary inspection.5

Inappropriate deletions of TECS lookout records could negatively affect

Customs’ ability to detect drug smuggling. Although inspectors have the

option to conduct a thorough examination of all persons, cargo, and

conveyances entering the country, they selectively identify for a thorough

inspection only those that they consider high risk for drug smuggling. This

identification is generally done through the use of databases available to

Customs, such as TECS. Inspectors also rely on their training and

experience to detect behavior that alerts them to potential drug violators.

If lookout records have been inappropriately deleted, inspectors will have

less information or less accurate information on which to make their

decisions.

TECS Administrative

Control Structure

The TECS administrative control structure consists of a series of System

Control Officers (SCO) at various locations, including Customs

headquarters, CMCs, and ports around the country. These SCOs are

responsible for authorizing and controlling TECS usage by all of the users

within the network. A national SCO has designated other SCOs at Customs

headquarters for each major organization (e.g., Office of Investigations,

Field Operations, and Internal Affairs) who, in turn, have designated

regional SCOs who have named SCOs at each CMC and Office of

Investigations field office. In some instances, SCOs have been appointed at

the port of entry and Office of Investigations suboffice level. Consequently,

the SCO chain is a hierarchical structure with each user assigned to a local

SCO who, in turn, is assigned to a regional SCO, and so on up to the national

level.

One of an SCO’s primary duties is to establish User Profile Records on each

user. User Profile Records identify the user by name, social security

number, position, duty station, and telephone number. They also identify

the social security number of the user’s supervisor, the SCO’s social

security number, and the TECS applications that the user is authorized to

access. SCOs at the various levels have certain system authorities they can

pass on to other users. For example, the record update level is a required

field in the User Profile Record that indicates the user’s authority to

modify or delete records. SCOs can only assign to a user the level that they

have, or a lower level. According to the TECS user manual, record update

levels include the following:

5

Secondary inspection may include searching a person or vehicle for narcotics.

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B-279230 

1. Users can only modify or delete records they own (i.e., the user created

the records or received them as a transfer from the previous owner).

2. Users can modify or delete any record within their specific Customs

sublocation, such as a port of entry, thereby ignoring the ownership chain;6

the user does not have to be the owner of the record.

3. Users can modify or delete any record owned by anyone in their

ownership chain.

4. Users can modify or delete any record in the Customs Service, thereby

ignoring the ownership chain.

5. Users have a combination of levels two and three.

9.7

 Users can modify or delete any user’s record in the database.

Customs Guidance on

Creating, Modifying, and

Deleting TECS Records

According to Customs TECS officials, when a TECS user creates a record and

enters it into the system, the user’s supervisor is automatically notified of

the entry. All records must be viewed by the supervisor. The supervisor

must approve the record, and the record must be linked to supporting

documentation, such as a Memorandum of Information Received.

According to the TECS user manual, TECS users can modify and delete

records that they own, and on the basis of the record update level in their

User Profile Record, may modify and delete the records of other users as

follows:

• If the users are supervisors or SCOs with the proper record update level

(three or five), they may modify and delete the records owned by users in

their supervisory or SCO chain.

• If the users’ record update level (two, four, or five) allows, they may

modify and delete the records created or owned by other users in a

specific Customs sublocation, such as a port of entry.

No other controls or restrictions are written in the TECS user manual or any

other document that we reviewed.

6

The ownership chain normally consists of, but is not restricted to (1) the record owner, (2) the

owner’s supervisor, and (3) the owner’s SCO.

7

There are no record update levels six, seven, or eight. These levels are reserved for future use, if

needed.

Page 5 GAO/GGD-98-187 Law Enforcement Records
B-279230 

Weak Internal

Controls Over the

Deletion of TECS

Records

The Federal Managers’ Financial Integrity Act of 1982 required, among

other items, that we establish internal control standards that agencies are

required to follow (see 31 U.S.C. 3512). The resulting Comptroller

General’s standards for internal controls in the federal government contain

the criteria we used to assess Customs’ controls over the deletion of

lookout records from TECS. During our review, we identified three areas of

control weakness: separation of duties, documentation of transactions,

and supervision.

Separation of Duties The Comptroller General’s internal control standards require that key

duties and responsibilities in authorizing, processing, recording, and

reviewing transactions should be separated among individuals. To reduce

the risk of error, waste, or wrongful acts or to reduce the risk of their

going undetected, no one individual should control all key aspects of a

transaction or event. Rather, duties and responsibilities should be assigned

systematically to a number of different individuals to ensure that effective

checks and balances exist. Key duties include authorizing, approving, and

recording transactions and reviewing or auditing transactions.

Customs’ current policy authorizes a wide variety of people within and

outside of an individual’s supervisory and SCO chain to individually delete

the records that another individual owns without any checks and balances

(e.g., concurrence by another person). This situation increases risk

because, as one SCO that we interviewed told us, the more

individuals—supervisors, SCOs, or others—with the required record update

levels there are, the more vulnerable TECS is to having records

inappropriately altered or deleted. According to the TECS user manual,

supervisors, SCOs, and other users with the proper record update level may

delete TECS records that they do not own. Moreover, we noticed a range in

the number of individuals who were authorized to individually delete

others’ records at the three CMCs and three ports we visited. For example,

the Southern California CMC had 1 official—the SCO—with the authority to

delete others’ records, while the Arizona CMC had 41

individuals—supervisors, SCOs, and others—with that authority. In

addition, 1 of the ports we visited (Nogales) had 22 individuals with the

authority to delete any record within their port without the record owner’s

or anyone else’s permission. In these instances, many individuals, by virtue

of their status as a supervisor or SCO or because they possessed the

required record update level, were able to delete records with no checks

and balances in evidence.

Page 6 GAO/GGD-98-187 Law Enforcement Records
B-279230 

Documentation of

Transactions

The Comptroller General’s standards require that internal control systems

and all transactions and other significant events are to be clearly

documented, and that the documentation is to be readily available for

examination. Documentation of transactions or other significant events

should be complete and accurate and should facilitate tracing the

transaction or event and related information from before it occurs, while it

is in process, to after it is completed.

Neither Customs policies nor the TECS user manual contained standards or

guidance to require that Customs officials document reasons for the

deletion of TECS lookout records. Although TECS can produce detailed

information on what happened to records in the system and when it

happened, there is no requirement that the person deleting the record is to

describe the circumstances that called for the deletion. Thus, examiners

cannot determine from the documentation whether the deletion was

appropriate.

Supervision The Comptroller General’s standards require that qualified and continuous

supervision is to be provided to ensure that internal control objectives are

achieved. This standard requires supervisors to continuously review and

approve the assigned work of their staffs, including approving work at

critical points to ensure that work flows as intended. A supervisor’s

assignment, review, and approval of a staff’s work should result in the

proper processing of transactions and events, including (1) following

approved procedures and requirements; (2) detecting and eliminating

errors, misunderstandings, and improper practices; and (3) discouraging

wrongful acts from occurring or recurring.

Customs had no requirement for supervisory review and approval of

record deletions, although supervisory review and approval were required

for creating TECS records. TECS officials told us that users could delete

records that they own without supervisory approval. In addition, anyone

with a higher record update level than the record owner, inside or outside

of the owner’s supervisory and SCO chain, could also delete any owner’s

record without obtaining approval.

Conclusions TECS lookout records can provide Customs inspectors at screening areas

on the Southwest border with assistance in identifying persons and

vehicles suspected of involvement in drug smuggling. Internal control

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B-279230 

weaknesses over deletions of the records may compromise the value of

these tools in Customs’ anti-drug smuggling mission.

Most of the CMCs and ports we reviewed had many individuals who were

able to delete TECS records without any checks and balances, regardless of

whether they owned the records or whether they were in an authorized

supervisory or SCO chain of authority. In addition, Customs’ current policy

authorizes a wide variety of people within and outside of an individual’s

chain of authority the ability to delete records that other individuals

created. The more people inside or outside of the supervisory or SCO chain

of authority who can delete records without proper checks and balances,

the more vulnerable the records are to inappropriate deletions.

Although our review was limited to Customs headquarters, three CMCs, and

three ports of entry, because of the lack of systemwide (1) internal control

standards concerning deletion authority and (2) specific guidance

concerning the deletion of TECS records that comply with the Comptroller

General’s standards for internal controls, it is possible that TECS lookout

records are not adequately safeguarded in other CMCs and other ports of

entry as well.

Recommendation To better ensure that TECS lookout records are adequately safeguarded

from inappropriate deletion, we recommend that the Commissioner of

Customs develop and implement guidance and procedures for authorizing,

recording, reviewing, and approving deletions of TECS records that

conform to the Comptroller General’s standards. These procedures should

include requiring supervisory review and approval of record deletions and

documenting the reason for record deletions.

Agency Comments The Treasury Under Secretary for Enforcement provided written

comments on a draft of this report, and the comments are reprinted in

appendix I. Overall, Treasury and Customs management generally agreed

with our conclusions, and the Under Secretary said that Treasury officials

also provided technical comments, which have been incorporated in the

report as appropriate. Customs has begun action on our recommendation.

Customs recognized that there is a systemic weakness in not requiring

supervisory approval for the deletion of TECS records and not requiring an

explicit reason for the deletion of these records. Customs agreed to

Page 8 GAO/GGD-98-187 Law Enforcement Records
B-279230 

implement the necessary checks and balances to ensure the integrity of

lookout data in TECS.

We are providing copies of this report to the Chairmen and Ranking

Minority Members of House and Senate committees with jurisdiction over

the activities of the Customs Service, the Secretary of the Treasury, the

Commissioner of Customs, and other interested parties. Copies also will

be made available to others upon request.

The major contributors to this report are listed in appendix II. If you or

your staff have any questions about the information in this report, please

contact me on (202) 512-8777 or Darryl Dutton, Assistant Director, on

(213) 830-1000.

Sincerely yours,

Norman J. Rabkin

Director, Administration

 of Justice Issues

Page 9 GAO/GGD-98-187 Law Enforcement Records
Appendix I 

Comments From the Department of the

Treasury

Page 10 GAO/GGD-98-187 Law Enforcement Records
Appendix I 

Comments From the Department of the

Treasury

Page 11 GAO/GGD-98-187 Law Enforcement Records
Appendix II 

Major Contributors to This Report

General Government

Division, Washington,

D.C.

Darryl W. Dutton, Assistant Director

Barry J. Seltser, Assistant Director; Design, Methodology, and Technical

 Assistance

Sidney Schwartz, Senior Mathematical Statistician; Design, Methodology,

 and Technical Assistance

Office of the General

Counsel, Washington,

D.C.

Jan Montgomery, Assistant General Counsel

Los Angeles Field

Office

Brian Lipman, Site Senior

(264443) Page 12 GAO/GGD-98-187 Law Enforcement Records
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