Summary: GAO was requested to review the adequacy of controls over records created and maintained on political appointees at the Departments of State, Commerce, and the Interior; the U.S. Agency for International Development; and the Office of the Secretary of Defense. GAO found that weaknesses in management and control of records at the Department of State enabled Clinton administration political appointees at the Department's White House Liaison Office to retrieve White House liaison files on Bush political appointees. Controls over White House liaison records on political appointees at the other four agencies were also weak. Three agencies had not identified their political appointee records as a system of records as required by the Privacy Act. Three of the four had not prepared disposition schedules for these records. Two agencies destroyed records on political appointees without specific disposition authority, one agency gave the records to individual appointees, and one handled the records in a manner that the final disposition for most of them could not be determined. There are no governmentwide disposition standards for records relating to political appointees, and weak controls increase the vulnerability of these records to unauthorized searches and make it harder to determine if the records have been improperly accessed.
