Office of Inspector General

S/ES is responsible for coordinating searches for FOIA requests for records held by the Office of the Secretary. When a FOIA request of that nature is received by the Department, the Office of Information Programs and Services (IPS) within the Bureau of Administration notifies S/ES. S/ES reports its findings to IPS, which then communicates with the FOIA requester. OIG's past and current work demonstrates that Department leadership has not played a meaningful role in overseeing or reviewing the quality of FOIA responses. The searches performed by S/ES do not consistently meet statutory and regulatory requirements for completeness and rarely meet requirements for timeliness. S/ES currently searches Department email accounts only if a FOIA request mentions emails or asks for "all records," or if S/ES is requested to do so during the course of litigation. However, FOIA and Department guidance require searching email accounts when relevant records are likely maintained in these accounts. In addition, although FOIA requires agencies to respond to requests within 20 working days, some requests involving the Office of the Secretary have taken more than 500 days to process. These delays are due, in part, to the Department's insufficient provision of personnel to IPS to handle its caseload. These problems are compounded by the fact that S/ES FOIA responses are sometimes inaccurate. Officials in IPS and attorneys for the Department identified instances in which S/ES reported that records did not exist, even though it was later revealed that such records did exist. Procedural weaknesses in S/ES FOIA processes appear to be contributing to these deficiencies. For example, S/ES management is not monitoring search results for accuracy, and IPS has limited ability to conduct oversight. S/ES also lacks written policies and procedures for responding to FOIA requests. Finally, staff in S/ES and other components in the Office of the Secretary have not taken training offered by IPS to better understand their FOIA responsibilities.

NASA's Deep Space Network (DSN or Network) is a central component of the Agency's space communications and navigation capability, providing deep space missions with tracking, telemetry, and command services needed to control spacecraft and transmit data. Part of NASA's Space Communications and Navigation (SCaN) Program, DSN operates antennas and transmitters at communications complexes in three locations: Goldstone, California; Madrid, Spain; and Canberra, Australia. NASA has contracts with the Spanish and Australian governments to manage day-to-day operations at the foreign sites and with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), a federally funded research and development center in Pasadena, California, for the Goldstone site. During fiscal year (FY) 2014, DSN supported more than 30 missions including the launch and orbit insertions of NASA's Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution Mission and the Indian Space Agency's Mars Orbiter Mission. Much of DSN's hardware is more than 30 years old, costly to maintain, and requires modernization and expansion to ensure continued service for existing and planned missions. Accordingly, in 2009 DSN management proposed an upgrade project to build new antennas and transmitters between 2009 and 2025. DSN has significant information technology (IT) and physical infrastructure components that it must protect against compromise from cyber attack, espionage, and terrorism. To this end, the JPL, Madrid, and Canberra agreements require each contractor to follow specified Federal and NASA security policies. We conducted this audit to examine whether DSN is positioned to meet current and future communication commitments and appropriately managing Network IT and physical security risks. We also considered whether NASA is effectively administering the contracts relating to the foreign sites. Although DSN is meeting its current operational commitments, budget reductions have challenged the Network's ability to maintain these performance levels and threaten its future reliability. Specifically, in FY 2009 the Network implemented a plan to achieve $226.9 million in savings over 10 years and use most of that savings to build new antennas and transmitters. However, in FY 2013 the SCaN Program cut the Network's budget by $101.3 million, causing DSN to delay upgrades, close antennas, and cancel or re-plan tasks. In addition, SCaN officials are considering additional cuts for DSN in FY 2016 that could further delay maintenance and upgrade tasks. Finally, despite these reductions DSN has not revised life-cycle cost estimates for the upgrade project or performed a detailed funding profile beyond FY 2018, making it difficult to effectively plan and justify funding for the project and DSN's future commitments. If budget reductions continue, DSN faces an increased risk that it will be unable to meet future operational commitments or complete the upgrade project on schedule.