Overshadowed by the excessive coverage of Michael Jackson's death and other news from Iraq and California, a disturbing report from Washington, D.C., received far less media coverage than it deserved.

One senator called the report "the broadest indictment of a federal agency that I've heard."

What prompted that comment was a report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) that its investigators had carried bomb-making materials into 10 federal facilities without being detected.

Liquid bomb components were carried into buildings and through security checkpoints monitored by the Federal Protection Service (FPS). The FPS has 1,236 employees and 13,000 contracted security guards.

The incompetence of the guards encountered by the GAO test should send shock waves through Congress. It also should anger and disgust the tax-paying public.

The bomb-making materials were carried into the buildings in briefcases, but when the materials went though X-ray machines, nothing triggered a second look. At three of the 10 facilities, guards were not looking at the X-ray screens. One guard asked a question about a briefcase, but did no follow-up search.

At one federal facility classified as high-security, the armed guard was asleep, and the GAO provided photographic evidence that accompanied last week's news report.

A guard at another facility was found to be using his government computer to run an adult-content Web site. At another facility in a major city, the guard sent an infant through an X-ray machine, something considered potentially harmful.

In another case, the GAO reported that a guard failed to detect a box containing handguns that was put through an X-ray machine.

After carrying the bomb-making materials into the federal buildings guarded by FPS, the GAO employees assembled the bombs, which contained low concentrations to prevent explosions, and then walked freely around the facilities.

One building housed offices for the Department of Homeland Security, as well as the State and Justice departments. Another facility housed the district office of a U.S. senator and representative.

Most of the fault appears to fall not only on the guards, but the 67 private companies contracted by FPS to provide security.

But lack of proper training and screening is only part of the problem. Without the kind of testing or monitoring provided by the GAO, the Federal Protection Service gives the impression of providing security, which clearly it does not.

The appearance of security in the form of a guard armed with a gun is too often false security, and a waste of taxpayer dollars.

The American public should demand spot checks of more guards at more federal facilities to determine how effective — or ineffective — the security provided by FPS is across the country. Based on 10 test facilities chosen at random and 10 spectacular security failures, the security at all federal facilities should be suspect.

The GAO testing suggests that much of the security provided by federal agencies might be more an illusion of security than actual security. Hiring thousands of new federal employees, or private sector employees through contractors and supplying them with a uniform, does not necessarily result in actual security. It takes competent employees, proper training — and regular monitoring or spot checks to test for effectiveness.

The GAO tests at 10 federal facilities should serve as a wake-up call to dramatically revamp security checkpoints mandated by the federal government. For now, they look like not much more than make-work jobs and paper-thin protection.

The snoozing guard at the X-ray checkpoint noted in the GAO report is not the only one asleep when it comes to security at federal facilities. And that must change.