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WASHINGTON — Last December, Government Accountability Office auditors asked to see inspection reports for federally funded jails housing foreign detainees to ensure that safety standards were being met.

The Department of Homeland Security took five months to turn over all of its records and only did so after senior department officials intervened.

"The records should have been turned over immediately," said Norm Rabkin, managing director of the GAO's Homeland Security team. He called the department "by far the most troublesome agency we deal with."

As a result of such delays across the federal government, Comptroller General David Walker said he now wants Congress to grant him the authority to take sworn testimony from executive branch employees during oversight investigations.

The authority to compel testimony would be used "sparingly" when facts and statements conflict, Walker said, and only with his approval.

"There is an increasing frequency for people to have reticence about providing certain information under the assertion that it is sensitive information, even though it might be unclassified information," said Walker in an interview.

During his 8 1/2-year tenure, Walker has learned that when federal officials say something is sensitive, "it means that it's probably embarrassing," Walker said.

Plan under consideration

Sen. Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., the chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, is "seriously considering" the GAO's request for subpoena power, said Leslie Phillips, press secretary for the committee.

After Walker told the Senate Homeland Security Committee about some of the delays on March 21, Walker said he got a "very constructive call" from Michael Chertoff, secretary of Homeland Security, pledging to speed up response time.

In the six weeks since that phone call, Walker and Rabkin say relations have improved with the department, but there is still a significant backlog of GAO requests.

The roadblocks faced by GAO are not unique to the public sector.

"Welcome to the world that the rest of us have been living in," said Patrice McDermott, executive director of Openthegovernment.org, a coalition of some 60 conservative and liberal groups concerned about growing secrecy in the federal government.

Federal law requires the GAO to conduct oversight, yet it, too, is being "stiff-armed" by the executive branch, McDermott said.