Flew that helped turn the tide of world war ii against the naz is. It was february of 1945, it was in the alps, it was very cold. Sharyl he was assigned to operation greenup, an oss mission to drop three spies behind enemy lines in austria. Now, a handful of heroes are running down the clock hoping for welldeserved recognition. It means that at least somebody thinks that we did a good job. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicaprg sharyl welcome to full measure. Im sharyl attkisson. Securing the southern border is just how big and what form the promised wall will take remains to be seen. Already, theres an army of federal agents guarding the line between the u. S. And mexico. Their top priority keeping terrorists and their weapons out. Today, we explore the risk of Border Agents getting corrupted and crossing the line to the dark side. Customs and Border Protection is the largest federal Law Enforcement organization in the u. S. 60,000 employees secure more than 100,000 miles of borders and coastline. All that security looks a lot like opportunity. Jeff veltri we have a number of adversaries south of the border, whether its mexican Drug Trafficking cartels, as well as alien smuggling organizations, who actively seek to corrupt u. S. Government employees to facilitate their criminal enterprises. Sharyl supervisory special agent jeff veltri is briefing us at the fbis Border Corruption Task force in san diego, california. Jeff veltri they spot and assess individuals who would flirt with women who come through their lanes or potentially have financial distress in their lives, gambling debts, and then they target those those vulnerabilities. Sharyl individuals like michael taylor, an immigration officer at the largest land port of entry in the world, san ysidro, california. Thats where a cartelconnected mexican through officer taylors lane and caught his eye. Jeff veltri ultimately, they exchanged telephone numbers, he began dating. She indicated to him at one point that she wanted to cross a friend or a relative. Sharyl an illegal immigrant . Jeff veltri an illegal immigrant and she gave him 500 in exchange. From that, what we would call in Law Enforcement, he got a taste, and that was the beginning of his corrupt activities. Sharyl officer taylor smuggled but there was another target in the crosshairs of the mexican beauty salon mata hari. Jeff veltri she ended up corrupting yet another customs and Border Protection officer and that would be mr. Lorne hammer jones. Sharyl in a decadelong crime spree, officer jones helped smuggle in people and 33 tons of marijuana. One reason the dark side is so tempting is because the payoff is so big. Border agents and officers make 38,000 to 69,000 a year. What kind of money can the illegal activity bring in for a corrupt agent . Jeff veltri they could, in theory, make more in an evening than they, in their annual salary, would garner. Sharyl the fbi now has 22 Border Corruption Task forces dedicated solely to rooting out dirty officers on the take. They caught officer Michael Gilliland on Surveillance Video allegedly carrying a cash payoff hundreds of Illegal Immigrants for 120,000 in bribes. And there are many more. Agent marcos manzano, jr. Hid Illegal Immigrants in his familys house. Agent Michael Gonzalez is seen here on a Police Camera loading pot into his vehicle. Officer Margarita Crispin is serving 20 years for taking bribes to let marijuana through. And officer Martha Garnica is serving 20 years for smuggling. Her lavish home and suspicious behavior raised red flags among jeff veltri all these individuals take an oath to protect this country against enemies foreign and domestic and they are violating that oath and they are violating the trust of the american people. Sharyl from 2004 to 2014, 168 customs and Border Protection employees were arrested, indicted, or prosecuted on corruption charges. Jim tomsheck believes the actual number of crooked agents is much higher. How rampant do you think the jim tomsheck i think its possible that 1,500 to 2,000 of them have either historically been involved with corruption or may today be actively involved with corruption. Sharyl tomsheck led the fight to expose unscrupulous officers at customs and Border Protection, as chief of internal affairs. Were you suprised at how much corruption you saw in that position . Jim tomsheck yes. Sharyl part of that, he says, was due to a major recruiting effort that rushed to hire 6,000 new Border Patrol agents over two years. Jim tomsheck that hiring initiative that occurred between 2006 and 2008 created opportunities for persons to infiltrate the agency. Sharyl only after all that hiring did customs and Border Protection, cbp, begin giving lie detector tests to applicants. The results were eyeopening. Jim tomsheck most shocking was the discovery that there were who had been directed to apply for positions who actually worked for Drug Trafficking organizations, either on the u. S. Side or mexican side of the border. Sharyl they admitted this in the polygraph test . Jim tomsheck yes. Sharyl can we assume that before the polygraphs were instituted, people like that may have slipped under the radar and gotten hired . Jim tomsheck let there be no doubt, that is exactly the case. Sharyl but tomsheck says his anticorruption efforts were stymied by thenhead of Border Patrol david aguilar. Jim tomsheck i was very surprised to hear his response, which was one of anger, not one of appreciation. He was yelling when he said, this is not what we do, we manage this problem. Sharyl what do you think he meant by we manage it . Jim tomsheck they attempted to manage the problem by hiding the problem and dealing with it within the ranks of the Border Patrol. Sharyl later, in a whistleblower complaint, tomsheck alleged the Border Patrols aguilar called him and meeting and gave them a strange order to redefine corruption. Jim tomsheck what we were told to do was redefine corruption in a way that would reduce the actual number of corruption arrests, from what was at that point 80something to a number that was less than 30. Mr. Aguilar actually took a sheet of paper and wrote a number on it that was 20something and kept tapping it with his pen as he was explaining how we would go about redefining corruption in a way to reduce the number of corruption arrests. Sharyl how would one do that, redefine corruption . Jim tomsheck it couldnt be done, and more importantly, we wouldnt consider doing it. Mr. Wong and i clearly understood that we were being given an order to cook the books. When we returned to our offices and looked at one another, we both had the same reaction, that we had been in a bad scene in a very bad movie. Sharyl tomsheck says when he wouldnt go along, he got socked scores. He filed a whistleblower retaliation complaint and was eventually moved out of his job. What do you think is the reason you were removed . Jim tomsheck the aggressive posture that i and my colleagues had taken with regard to corruption, misconduct, and aggressive use of force. Excessive use of force. Sharyl aguilar, the Border Patrol manager tomsheck accused, declined our interview request and has since retired. The Border Patrol had no comment. The vast majority of the men and women who work the border are honest. But the impact of even a few bad they could allow in terrorists. In november of last year, days after terrorist attacks overseas, eight syrians were caught illegally crossing into the u. S. From mexico. So were five pakistanis and a man from afghanistan with alleged terrorist ties. Over several years, Border Patrol caught nearly 2,000 Illegal Immigrants from 35 jeff veltri the biggest concern would be somebody with nefarious intentions to harm our nation finding themselves in that pipeline. Sharyl Gil Kerlikowske is the current commissioner of customs and Border Protection. There is a lot of concern among Law Enforcement. They know that most people who cross the border will not be terrorists, but they dont even want one to slip through and they feel like its hard to get a grip on all that . Gil kerlikowske well, i think the terrorism issue is, particularly after the attacks in paris, uh, the continuing war in syria and the number of people, millions of people, that have been displaced, uh, compared to whats going on in europe, our issues are significantly fewer or less than that. But is there the potential then for somebody to enter the country or try to enter the country . Thats always a concern to us and we have to be aware of it. Sharyl that point is punctuated by customs and Border Protection alarid waves through a white minivan carrying 18 illegal aliens. His cut for that one load, 36,000, close to his annual salary. A search of his home turned up 175,000 in cash. In an alarming taped confession, alarid admits helping smuggle in a hundred unknown people. Mr. Alarid aint nobody that i know of thats a bin laden or something. Fbi agent well, im glad to hear that. Jeff veltri i think his comment indifference. Sharyl do you feel confident that we are, in part because of the fbis efforts, about as safe as we can be in trying to minimize that threat of terrorist coming through . Jeff veltri i feel as confident as im going to feel about it. Youre never going to stop anyone who is morally bankrupt and has a price for their integrity. The question is what your price is. Sharyl tomsheck retired last year. Customs and Border Protection reversed his negative review and, in april, settled his whistleblower case. The agency has now begun polygraphing all new customs and Border Patrol applicants. But its not a good sign that the majority are flunking the lie detector tests. Next on full measure. Theyre known around the world as bobbies, englands police force. Now, the threat of terrorism is bringing a radical change to sharyl a timehonored tradition is under assault across the pond. Most british bobbies work the beat without a guns, armed with only a billy club. Now, theres a shift in that longstanding policy. Scott thuman shows us how terror is altering the way of life in london. Scott walk the beat with a British Police officer and something may seem amiss to the average american theres no gun. To find a socalled bobbie who does carry a firearm, unless youre gawking through the gates of parliament or outside the prime ministers residence. This is a nation that has prided itself on its extreme lack of firearms. But change is in the air. Very recently, the government decided tackling terrorism, meant gearing up adding 600 highprofile, highly Armed Special officers to ensure the public theyre adequately become firearms trained. You talk about that number of perhaps another 1500. Is that enough . Steve white out of a force of about 130,000 people in total, youre looking at 5500 of them being armed which is an incredibly small proportion, particularly when you compare it to other countries, the United States where everybody is armed. Is it enough . Well, well have to wait and see. Scott steve white is chair of the Police Federation and says for attacks like the one on the bataclan theater in paris. They cant always wait for Quick Response teams, whether by motorbike or boat, who are trained for speed but limited in number. Do you want to see more officers with guns on the streets . Steve white i think in terms of whether or not we have more. Firearms officers on the streets, its going to be about the appropriateness in terms of threat. Police officer has to carry a gun . I sincerely hope not and i certainly do not think that is foreseeable in my service. Scott white says it will be a lengthy process, taking at least 2 years to train more than 1000 officers to use lethal measures in a country where the concept has been so foreign for so long. Attacks are now the impetus. Steve white to a certain extent, its too little, too late. You know in terms of increasing our firearms capability, yes of course we support that, but we would have to say that we told you so. That this was going to happen and no one was listening. Its good to have people listening now that the government is listening. Scott why werent they listening before . Steve white youd have to ask them that. We can only present the argument in so many ways. And to be fair, the government are now listening to us. Scott and, he says, listening to Lessons Learned during a previous war on terror. The ira, irish republican army, for years, terrorized the british way of life by bombing in an effort to gain independence. John oconnor the horror of that is still remembered today because the fear was you could be walking in central london, just walking passed a parked car and where is the fear today is someone walking along of jihadi appearance with a rucksack on their back, youd look twice. Scott it sounds like a bit of a flashback. , but thats because the way of dealing with it is probably the same except that the strategy used by jihadists isnt to use car bombs at the moment. Scott and that is where intelligence gathering is still more powerful than the hardware, says oconnor. The british people, desperate to deter more attacks, are anxious to relay anything suspicious to police, who still believe bonding with those on ones beat is integral. Are they just getting absolutely flooded with intelligence right john oconnor yeah, because people want to be of assistance. It is very difficult. The real skill of the Intelligence Services is prioritizing. And i think theyve been doing that very successfully. We dont always hear about the successes that they have, but i think the absence of major terrorist successes in this country, since to it. Scott 7 7 is the july date in 2005 that jihadists setoff coordinated attacks on londons Public Transit system, killing 52, wounding more than 700. Supporting that argument for increased security is the last annual tally of figures showing 255 terror related arrests and seven major plots foiled, which is reflected in the countrys current threat level status of severe, meaning an attack is short, both white and oconnor agreed that firearms become necessary, as they were in paris. But weve got to make sure that the officers we are asking to do these difficult jobs, who we are asking to run towards danger when others are running away, have the protection and the means to deal with. Scott in the meantime, this probably, mostly unarmed nation is wrestling with emerging threats and the cornerstone of its centuries old standard of policing. And increasing the number armed or arms trained officers is made more difficult by how many are retiring, so steve white says they really need to find around 3000 officers willing to use guns, not 1500 already a bit of a challenge since many dont want the responsibility that comes with having a firearm. Sharyl changing times, very interesting. Thanks, scott. Ahead, we follow the money to afghanistan and another huge boondoggle. 85 million of your tax dollars, in part, for an abandoned, 85 million of your tax dollars, in part, for an abandoned, fivestar hotel. Announcer thousands of washington, d. C. Families to develop new commonsense home sharing rules. We helped the city collect millions in taxes last year from our community. And we support rules that protect Affordable Housing and maintain our neighborhoods. Working together, we can make sure all of washington can benefit. He gets a lot of compliments. Shirt looking all nice. And then people just say, . Thank you for serving our country . And im like, thats my dad. Male vo no one deserves a warmer welcome home. Thats why were hiring 10,000 members of the military community by the end of 2017. Im very proud of him. Sharyl today, there are more than 9,000 u. S. Troops on the ground in afghanistan. And weve spent more than 110 billion tax dollars to help rebuild the country. Unfortunately, much of that money has been lost to waste, fraud, and abuse. In todays follow the money, we track 85 million tax dollars down the tubes. The u. S. Special Inspector General for afghanistan reconstruction, john sopko, recently toured two abandoned construction sites in kabul. This one for a fivestar jordanian citizen and a u. S. Company. It was to open in 2010. According to sopko, the federal agency in charge of overseeing the spending, the overseas private investment corporation, fell down on the job. Its funded by hundreds of millions of your tax dollars. Also abandoned, a luxury apartment project next door that was supposed to open in 2013, but obviously didnt. The o. P. I. C. Provided no on site monitoring of the projects as it and now with that money gone, u. S. Taxpayers are also picking up the cost of security for the deserted buildings. Sopko says the o. P. I. C. s management failure may point to systemwide problems with the federal agencys work around the world. Still ahead. Heros who should not be forgotten. Well tell you about americas original special forces the secret army that helped win world war ii still waiting for sharyl before special forces and navy seals, before the cia, there was the office of strategic services, the oss. The u. S. Force was behind some of the most daring operations in world war ii. Congress is poised to award surviving members the congressional gold medal for their bravery. But time is growing short for this handful of heroes. We spoke with one. This is mont blanc, one of the highest peaks in that part sharyl in woodstock, virginia, 93yearold john billings still has a vivid memory of the Daring Mission he flew that helped turn the tide of world war ii against the nazis. John billings it was february of 1945, it was in the alps, it was very cold. Sharyl back then, he was 1st lt. John billings. A veteran of 14 daytime bombing missions, he was assigned to operation greenup, an oss mission to drop three spies john billings we couldnt find, i mean the whole of the alps were, were just blanketed in overcast clouds. Later we found out that, that the wind speed was 200 miles an hour going over that ridge. And even the clouds were falling that fast. Sharyl the three spies parachuted and made their way to innsbruck, austria, gestapo headquarters. That mission inspired the 2009 film . Inglourious basterds. Were going to be doing one thing and one thing only, killing nazis. Sharyl the intelligence the real spies gathered about nazi troop movements proved vital to defeating hitler. That was one mission and a handful of heroes. At its peak, the oss had 13,000 operators working through europe, asia, and africa, almost a third were women. They went behind the lines on covert operations, underwater and from the air. Today, there are few left. Billings would like for him and the other survivors to be awarded the congressional medal, not only for their sake, but also for historys sake. John billings well, it means that at least somebody thinks that we did a good job. Sharyl john billings is still flying airplanes. The Senate Passed a bill to give all the oss veterans the congressional gold medal. Late this week, we heard the oss society, they tell us the house will vote on awarding the medal, one source tells us that vote will happen after thanksgiving. Congratulations to all the brave americans who served. Next week on full measure. You may be tired of turkey by then, so weve got shrimp. But the question of who is catching it and where is at the center of a global controversy. Well take you to the bayou in louisiana and an industry threatened with extinction by foreign competition. Thats next week. Government matters with francis rose. Coming up on Government Matters, pulling the plug on cyber vulnerable contractors. A group of chief Information Officers wants that authority from congress. And a busy year from the governments Category Management initiative. One key player says that momentum will 2017 and General Services administration is working overtime to get industry on board. And all eyes on the president ial transition. How will a Trump Administration impact the i. T. Community. Our federal roundtable has all the answers. Government matters starts right now. Thanks for watching the Weekend Edition of Government Matters featuring the latest topics that matter to the business of government like