The US Federal investigators conducting covert surveillance and other secret operations successfully breached security at two secure US government facilities in Maryland and Colorado, according to a new government report that one lawmaker today described as “disturbing, alarming.”

One of the facilities breached contained a nuclear research reactor. “Our covert vulnerability testing identified security vulnerabilities,” warns a report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO), which sent undercover agents to two campuses of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), an agency of the U.S. Commerce Department.

The report adds, “Specifically, GAO agents gained unauthorized access to various areas of both NIST campuses.” Investigators sought access to the facilities 15 times and each time were successful, revealed House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology Chairman Lamar Smith, R-TX, whose panel held a hearing into the explosive report today.

“Lax physical security at NIST invites concerns about everything from petty vandalism and theft...to criminals or even terrorists stealing or releasing poisonous chemicals and other dangerous materials that are stored in NIST labs.” NIST labs house a number of dangerous chemicals and radioactive material used for research and testing that could be deadly in the wrong hands.