HONOLULU -- The state has beefed up security at Iolani Palace after a Hawaiian sovereignty group took it over briefly a week ago.

KITV sought the advice of a security expert who found some simple and relatively inexpensive measures that could have slowed or prevented the recent palace takeover.

Sovereignty activists chained Iolani Palace's gates on Aug. 15, sealing off the grounds. A week later, the gates are still vulnerable, private investigator Steve Goodenow said.

"Anyone can manipulate them," he said.

Goodenow has spent 40 years working in the security and private investigation industry.

He said a low-tech and relatively cheap solution would be to chain or lock them open. A more expensive option would be to modify the gates so they are electronically controlled.

"To me, these shouldn't be able to be closed just by anybody who walking by; there should be some form of security that prohibits that," Goodenow said.

He also found something on the pins holding the gates open.

"Somebody's come and loosened all these things; the other one's the same way, you know. Somebody's done that. You got to ask yourself why," Goodenow said.

He also found rocks by the palace's Richards Street gate that could be lethal during a confrontation.

"I'm a worker for the palace here and I’m saying, 'Oh you can't do that,' and somebody is emotionally disturbed or someone is very excited, and they pick up a rock, there's one right here for them to pick up. I mean, I'd get rid of this stuff," Goodenow said.

There are surveillance cameras inside and outside the palace, but none around its grounds.

"You can have all the cameras you want in the world, but is anybody really looking at them? What are they doing when they see something? What's the protocol?" Goodenow asked.

As extra armed state law enforcement officers patrol outside the palace, Goodenow said the challenge is how to increase security without turning the place into a fortress.