High Alert

An ongoing digest of incompetence in high places

2004-01-22

• 
  Boston Globe carries the following headline:
  Infiltration of files seen as extensive...
  Senate panel's GOP staff pried on Democrats
  After reading through the long article speculating about GOP spying on Democrats we find this:
  "A technician hired by the new judiciary chairman, Patrick Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, apparently made a mistake that allowed anyone to access newly created accounts on a Judiciary Committee server shared by both parties -- even though the accounts were supposed to restrict access only to those with the right password."
  (Link)
  

2003-10-30

• Today a Capitol building was closed for two hours due to an "alert".
  
• People were "evacuated" from the building, but many people didn't receive the
  alert.
  
• The alert was sent to building occupants via FAX!
  
• The alert included a lookout for a white man of average height carrying a gun.
  
• It turned out that 2 WOMEN on congressional staff entered the building with Halloween
  costumes
  which included a toy gun
  
• 
  A report was made public today by
  The Center for Public Integrity
  
• href="http://video.c-span.org:8080/ramgen/archive/iraq/iraq103003_integrity.rm"target="_blank">Here
  is a video from CSPAN
  
• A Brooklyn cop is being investigated for Internet postings in which he brags about beating suspects,
  writing phony tickets and ignoring calls to his precinct. (href="http://www.newsday.com/news/local/newyork/nyc-blog1223,0,3411589,print.story?coll=ny-nynews-headlines">LINK)
  
  
• Los Alamos National Laboratory employees and managers have been placed on paid investigative leave as a
  result of security problems that surfaced at the lab earlier this month, a lab spokesman confirmed Friday. (LINK)