quote: WASHINGTON (AP) - The Bush administration is offering a novel reason for denying a request seeking the Justice Department's database on foreign lobbyists: Copying the information would bring down the computer system.
"Implementing such a request risks a crash that cannot be fixed and could result in a major loss of data, which would be devastating," wrote Thomas J. McIntyre, chief in the Justice Department's office for information requests....
..."What they're asking for is a lot, and it's not something at this particular point in time we have the technical ability to do," Justice Department spokesman Bryan Sierra said Tuesday.
McIntyre explained in a May 24 letter that the computer system - operated in the counterespionage section of the Justice Department's criminal division - "was not designed for mass export of all stored images" and said the system experiences "substantial problems...
...Attorney General John Ashcroft ordered federal agencies in October 2001 to review more closely which documents they release. Ashcroft's policy lets officials withhold information on any "sound legal basis." Under looser policies issued in 1993, agencies could hold back information to prevent "foreseeable harm."
I'm not sure what think of this...incompetancy, lying...or both? Satyagraha
[ June 29, 2004, 10:53 PM: Message edited by: BYuCnslr ]
Posted by Mabus (Member # 6320) on :
...the truth?
Some of the computer systems the government uses are thoroughly antiquated.
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
They're able to print out bits of the database at a time (at outrageous fees per page), but can't make a copy of the entire thing. Right . . .
Posted by BYuCnslr (Member # 1857) on :
So, incompetancy.
I understand the point where, using antiqudated hardware would be a problem...except I'm seeing a little discrepency between spending...they're willing to spend billions of dollars on the US military but not even a few thousand dollars on updating old hardware...
And it doesn't explain the many times that Ashcroft has ordered the witholding of information via the Freedom of Information Act BEFORE. Satyagraha
Posted by Mabus (Member # 6320) on :
There is a vast amount of hardware out there, you know. I'm not saying it couldn't all be easily replaced, as I don't know the total cost, but I worked in a (local) government office a few years ago. I could barely even figure out the interface--it looked like the kind of thing I had always had on my Apple IIC--and things took an eternity to print.
Posted by dabbler (Member # 6443) on :
They shouldn't be allowed to use it as an excuse. Now that it's "known" that the hardware/software is the problem, updating it should be a priority.
Posted by BYuCnslr (Member # 1857) on :
A local office is very different from the national office. However, I do understand the point of having bad hardware...though, I don't understand why they haven't upgraded on something as crucial as a database yet. Satyagraha
Posted by dabbler (Member # 6443) on :
And by priority, I mean fixing it before December. December seems like an awfully convenient month to be done by.
Posted by littlemissattitude (Member # 4514) on :
Oh, puh-leaze. Now I've heard everything. I'd believe "the dog ate the lobbying data" before I would believe that the Justice Department cannot access it. On the other hand, if it is true, I think they need to withhold Ashcroft's salary until they get the system fixed. The thing is, if they know they cannot access it, but keep adding information to the system, that sounds like criminal negligence to me.
My suspicion is that they just don't want to access the information. You know how the administration is - positively paranoid about giving anyone any information at all.
Edited to fix typos.
[ June 30, 2004, 12:11 AM: Message edited by: littlemissattitude ]
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
What I think is likely is that somebody brought one of their tech guys a request like "I need you to query the DB and dump every record we've got, with associated image file, to something else that can be read from another machine -- so, ideally, something in a common DB format."
And the tech guy, freaking out, quickly computes how many cycles this is going to eat, and how much space it's going to take, and how many man-hours somebody's going to have to spend getting the data into an exportable format, and spazzes. He goes back to his boss, terrified that somebody's going to realize that the whole database is a house of cards built by some ex-IBM guy who used its cryptic structure for job security until he died of a heart attack five years ago (and nobody, not even the new DB admin, has any clue how it's put together), and says something like, "You've got to be kidding me! The positron configuration matrix is unstable during the entire month of July! If you gave me three hundred of the best men in the field at $200K apiece, we MIGHT have it running for you by next January."
And his boss goes, "Really?"
And he goes, pretending to eke out this information reluctantly, "Well, there's this consulting firm I know that's run by an old friend of mine. If we brought them on, and you kept my calendar clear, we might swing November." (Naturally, this consulting firm employs one of the few guys who ever did understand this database, and who left for greener pastures years ago -- passing on this job, but not adequately training his replacement. For him, it's probably a one-month fix.)
And the boss goes, "November, huh? If I say December, that'll give us breathing room and some political leverage. And if people push us to hurry, I can always ask for a piece of the emergency budget due to the extraordinary circumstances...."
And thus the cycle of incompetence is maintained.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
I've worked for the Federal government - Tom's theory is very believable.
We had to write screen-scraper software to make electronic financial reports, and we had to build in rest periods so we wouldn't crash the system.
This is totally believable. Also totally scary.
Dagonee
Posted by kerinin (Member # 4860) on :
quote:The positron configuration matrix is unstable during the entire month of July!
Posted by Dan_raven (Member # 3383) on :
And the worst part, boss, is that I think there is a crack in the dilithium crystal which could defrag the entire milochloridium structure.
Posted by Kayla (Member # 2403) on :
So, if one were to hack into the system and try a massive download, it could crash the computers? Excellent information for the terrorists to know. Well, them and computer nerds who have no lives.
I'm beginning to think that the US is a step away from the stone age. I mean, we can't seem to coordinate a war, we can't seem to stop anything at the ports from entering the country, we don't seem to be able to even download information from a highly sensitive computer system. I'm getting the feeling that everything is strung together with duct tape and hope. From now on, instead of movies like Armageddon and the like, you know, where the Americans figure out the solution and save the world, we ought to start making ones where we almost save the world, but someone decided to turn the light on in the storage closet and managed to send the entire Eastern seaboard into a blackout, causing a complete failure of the rescue attempt down at Cape Canaveral.
Dan, that's what I was thinking when I read Tom's post. Scottie could surely have it done in half the time, but he'd still tell the Captain it would take forever.
Posted by Danzig (Member # 4704) on :
Well I must say that makes me feel better about all the taxes I pay.
Posted by Lupus (Member # 6516) on :
quote:So, if one were to hack into the system and try a massive download, it could crash the computers? Excellent information for the terrorists to know. Well, them and computer nerds who have no lives.
well, generally highly secure data is put on computers without access to the internet to avoid this type of problem.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
quote:I'm beginning to think that the US is a step away from the stone age.
It never pays to think about how our country actually runs (and I mean the whole thing, not just the government). Nothing is as systematic and well-thought out as people think it is. Information technology, which requires specific, expensive expertise to implement well, but almost no real training to get up and working in some fashion, is particularly prone to haphazard and shoddy implementation.
It's a far cry from the stone age, though. Maybe early bronze.
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