No Census, No Feeling

(I have to work in a Three Stooges reference where I can; it’s appropriate for our government anyway)…

Based on this story as well as the revelations from Jim Nicholson and the VA a few months ago, I hereby propose that no one in the Bush administration should be allowed to use a laptop computer or any device whatsoever that could travel out of an office (or if they do, that the device has no means of any kind to transmit information elsewhere).

An excerpt from the story appears below:

WASHINGTON - More than 1,100 laptop computers have vanished from the Commerce Department since 2001, including nearly 250 from the Census Bureau containing such personal information as names, incomes and Social Security numbers, officials said yesterday.

The disclosure by the department came in response to a request by the House Committee on Government Reform, which this summer asked 17 federal departments to detail any loss of computers holding sensitive personal information.

Of the 10 departments that have responded, the losses at Commerce are "by far the most egregious," said David Marin, staff director for the committee. He said the silence of the remaining seven departments may reflect reluctance to reveal problems of similar magnitude.

Oh, that’s just great. But not to worry; according to Rep. Thomas M. Davis 3d (R., Va.), who chairs the government reform committee and attended the briefing,

"(Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez) has assured me that getting that information is Priority No. 1, and I'm confident he'll get his arms around the problem."

Personally, I’d like to "get my arms around" a new commerce secretary.

And by the way, the Inquirer saw fit to bury this story on page A-13 last Friday (another honored moment for the legacy of Brian Tierney and Philadelphia Media Holdings).