[ISN] FBI reports laptops missing

From: InfoSec News (isnat_private)
Date: Wed Jul 18 2001 - 20:29:49 PDT

  • Next message: InfoSec News: "[ISN] U.S. Security Plan Too Top-Heavy?"

    http://www.fcw.com/fcw/articles/2001/0716/web-fbi-07-18-01.asp
    
    [Commentary: Hello? Why is it so easy to lose a laptop, or worse yet a
    firearm? I just got back from Las Vegas and again as I have I been
    quoted in the past in regards to the British losing their laptops: 
    http://www.wired.com/news/print/0,1294,43088,00.html 
    
    "When I travel with a laptop I watch it better than some of my fellow
    travelers watch their children. And my laptop isn't packed with
    national defense secrets." 
    
    Same deal with this trip, not that my laptop is the laptop high on my
    wishlist, but a lowly IBM Thinkpad 560x. While I am at it, how does
    one especially the FBI lose 450+ firearms?
    
    There is about only one instance I can think of...
    
    http://us.imdb.com/Quotes?0095963
    
    Cat Manzetti:  You leave your guns with those guys over there.
    Art Ridzik:    No way. A Chicago cop never relinquishes his weapon. 
              
    [The gang all point their guns at him.] 
    
    Here you go.
    
    
    Something to think about. - WK]
    
    
    
    BY Christopher J. Dorobek 
    July 18, 2001 
    
    Hundreds of FBI laptop computers, including at least one containing
    classified information, have been lost or stolen over the past decade,
    Justice Department officials said Tuesday.
    
    Acting FBI Director Tom Pickard informed Attorney General John
    Ashcroft July 17 that 184 laptop computers were missing and that at
    least 13 of them are believed to have been stolen.
    
    The word comes as the Senate Judiciary Committee today is scheduled to
    hold the second in a series of hearings on management problems at the
    FBI.
    
    The bureau has been plagued by a series of woes over recent years,
    including the loss of thousands of documents in connection with the
    trial of convicted Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh. Officials
    blamed the mishandling of those documents on computer problems.
    
    In addition to the laptop computers, nearly 450 firearms are missing.
    
    In response, Ashcroft has asked the Justice Departments inspector
    general to conduct an inventory of laptops and other items. The FBI
    alone has about 13,000 laptop computers, Justice Department officials
    said.
    
    Earlier this year, the Justice Department IG reported that the
    Immigration and Naturalization Service could not account for weapons.
    
    Laptop computers have also been lost or stolen at the departments of
    State and Energy.
    
    
    
    
    ISN is hosted by SecurityFocus.com
    ---
    To unsubscribe email isn-unsubscribeat_private
    



    This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Thu Jul 19 2001 - 02:37:55 PDT