FC: Fed hijinks: IRS sabotage, FBI "conference" as cover for party

From: Declan McCullagh (declanat_private)
Date: Sun Jul 29 2001 - 07:21:21 PDT

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    [Caspar Bowden <cbat_private> writes in about the "U.K. anti-terrorism law 
    imperils hackers, privacy, property" Politech post. He says that the most 
    disturbing sections of the law apply only to people living in Northern 
    Ireland and said some stringent restrictions have already existed. Those 
    seem to be true statements. But from my (outsider's) perspective, I think 
    it makes sense to be concerned about violations of fundamental human rights 
    of privacy and property, no matter where they take place. --Declan]
    
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    From: rmsat_private (Richard M. Smith)
    To: "'Declan McCullagh'" <declanat_private>
    Subject: Ex-IRS Worker Pleads Guilty To Internal Server Sabotage
    Date: Fri, 27 Jul 2001 17:40:09 -0400
    
    
      http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/168453.html
    
    A former systems administrator for the Internal Revenue Service (IRS)
    pleaded guilty to sabotaging several databanks at the agency after
    supervisors disciplined him by taking away his security clearance.
    
    In a Maryland federal court on Tuesday, 19-year-old Claude Carpenter III
    of Lusby, Md., pleaded guilty to writing a series of simple programs to
    delete data on three IRS servers. According to court records, Carpenter
    inserted the malicious code into his supervisor's account and into the
    servers after learning he was scheduled for termination.
    
    Carpenter was a systems administrator for Logicon, a subcontractor hired
    to manage the database that inventories all hardware and software within
    the IRS. In that position, he was responsible for monitoring three
    computer servers that run the database.
    
    .......
    
    The IRS discovered the problem after Carpenter repeatedly called in to
    see "if everything was OK."
    
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    http://www.washtimes.com/national/20010726-92356793.htm
    Washington Times
    July 26, 2001
    
    Sham FBI conference used as cover for party
    By Jerry Seper
    THE WASHINGTON TIMES
    
          Senior FBI executives scheduled a sham conference at the bureau's
    Virginia training academy to allow colleagues to attend at taxpayers'
    expense a 1997 retirement party for a top FBI official, an internal report
    shows.
          While the "Integrity in Law Enforcement" conference was later found to
    have been cover for senior FBI managers to obtain improper reimbursements
    for personal travel to Washington, no one was disciplined other than to
    receive letters of censure.
          Similar actions by rank-and-file FBI agents would have led to their
    firing.
          The report was given last week to Senate investigators looking into
    recent FBI mismanagement and questions concerning such investigations as
    the Timothy McVeigh case and the arrest as a spy of agent Robert P. Hanssen.
          More than 140 persons, including as many as nine FBI executives and
    special-agents-in-charge (SACs) of bureau field offices, attended the Oct.
    9, 1997, party in Arlington for veteran agent Larry A. Potts, while only
    five persons showed up for the Oct. 10, 1997, conference in Quantico, Va.,
    -- which lasted about 90 minutes, including lunch.
    
          Two months before the party, Mr. Potts -- a onetime FBI deputy
    director -- was under criminal investigation over his questionable handling
    of a standoff at Ruby Ridge, Idaho, during which three persons died.
          According to a September 1999 report by the Law Enforcement Ethics
    Unit (LEEU) at the FBI Academy, an inquiry into the Potts party began Oct.
    22, 1997, and focused on whether the Quantico conference was illegally used
    to justify travel reimbursements to senior agents, who otherwise would have
    been on personal business.
    [...]
    
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