Hundreds of Laptops Missing at State Department, Audit Finds - UPDATE
Jeff Stein writes on CQ Politics:
Hundreds of employee laptops are unaccounted for at the U.S. Department of State, which conducts delicate, often secret, diplomatic relations with foreign countries, an internal audit has found.More here.
As many as 400 of the unaccounted for laptops belong to the department’s Anti-Terrorism Assistance Program, according to officials familiar with the findings.
The program provides counterterrorism training and equipment, including laptops, to foreign police, intelligence and security forces.
Ironically, the Anti-Terrorism Assistance Program is administered by the State Department’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security (DS), which is responsible for the security of the department’s computer networks and sensitive equipment, including laptops, among other duties. It also protects foreign diplomats during visits here.
DS officials have been urgently dispatching vans around the bureau’s Washington-area offices to collect and register employee laptops, said department sources who could not speak on the record for fear of being fired.
Hat-tip: Michael Tanji
UPDATE: 6 May 2008, 21:29 PDT: The State Department says the have found the missing computers. -ferg
posted by Fergie @ 5/03/2008 06:26:00 PM
1 Comments:
Possibly a policy of having DOS personnel actualy sign for their personal work laptops could aid in having better accountablity of these costly and sensitive computers. Seems like a simple matter that is used effectively in the military and private sector to maintain property accountability.
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