State Dept. Tallies Missing Laptops

[William Knowles <wk () C4I ORG>]

http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A23562-2000May17.html

By Steven Mufson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday , May 18, 2000 ; A25

The State Department has discovered that a total of 15 of the
department's 1,913 unclassified laptop computers have been reported
stolen or misplaced over the past 18 months, a State Department
official said yesterday.

But the broad survey conducted by the department's Bureau of
Diplomatic Security was able to account for all of the 60 classified
laptops with the exception of the one highly classified laptop
computer reported missing last month.

David G. Carpenter, the department's senior adviser for security, has
issued a memorandum to be distributed today that warns State
Department officials that the Bureau of Diplomatic Security will
inspect the material on unclassified laptop computers to make sure
that people have not put classified material on them.

In the future, the bureau will conduct spot checks of laptops and
their contents, labels and storage.

Carpenter said in the memo that Secretary of State Madeleine K.
Albright has ordered a review of material on laptop computers to be
completed by June 2, and the executive director of each department and
regional group must submit written reports by that date.

The crackdown on laptop computers follows the embarrassing revelation
last month that a laptop with top-secret information about weapons
proliferation disappeared in January from a supposedly secure
conference room in the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and
Research.

Later, State Department officials discovered that an unclassified
laptop signed out to the head of the office of policy and planning,
Morton Halperin, a close confidant of Albright, was also missing.

"Today's technology enables laptop computers to store vast amounts of
information," Carpenter wrote in the memorandum to all departmental
employees. "Laptop computers are a high-risk target for theft and
require us to take special safeguards to protect them."

The memorandum also reiterates existing State Department rules on
safeguarding classified laptops and using passwords.

A State Department official yesterday tried to put the best light on
the losses of unclassified computers, noting that the numbers worked
out to a loss rate of 0.5 percent a year. The official said the loss
rate was probably comparable to figures in private industry or other
large organizations.

The official said that in most offices in the department, several
employees often share one laptop computer.

But congressional critics of the State Department have said that the
vanished laptops already disclosed show a cavalier attitude toward
government secrets on the part of department officials.

Members of Congress have called for tighter security measures at the
agency.

Some State Department employees have also complained that senior
officials do not pay enough attention to the issue of security.

One State Department official said in an interview that he reported
and repeatedly tried to draw attention to a missing unclassified
laptop in 1996, but that diplomatic security looked into it only
during the past month.


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