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

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

[Caspar Bowden <cb () fipr org> 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: rms () privacyfoundation org (Richard M. Smith)
To: "'Declan McCullagh'" <declan () well com>
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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