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FBI Agents Don't Have Email Access
the_bikeman writes "According to CNN, many FBI agents do not have access to an email account, and only 100 of the 2000 New York FBI agents have a Internet-ready mobile phone. Spokeswoman Cathy Milhoan said 'e-mail addresses are still being assigned, adding that the city bureau's 2,000 employees would all have accounts by the end of the year.'"
I have 4 Gmail accounts with 500 invitations left each! How many Get Out Of Jail Free cards can I buy?
Agent.Mulder@gmail.com just doesn't have the bragging rights.
It's clear that the greatest protection our civil rights have is abject incompetence.
-Peter
Would welcome my anonymous, unable to communicate federal enforcement overlords....
If only I knew how to communicate with them!
Now you just have to learn to type... and to think.
"FBI agents not having e-mail or Internet access is much too much a pre-9/11 mentality."
Funny, I thought it was a pre-1995 mentality.
This guy's the limit!
Does this mean that FBI agents are so strictly trained they don't even have the ability to think on their own, perhaps even 'outside the box', and get one for themselves?
Indeed why should it cost extra money to assign e-mail addresses? For 2000 people?
Ridiculous.
I prefer my FBI agents to be out attempting to protect me, not forwarding something to their 10 closest friends so Jesus will bless the kittens that day.
Nuke Gay Whales for Jesus.
all FBI agents are certified in morse code and at least half of them have some training in semaphore
and the next highest placing class out of quantico will be introduced to the fancy new 'telephone' that is rumored that a guy name alexander graham bell has perfected
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
"We just don't have the money, and that is an endless stream of complaints that come from the field," he said.
So let me get this straight, $9 billion goes missing in Iraq, the war has cost US taxpayers about $250 billion so far, oil companies have record profit$, our national debt ceiling was raised to $9 trillion and we can't afford to supply email to the FBI?
What is going on? And, does anyone even care?
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
I've heard of communications blackouts...
But this is ridiculous!
Let's all give them GMail invites. Oh wait, I guess that wouldn't be good for top secret clearance data. Oh well...
The EU, and to a decreasing extent, the UK, .au and .ca have larger bureaucracies than the US because government employment has higher social status so it attracts more talented individuals.
Do you really want a more competant government? You will just get more of it, until it expands to it's limit of competence.
Isn't it obvious? They're G-men, they need G-mail.
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
In a world where secrecy is necessary, what you whisper goes unrecorded, but what you put in an email gets published just when you need it to never have been written down....
With record keeping comes accountability... is it any wonder they don't write things down? Until rather recently, there was no satisfactory manner to keep such communications to mobile devices secure/encrypted. If anyone knows if the govmint is spying on people, the FBI should. Makes you wonder..... ????
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All of the bureau's employees have secure mail accounts for use within that organization. Publicly available accounts, and accounts from which bureau employees can send mail to the public are indeed more complex (think about the tracking they'd require), and would require a lot more than typical corporate non-training when it comes to what they can or should do with that type of communication.
One mis-step in a CC or Reply-All and you could completely torpedo an investigation or a trial. Just look at what one lackluster prosecutor did with some ill-conceived e-mail sent to prospective witnesses during the ongoing 9/11 trial happening right now. This subject is a lot more complicated than meets the eye.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
How much money does it really save to withold e-mail accounts? I can't imagine it would be much. Either way, though, using government e-mail accounts for non-government purposes sounds like a security risk.
Seriously though how does this organization function for internal communications?
Maybe it is my over Hollywood hyped vision of what the FBI does, but how do agents in different geographical office locations communicate or send/get information. Sure there is the phone, and internal mail but wouldent email be a little more effective..
It seems the FBI is lagging behind... a shame really, they should be able to leverage this technology to their advantage.
-Ghost
I guess they haven't been watching Alias and 24. Don't they know how important the latest technological comunication tools are for catching the bad guy?
and only 100 of the 2000 New York FBI agents have a Internet-ready mobile phone.
So? I make my living as a geek, and don't have an internet-ready cell phone.
Why would I pay more, for a service redundant with something I already have, yet with a far lower quality presentation?
When I want to do something online, I'll use a PC. When I want to call someone, I'll use my cell phone. They each serve entirely separate purposes, and as long as my eyes work better scanning large surfaces than a 1.5 inch square, they will continue serving different purposes.
Just what the FBI needs! Cleartext transmissions transmitted wirelessly over the public cloud! (insert GPG fanboy banter below)
Boo Hoo, our exchange licenses costs to much. Us poor folks at the FBI could not possibly just load up a linux box and postfix. I love the comment that the one senator made about this, our agents need better access to technology.
Clue: It is right under your nose, use it!
Got Code?
I dunno about this, because Jack Bauer definitely has a nice PDA. It apparently can hack into computers, control terrorist remote bombs, and self destruct the memory card. These sort of things should be standard issue!
Tim Dorr
Owner/Manger
A Small Orange
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
...They're reading other peoples' mail!
Now i know where all those "Anonymous Coward" posts are coming from!
So instead of wasting their time sorting spam and forwarding the joke of the day they can be out pounding the pavement with their flat feet, doing their jobs enforcing the laws and apprehending criminals. It sounds good to me.
I don;t particularly care for the thought of paying civil servants tens/hundreds of thousands of dollars per year to play on the computer.
Oh, for those that whine; 'Well, they have to enforce the cyber laws too.' I say bullshit! There are far more real world robberies and rapes than there are online ones. Terrorists didn't 'virtually' blow up the twin towers. It happened in the real world. What you twats call meat space.
Does it even matter? No, that should have been: it doesn't matter.
ilovegeorgebush
Why does the FBI need email accounts when they spend all day reading every other citzen's mail? Since they are in my account anyway, the least they could do is delete some of the spam from it.
Considering the relatively super-cheap cost of disk drives, how much does it cost for an email account? If you already have the server, isn't it just a matter of labor (time) to add email accounts? Damn, I know people with $30/month VPS servers with 1000's of email accounts. However, if you work in an organization that spends $500 for a toilet seat, maybe my budget estimate is mis-aligned.
"Beauty is the ultimate defense against complexity." - David Gelernter
Let's see 2K email accounts ....
Ahhh, I have a 700mhz linux box collecting dust under my desk...
$400 for scsi raid
$300 for tape backup
OK for $1.8mil I can cover NY.
Just because you could have the technology doesn't mean you need it. I don't want every FBI agent sifting through the dumb jokes colleagues send and countless viagra spam messages every five minutes. Go out and do some investigating. They don't need their own email they can read ours.
"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." --Unknown
Sounds like a nasty mixture of bureaucracy and inefficiency to me. Is there a difference between employees and agents? (do cleaners need email accounts?)
I wonder what their 'secure internal e-mail system' is?
The Ginger Dog
They still have access to your email though.
I havn't had a chance to read all the comments, but from what I can tell, most of you have no idea what you're saying. The agents all have person email accounts, what they don't have is .gov email accounts. It cost money to have extra email accounts with ISP's, why would it be any different for the government?
Somehow I feel that rather than give the agents email accounts, the gov't will claim that we instead have to reduce civil rights even more.
Which PDA/Phone are you talking about? He has a different brand/model every week!
-Eric
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
That's why I use the "cone of silence"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cone_of_silence
I wonder if this is really that good a thing. I would bet that some people would love to get their hands of the login info of an FBI agent -- it would provide access to data for some serious ID theft, terrorism, fraud, organized crime, etc. All it would take is one agent succumbing to a bit of social engineering.
The problem with the FBI using public protocols on public networks is that it opens non-public data to some serious technological and human security holes.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
Repeat after me, the Web is not the Internet
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
how right my parents were about the FBI when I was a kid. My dad was very high up within Customs and my mom was a GSA IG agent, and all of their friends I knew growing up worked for other federal agencies ranging from the IRS to the DEA. The one thing that all of them had in common was a disdain, bordering on hatred, for the FBI's management. See, the FBI doesn't have its own charter and can expand into whatever it wants, which naturally causes turf wars with other agencies. Customs and the DEA are the two main anti-drug agencies, especially Customs which is the agency responsible for keeping them out of our country on the borders. The FBI would routinely come in and try to to take cases away to build up publicity and then royally fuck up the case, and when you're dealing with wealthy criminals, usually that leads to no conviction, even if there is no technicality, because the lawyers are that good at ripping the FBI a new asshole.
The FBI screwed up on 9-11 because it wants to be the American KGB. It wants to be THE main federal agency and has been jockeying for a foreign intelligence **field work** role. Hello people, that naturally conflicts with the CIA's exclusive jurisdiction there. Didn't stop the FBI's management from refusing to work with the CIA since the CIA has legal jurisdiction over all foreign operations. The FBI has also had problems with management blowing off field agents. The management simply has to go. A top down attack on the FBI management, decentralizing power and putting the bulk of it back into the hands of the lower-level management and field agents is the only solution. From the stories I have heard from the people I know in law enforcement at all levels, the FBI is dominated by middle management hell. The field agents, and the press is quick to point this out with the agents who warned about terrorism but were told to go fuck off by FBI management, and the IT people alike are hamstrung by management that cares more about image than doing its job.
Most importantly, give the agency a clear charter and jurisdiction once and for all. Take terrorism out of most of it too. Let the CIA and NSA deal with terrorists. They don't have the time, the jurisdiction or quite frankly any interest in what non-national security things the people are doing. If there is ever a crackdown on dissent, it'll be done by FBI agents with KGB-level powers, not CIA special ops who tracked down a Jose Padilla and discretely shot him dead like a dog in the streets of NYC.
Considering how little experience it seems that these people have with tech, may they send all their personal money to Nigerian scammers.
Please stop stalking me, bro.
Seems to me there needs to be one central IT department for the US Government. Right now it seems like every agency that needs IT services at this point have to create their own IT department, which has got to be inefficient and probably reduces the buying power of any individual agency. Put 'em all in the same room, standardize the technology you're using and train all the employees so they know how to handle classified data. A unified IT department would surely be less expensive and would be able to standardize on thet right set of tools for the jobs at hand.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Thats some funny stuff. Is this for real?
And if they forgot their password to the account they could just get the Justice Department to subpoena their emails for them...
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and as long as my eyes work better scanning large surfaces than a 1.5 inch square, they will continue serving different purposes.
You, my friend, need smaller eyes.
Please stop stalking me, bro.
If they did get email addresses, would it be just like the way email is in the movies, where the font is 24-point white or yellow lettering that scrolls in real-time across a black background that takes up the entire screen?
This sig, aah-ah, is comin' like a ghost-sig...
Perhaps the agents without email accounts are the same agents that are running the Carnivore operation that, in effect, sifts through everbody's email? If they know that anybody that might want to send an email might be a terrorist, then they certainly don't want to have an email account...!
The more you try continuity of service, the more diverse the applications you consider bringing to bear.
I've got a browser on my mobile phone, simply because I may need to pick up mail when I'm way away from any PC. Using a PDA with ssh on it simply lets me use a text terminal when I need interactive shells on the servers, in case the rest of the kit is unavailable (or I'm miles away from anywhere, and unexpectedly need to work via shell).
Yes, they may be redundant, but when your main access channels are down, or unavailable, you learn to love your redundant but always present channels.
...Or what? Spokeswoman Cathy Milhoan said 'e-mail addresses are still being assigned, adding that the city bureau's 2,000 employees would all have accounts by the end of the year.
Big ISPs add this many email users in a few hours -and they don't have the advantage of importing from an existing HR system with people details. (I guess the FBI doesn't either)
FBI's IT is, once again, proven to be shockingly primitive. Maybe instead of spending $2 Trillion on Iraq (which is creating a terrorist breeding ground that wasn't there before), we should spend a few million to bring the main US domestic police force against terrorism into this century.
I'm still worried. Incompetence in spying doesn't seem to stop them from grabbing a person who's innocent, and throwing them in a cell for 3 years, with no trial, then decide he's not guilty of anything, and releasing him (or not).
Repeat after me, the Web is not the Internet
No kidding... Your point?
I also don't want to read email (which increasingly includes web-like formatting), chat on IRC, or read UseNET on a 1.5 inch screen; And my phone doesn't make the best destination for downloading files via FTP or any P2P; And it takes far too long to enter alphanumeric data to make anything even remotely interactive (ie, ssh) useful on a cellphone.
I suppose getting an RSS feed might prove vaguely useful, but not nearly enough to justify the increased expense - And y'know, with a government that can't seem to spend our tax dollars fast enough, I can't say it really bothers me that the FBI hasn't caught on to yet another way to waste our money.
So, repeat after me - Contextually useless distinctions don't require enumeration.
They probably have got email accounts set up for them, they just don't know how to use them. It's no wonder when they keep typing in things like "Job@3:14" to contact people.
The GP was obviously talking about Lotus Notes/Domino. Remote management and replication, ugh! Yes it's scriptable, but still frelling slow to replicate a dummy user, give certificates, set up locations, etc.
Not only is it a free account, but encrypted too!
The CIA, FBI, and any other governmental agency should have efficient, extremely-monitored, very safe email and email systems. It is very important that modern communications are fostered and maintained in governmental activities.
I know from personal experience that government-funded/government-used technical systems are generally either:
1)Ultra-over-engineered to be sure that the system/thing is ultra-safe or ultra-reliable or ultra-accountable
2)Woefully inadequate because the person(s) in the bureaucracy don't have the tech expertise to foster the effort correctly - and yet place massive, uninformed, and inappropriate amounts of pressure on the worker bees to get the job done as per the way the non-tech person thinks it needs to go.
3)Many projects die on the vine because mis-direction (and management that honestly doesn't have the knowledge they need to lead the effort) makes the project wander in the desert for huge periods of time.
4)I could go on...
But in all fairness, governmental technical efforts have many different and sometimes unique pressures on them. The government literally has to have permission from someone to do anything with public systems. The public (rightfully) wants as much transparency and accountability as possible in governmental efforts - which means everything is debated, re-documented, justified, cleared, reviewed, managed, re-managed, scrutinized, over-then-under-funded, micro-managed, and finally finger-pointed-to-somebody-else'd when the project doesn't go right.
Our government cannot (or doesn't know how to) operate as smaller, more agile private businesses work. The pressure and accountability of every move has created a monster of over-administered and over-micro-managed web of forms, functions, procedures, and other things...
What's the solution? Frankly, I don't know. I want my government to be accountable, and I want the government to be "of the people, by the people", but I also want it to be intelligent, well-led, and a great deal less dysfunctional. If only governmental technical tasks could be more agile...
A Passionate Independent Musician
-Eric
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
>> many FBI agents do not have access to an email account
Not true, not true. They have access to many email accounts, they just don't have accounts of their own.
Maybe carnivore ate them??? :-)
You laugh, but every time I hear people convinced that the FBI/CIA is maintaining a detailed file on them, I just know that there's no way either organization has that kind of manpower to care about them.
Not that I'm thrilled that they seem to be intent on gathering scattershot information when they can (taking pictures of protesters, granting themselves the right to listen in to phone calls). They don't even have time to process the information they have.
The FBI still employs typing pools and all sorts of old fashioned things. The old guard is still in charge at the bureau.
-- Bryan
The gmen were way ahead of the curve with shoe technology.
Haha, that was funny! Wish I had points to give you ...
The article isn't clear, but from what I've seen it sounds like these agents don't have any unclassified-access computer connected to the Internet on their desks at all. That means that the vast amount of information indexed by Google is unavailable to them.
No, you can't ask Google "Where is Osama bin Laden?" But actual intelligence work assumes that you know about the real world. If you want to check a phone book, look on a map, check a dictionary, it really sucks to have to replicate those features on the unclassified network. If you come across a reference to an unknown organization, why not start at the organization's own up-and-up web site? Perhaps it's benign; how can you know if you've never heard of it?
I've known more than one intelligence agent who literally phoned home to have a spouse check out something on the Web for them.
... that Jack Bauer's not in the FBI!
Surely you aren't suggesting that in this post-911 world, your loving president should be spending money on anything other than the security of the homeland? Imagine what those COMMIES in the LIBERAL MEDIA! would do to him if spending on Protecting America's Children, Puppies and Kittens were to fail to keep pace with Moore's Law?
Dreamhost is running their 777 deal again, so they can get web hosting with unlimited email accounts for just $7 a year!!! Yippieeeeeeeeeee!
Something about stories and posts about stories which call for giving more money to the FBI/CIA bothers me, but I can't put my finger on it. I got it! It's as if they wrote it themselves. I'm sorry but the FBI could have email access, that's just not where they themselves have put the money that could be used for email. The FBI gets more than plenty of funding, it gets the funding from our social programs like education and nationalized healthcare. If the FBI wants email, they should cut one of their pet projects like that database with 200,000 names of political dissenters and use it for their email server. Or get Gmails accounts, they probably already thumb through the accounts anyway.
sounds like the (Republican) patriot Act for porn... so lame
Parent is 100% true!
If people had any idea how much burearucratic bullshit that goes on in the FBI, you would have a totally different opinion of them. I find it amazing they are able to do any work at all with all of the political infighting and constant management changes that goes on within the FBI.
If you want to know what really goes on with the FBI, take your local agent out for a drink sometime!
I patented screwing your mom. But it got revoked for "prior art."
How old is this story! All of this was out back in 2002! Do you really think that Homeland Security Money is going any where useful? Hmm.. Get our agents online and communicating or throw ourselves a party and hand out medals.
I agree with you that it is alot more complicated then meets the eye. From personal experience I can say that law enforcement that cannot get an agency e-mail account, will get a public (web accessible) e-mail account elsewhere. People have a great need to communicate (by any means possible). So being overly protective with your agencies e-mail system, will lead to use of public e-mail systems.
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Because afterall, email is for old people!
Join Tor today!
eom
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
My phone is a Nokia 6600 with a 176 x 208 pixel screen.
I use python code on my phone to inject items into my phone's calendar, including via email (i.e. I send an email to 6600@domain.com with a specific format and it will get into my calendar)
My phone has IMAP capability which has proved extremely useful.
My phone has an SSH client which has saved me hundreds of miles of travel in it's time.
However, the Opera Web Browser is particularly useless. Sites rarely look good / work well.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
I suspect that the FBI has a few more security issues to resolve than a typical company would have, but not having any solution probably creates more of a security breach.
Without anything provided for them, it seems logical that agents might turn to some of the free providers for this service.
I wonder how much FBI business is going out over Gmail or Hotmail accounts.
"Seven years of college down the drain. Might as well join the f-ing Peace Corps." - John 'Bluto' Blutarsky
Dude.
Get a sidekick II.
I have email (both pop3 and imap clients), as well as text messaging, AIM, web browsing, and an ssh/telnet client, so if I really wanted (and I have before) I can log in and read my mail with pine.
Plus, qwerty keyboard and big screen.
~W
sig?
I heard this piece on the radio yesterday.
The funniest thing was how they put the togeter.
*********
Announcer: Majority of New York FBI agents have never heard this sound...
*********
I'm sitting in the car and thinking, what? Fax machine? I guess not, e-mail, PDF and cell phones have replaced them all...
The guy continued reading and I realize he's talking about e-mail.
Geezus... let's put together a sound clip starting with Atari 2600 Pac Man getting beaten up by Pinky followed by a voice over of "News radio journalist are reporting on Grand Theft Auto Hot Coffee"
OK, so the ov't spends millions or billions on illegal surveilence. The if they actually do get a good warning via NSA/CIA/DIA/DHS/MOUSE they do not have the means to rapidly send that information to field agents and get them to the right place at the right time.
This is typical of the IT ( and business management) BS I have dealt with for too many years. Instead of focusing on the fundatmentals, such as basic communications, they focus on the flashy 'gee whiz' gadgets such as carnivore/TIAA, extremely expensive Cold War era heavy equipment and missile defense. In the meantime things which are really needed such as body armor and good communications equipment are ignored.
Osama is probably laughing as we speak.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
Are you kidding? She's looking at felony witness tampering, contempt of court, and probably a couple of other things. The judge told her not to come back to court until she had gotten herself an attorney. If Moussawi (sp?) doesn't get the death penalty the lead prosecutor is going to throw the book at her and send her to jail for a few years.
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It's just another method to skirt accountability...who needs email records that can be dug up in investigations! /end conspiracy theory
You are really not using your imagination.
Just because you cannot picture a useful application for FBI agents, based on your experience with crappy consumer cellphone browsers and whatnot, does not mean a useful function for an internet-connected mobile phone does not exist. Particulary a camera phone, or GPS-enabled phone.... you don't see a use for things like that? Why would you want to shoot down the notion before you even investigate? Believe me, they will waste your tax money one way or the other.
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
Apparently signatures sent via FAX are legally binding, but signatures sent by e-mail might not be? I know my real estate agent insisted that certain things be sent via FAX for legal reasons...
Mainframe/UNIX Bit Twiddler and long time Windows/Linux Hobbyist.
The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.
what is this fbi you speak of?
;-)
don't you mean pinkertons?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Well, duh, if you are sitting in front of your PC, it would be silly to use your phone to check your email. Presumably some of the FBI agents need to do some work outside of the office on a regular basis though and don't want to lug around a laptop or stop at the nearest internet cafe to check their email, etc.
Email and the internet are just fads. No point in wasting taxpayer money on it.
Why would they need their own email when they have access to everybody else's?
Here's the link from last week: http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/03/13/fbi.computers.a p/
Hell, I'll put up a secure e-mail system for half that! ;)
Wikipedia:
In 2000, the Bureau began the Trilogy project to upgrade its outdated IT infrastructure. This project, originally scheduled to take three years and cost around $380 million, ended up going far over budget and behind schedule. Efforts to deploy modern computers and networking equipment were generally successful, but attempts to develop new investigation software, outsourced to SAIC, were a disaster. Virtual Case File, or VCF, as the software was known, was plagued by poorly defined goals and repeated changes in management. In January 2005, more than two years after the software was originally planned to be completed, the Bureau officially abandoned the project. At least $100 million (and much more by some estimates) was spent on the project, which was never operational. The Bureau has been forced to continue using its decaded old Automated Case Support system, which is considered to be woefully inadequate by IT experts. In March 2005 the Bureau announced it is beginning a new, more ambitious software project code-named Sentinel, expected to be completed by 2009.
They don't have the money?
Where the hell is that 9 trillion dollars worth of debt going?
The FBI can afford to spy on Quakers, pacifists, and peace groups, but can't afford e-mail? WTF?
n /oped/articles/2006/03/20/the_politics_of_pacifism _meets_fbi_monitoring/
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinio
> Spokeswoman Cathy Milhoan said 'e-mail addresses are
> still being assigned, adding that the city bureau's
> 2,000 employees would all have accounts by the end of the year .
It's only March, idiots!
And this is the FBI! Some of you goofballs want an even less competent branch of government to take over the lifesaving, life-extending medical system?
At least nowadays people can hire their own private detectives and rent-a-cops if necessary.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Just plug in a sniffer and get all your information over the Internet.
Oh, that reminds me -- Agent Harris, call your wife. She wants you to bring home a loaf of bread and 2% milk.
Mod Karma -1: I sed bad wurds. If I cep my mouf shut, I wud be at riyses.
They have access to my email...
What?
It reminds me of back in the dark old ages around 1985 or 86 when I had a work/study job that involved teaching people to use Macintoshes and an old threaded bulletin board system (Confer) for their classes. We would teach the faculty first, then teach their students.
I was showing a professor (and not a young one, either, and he had mentioned that he also had a small publishing house) Macwrite, and explaining how the display was designed with a typewriter analogy, and that it did pretty much the same things, but with click-drag, etc.
Then he says "I've never used a typewriter".
I was floored--this guy had been publishing papers for probably 30+ years, and ran a small publishing house, and had never used a typewriter. After a few moments of being stunned, and having the gears spin overtime in my head, I did start to figure out how to explain the interface to him, but he was missing the the whole typewriter language that Macwrite was based on.
>look at what one lackluster prosecutor did with some ill-conceived e-mail
Jesus H. Armadillo! Are we going to drag our whole government operation down to the level of the least competent person in the organization? I have worked in companies that had the philosophy of creating new restrictions every time some idiot abused or misused some tool or benefit. This served to limit the ability of the competent to actually get things done.
After a while, I got so frustrated that I quit and found a better job. There is a better way to run things: Fire The Morons! This "lackluster prosecutor" has at least seven years of university education and a six-figure salary. Am I wrong to expect competence and accountability? It's not like there's a shortage of lawyers in this country. Fire the fool and hire someone that can follow simple instructions.
The FBI is supposed to have the best and the brightest cops in the country. If they can't be trusted not to send the case file on some mass murderer as an email attachment to the guy's uncle, we're just screwed anyway. If I hear one more time, that we can't get rid of some idiot, because we have all this time and money invested in his training, I'm going to scream. We may have spent a lot of time and money, but it didn't work. Fire The Morons! I guarantee we'll be better off.
Thank you for listening. I'm going to go take my medication now.
Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
When MikeRT says "The FBI has also had problems with management blowing off field agents" a great example is Agent Colleen Rowley's experience: "We were prevented from even attempting to question Moussaoui on the day of the attacks when, in theory, he could have possessed further information about other co-conspirators."
Read the article. I know that's a lot to ask. They all have internal email addresses. Just not public ones. I don't see why most of them need public ones.
FBI agents don't have email access? Of course they do, just not to their own. *ba-boom, tsh*
Thankyou, I'll be here all week
What "we dont have the money" and "by the end of the year" means is "Its not my turf so I have no intention of doing that email stuff (whatever that is).'
Who the heck cares if they don't have internet ready phones? That's like whing that they don't all have Ipod Nanos!
"It's just as easy to accidentally stuff crap into the wrong envelope and accidentally put the wrong address on it."
No actually, it isn't. I know of no way to easily send out hundreds of copies of a document at one time with traditional mail. It happens all the time with e-mail.
"The government grants you rights, not the other way around."-- beav007. Yes, these people really exist...
They couldn't afford the $2 million contract that would have had a contractor come in and do it for them.
At what point did you figure out that repeating yourself louder only displayed your lack of fluency in your native tongue? Oh, wait... you apparently never figured that out.
Someone actually competent to speak to customers might have said (reassuring tone) "OK, I've already got your postal address, what I need is an electronic mail address that can recieve electronic mail from the Internet. If your company doesn't have an e-mail system that connects to the Internet, we're going to have to engineer a solution that will connect to your internal mail system, or set up webmail accounts for you that can be checked with a web browser". Then you could go on to explain why this is necessary within the framework of your application, since obviously you are talking to someone who hasn't been brought up to speed by anyone else at either company.
You might actually get something called repeat business if you don't belittle your customers and make them think you are an arrogant technocrat.
You might even find a useful ally within the customer's management hierarchy if you can provide sorely needed information without coming across like a condescending prick.
Er... or something like that. Not giving them e-mail is likely saving Millions and Millions if not Billions and Cillions. :) Just poking a lil fun at Washington for having no clue about units. I think it's why we haven't switched to the metric system.
That way, the FBI can always know where they are all the time. It'll be cool!
It'll work great, too, as long as the tracking database and controls aren't operated by a nebulous coalition of third-party bureaucracies with a history of bad security and demonstrated lack of interest in efficient co-operative communication... Oh, wait.
Never mind!
Considering the current Attorney General of New York State, Elliot Spitzer, was quoted in Business 2.0 a few months back as saying, admittedly I am paraphrasing but you get the idea, "don't put anything important in an email", I would say that this is about right that the alphabet boys do not have email.
A hand up and a foot on every chest...
It a good thing that they don't have email accounts. Once they do, the will probably be spending hours a day reading the tons of email that the government sends them. As a side effect, they will probably have to attend a lot more meetings to review all the email. It seems like just having them do work is a better thing...
Who needs email addresses and phones when they can just get a warrant to use yours!
should be to provide the slashdot masses with a good laugh. I haven't been having any luck shopping enlightenment.
Did you get the part where I mocked the guy for mocking his clients? I thought that was particularly funny myself.
Not everyone has nor needs nor wants business email. Take doctors for instance. My doctor refuses to get an email address for work, and never gives his personal one nor his cell phone number out. Why not? What if a patient emails him at 1AM, "Hey, I'm getting some chest pain," and is dead by morning. Is the doctor liable for not checking his email until 7AM? By this rationale, he only gives out his office number with a 24-hour operator in case of emergencies.
Which in reality, for a security agency, would be a risk in the first place. This isnt some burger joint, here risks matter.
No one is saying the FBI are idiots, and have no email. Or dont know how to use it. Just that they dont yet have external email. Not a big deal.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Your analogy is excellent, and your point of view is reasonable, but.... how exactly does that make it OK to be rude to a customer on the phone?
They don't know something so it's OK to make them feel ignorant? That makes the end-users love you, oh yeah.
Any one of us could have 2000 email accounts created by the end of the DAY, assuming they've got an electronic list of the people who need them. If this is any indication of their effectiveness, we may as well terminate the agency.
Particulary a camera phone, or GPS-enabled phone.... you don't see a use for things like that? Why would you want to shoot down the notion before you even investigate? Believe me, they will waste your tax money one way or the other
Are you seriously suggesting that law enforcement gather evidence using a cameraphone? I'd much rather have my tax money "wasted" on giving agents the actual tools (GPS receivers, telephoto-lens cameras, maybe a laptop) they need, not gimmicky RadioShack all-in-one gadgets.
"What do you mean, send out a crime scene photographer? Don't you have a cell phone?"
The US free market: two halves of a government-granted duopoly are free to set the market price.
No - I should have been more explicit - I'm not talking about any consumer crap. They should have specific gear commissioned directly from a company/provider, like they do with everything else (think police cars, or "military" gear, that sort of thing). The original question was should they have it at all - I say yes, but I'm not thinking of Nokias and iPaqs.
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
Fax being short for Fascimile, why would you capitalise the A and the X in the word? That's like calling someone named Richard "DICK".
...it's really a sad day for America when we require a goddamn ACT OF CONGRESS to make our DVD players work properly. ~
I've only had to send facsimile documents to others a few times, and at least two of them referred to it in all caps so I picked up on that. If it's not correct, I'll adjust the practice, but frankly I don't use them except when I'm buying or selling a house...
Mainframe/UNIX Bit Twiddler and long time Windows/Linux Hobbyist.
The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.
I've never been without a .mil email account. Maybe the FBI can copy off of us, we seem to be able to pull it off. We could just sign them all up for GI Mail http://www.gimail.af.mil/, that's what I use for my home email account. Best part is you can use it from any .gov computer (and civilian computers as well)!
Never give in--never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to conviction
The entire point of introducing those words into the conversation is so that you can explain them.
See, if I use a word you don't understand, but I don't make it seem like you are a complete moron for not understanding it, you can ask about it without being intimidated or feeling foolish.
Then I can convert a client from an uneducated boob to an appreciative ally who will engender repeat business.
It's impossible for a client to know all the words I know. If they knew everything I do, they wouldn't need me.
Definitely time to go home.
Does this mean that the Zacarias Moussaoui (currently in the death penalty phase of his trial for the 9/11 attacks) defence team could say that he emailed the FBI the details of the impending attacks but it 'bounced'?
They have more than enough email addresses.
We're sorry, FbiAgent@yahoo.com is already taken.
May we suggest the following:
FbiAgent007@yahoo.com
MyFbiAgent@yahoo.com
MyFbiAgent27@yahoo.com
eFbiAgent27@yahoo.com
Next >
If you do what you always did, you get what you always got.
You're correct, but you're missing the point.
If your grandfather didn't know what a flush toilet was, would you think it was good customer service if he hired a plumber to modernise his house, and the plumber treated him like a moron for not knowing? That plumber wouldn't get any repeat business from your grandfather, would he? Who is the real fool?
As Asok said to Dogbert, "You could have fixed my problem in the time it took to belittle me". It doesn't matter how commonplace the information is, the point is the paying customer didn't know it. So you explain, and the customers love you, everyones' life is enriched, and you laugh all the way to the bank... while the guy who makes his customers feel stupid grows an ulcer in his dead-end Hell Desk job.
The FBI/CIA may not have the manpower to keep a file on you, but the NSA has the manpower to write a program to keep a file on you.
paintball
The OP said that those people were going to use web applications constantly. You are right, the customer always is right, yada yada yada.
But this is almost like buying a card, and when the salesman asks for your driver license, you reply "I don't know what you are talking about". Not "I don't have a license", but "I don't know what in hell is this license".
It is pretty weird.
That's like saying you don't know what a road is.
In Venice?
__
Men with no respect for life must never be allowed to control the ultimate instruments of death.
GW Bu
Brilliant!
They don't need personal email accounts. They already own all of yours.
Those who sacrifice security to condemn liberty deserve to repeat history or something. - Benjamin Santayana
Despite popular depictions, there are actually more roads (well, streets) in Venice than there are canals.
Those who sacrifice security to condemn liberty deserve to repeat history or something. - Benjamin Santayana
Why do you need a driver's license to buy a card?
I done blogged this here:
http://thefifthcolumn.com/blog/?p=86
You mean to tell me that there are actually agents in the field that don't have email? Why would we want our intelligence operatives to be able to share information and assess threats quickly? Could that perhaps, be the freaking point of the FBI?
http://thefifthcolumn.com/blog/?p=86
Since the OP wasn't a customer of mine, I had the luxury of assuming the worst of him ;).
Couple of anecdotes:
Nice old gentleman is the mail clerk at a prestigious research institute. He is great at his job, because he can correctly route unreturnable packages addressed to people who have been dead 50 years, and he knows everybody that works there by name. He has no plans to retire, ever, and I personally support that attitude. I found him one day quite literally close to tears (and this guy is no pantywaist) because his package scale had been replaced with a computerised franking and weighing machine and he was incapable of operating it. He'd been through the manual cover to cover, and clearly understood everything in it, and he'd spent hours on the phone with support who were completely unable to help him. Once I showed him that you had to press return after entering a command (something that was so obvious, so well known, that nobody bothered to tell him, and it was not in the manual 'cause I checked) he was fine. More than a decade later he's still willing to help me out any time I ask.
Long ago I was involved in setting up WAN connections to large hospitals. Most of them were still using proprietary networking technologies such as VINES, SNA, or IPX. I opened every conversation with hospital IT directors "Are you connected to the Internet?" and if they said anything other than "Yes" I immediately said "Would you like to be? I can show your staff everything they need to know, no charge." This worked *great* because they were all being bombarded with requests for Internet email from the doctors, and were for the most part absolutely clueless about TCP/IP (and often defensive about it) so I could put myself in a position where I was of value to them while simultaneously getting my WAN connectivity using cheap scaleable open protocols instead of expensive vendor-locked techniques. The interesting thing was, the less the hospital staff knew, the better off they were - because they had less to unlearn. My cow-orkers might roll their eyes and complain about ignorant people who ought to know better, but I used to just love it when the highly paid professional networking guys at a hospital said "what is SMTP?" because that meant I was going to be their best friend forever!
Each piece of paper has a unique name, the "file name". When you are editing the file, the piece of paper is copied into computer memory, which is like a blackboard.
See now you're sticking bits of paper to a blackboard. They'd be asking me did I use glue or a nail around about then. I eventually gave up on the real life analogies and just told them the most direct way I could, if you change the words on the screen you have to put them in the computer, or the screen will forget. Plus we all had a good chuckle at the lackwit monitor. We didn't really have tome to go too in depth into the basics, I was just trying to get them to understand how to make it work, then show them how to do useful work on it.
What he can't kill, he has sex on. Trent.