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Former TSA Analyst Charged With Computer Tampering
angry tapir writes "A Transportation Security Administration analyst has been indicted with tampering with databases used by the TSA to identify possible terrorists who may be trying to fly in the US. If convicted, he faces 10 years in prison."
It's about time that a TSA agent steps over the line enough for the justice system to finally react and hit back. So far the TSA has been running their own show and making up their own laws so much that I became genuinely scared of passing through the USA on my next trip.
Not necessarily. If I still trust the person but can't afford to keep them due to a bad economy for example it isn't obvious that I should take them off of access to secure data. That's especially the case if in order to do the job they need access to the secure data (which isn't uncommon). Unfortunately, sometimes they need to train someone else to do the job and have the same problem. Sure in an ideal world, as soon as people got their two weeks notice they'd have no access to anything secure, but that's not generally doable. (To use an obvious analogy, if a bank teller gets a two week notice I don't think we expect the bank to not let them handle any cash for those two weeks).
To use an obvious analogy, if a bank teller gets a two week notice I don't think we expect the bank to not let them handle any cash for those two weeks).
No, I actually expect them NOT to handle money.
Pay them for their time, thank them for their service and humanely supervise their cubicle packing. They are still 'yours' during he severence period, so call them if you need to.
My employer trusts me. I have a good rapport with my boss. I also have access to data worth millions. If I were downsized tomorrow, i would expect to see HR, and maybe my desk one last time.
No. No! You can NOT trust that person anymore, sorry.
I spent my time in bank auditing. High security levels, very high security standards applied, you don't even want to know where they checked me and my background... anyway. The standard procedure for layoffs (independent of which side terminated the contract) was to let the person go IMMEDIATELY. Not at the end of a two week period, not even the end of the day. IMMEDIATELY. You clean out your desk now, two people at your side watching your fingers, protocoling your actions. You are not working here anymore the very nanosecond the contract end has been signed.
This is by no means an "instant dismissal", by the negative notion of it, neither was it in any way seen as such. It's also not a matter of trust, many of the people I cleaned out with were good, honest, decent and hard working people (what they did in bank auditing in the first place seems odd... but I ramble). It's a matter of principle and a matter of absolute security. To illustrate this, usually a nice little "good bye party" was hosted the evening to show that this person was not "fired out the window", it was just necessary due to secrecy.
This served a few purposes. First of all, to minimize the threat that someone could give himself a nice "severance package" and take a few infos with him to pass on to some newspapers who would pay handsomely to have some banks financial reports a few months before some shit hits fans. Insider trade is also a big issue since it's tempting to give out "interesting" details and, well, what should they do to you for doing it, fire you? Not to mention that the IT had pretty much total access to ALL financial information of any customer or banks themselves, nothing you want to see backed up and taken home.
It was a win-win for everyone. The auditing company could rest easy and be sure that nobody gives out info, and you got 6 weeks extra weeks of full payment that you could spend entirely on looking for something new to do instead of looking busy working while actually studying the classifieds.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
The whole thing smells fishy: the indictment's first odd bit is its vagueness about what Duchak was up to, specifically. No details.
The second weird thing is that DOJ doesn't want him held - no bail mentioned (nor in any newstory that I've found), and the "will not seek detention" box is checked on the indictment form (pre-trial detention.)
Likewise, the indictment says "five days or less" for the trial duration. I once sat for a sexual assault trial, and despite being an open-and-shut case of guy-grabs-coworkers-boobs-in-front-of-witnesses, it lasted 4-1/2 days.
Three federal agents are listed, you can bet their affidavits spell out more of what he did... and they don't appear to be online. Further searching, looks like there's absolutely nothing within .gov that bears our Duchak's name.
Under other circumstances (and administrations), this might have been a highly-touted smackdown in the war against whatever. Not so here...
But hey! There's a Douglas James Duchak listed in the whitepages ...
Let's see if he can fill us in...
O lord, bless this thy holy hand grenade, that with it thou mayest blow thine enemies to tiny bits, in thy mercy.