Audit Faults FBI on Missing Laptops, Weapons
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Justice Department Inspector General Glenn A. Fine reported on Monday that 160 weapons and 160 laptop computers were missing at the FBI. The report followed a 2002 audit that had revealed that hundreds of other guns and computers were missing. An excerpt from the new report:
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The U.S. Agriculture Department lacked controls to protect personal information on stolen computers and often failed to notify individuals whose information had been compromised, the department's inspector general said on Tuesday.
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Although the FBI still seems to suffer from a problem of losing laptops, a new report indicates that the agency is getting better in keeping track of its equipment.
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FBI officials aren't clear on the motivation that led hackers to deface a handful of gaming sites last week, adding an FBI seal to the pages as well as a fake announcement that the site had been seized by the law-enforcement organziation for piracy.
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Federal prosecutors had sought to retrieve all copies of a classified document that had been leaked to the A.C.L.U.
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Most of the Justice Department's major statistics on terrorism cases are highly inaccurate, and federal prosecutors routinely count cases involving drug trafficking, marriage fraud and other unrelated crimes as part of anti-terrorism efforts, according to an audit released yesterday.
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Complex interception laws confuse Feds and ISPs An internal audit has discovered that the FBI overstepped the mark in intercepting communication records at least 1,000 times since 2002.â¦
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The U.S. Commerce Department has admitted that more than 1,100 laptop computers have gone missing in the last five years, including almost 250 from the Census Bureau.
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The FBI has a backlog of hundreds of thousands of hours of untranslated audio recordings from terrorism and espionage investigations, despite large increases in money and personnel for translations since the 2001 terror attacks, a Justice Department audit released Monday said.
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AT&T and a Maryland state agency have reported unrelated laptop thefts that may have exposed sensitive data about individuals.
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OTTAWA (CP) - Sensitive government information is vulnerable to computer hackers, and billions of taxpayer dollars are squirreled away in federal foundations without public scrutiny, says the auditor general.
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The FBI's failure to roll out an expanded computer system that would help agents investigate criminals and terrorists is the latest in a series of costly technology blunders by government over more than a decade.
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The FBI improperly obtained credit reports and other information on individuals through errors in using its power to investigate terrorism or espionage suspects, the Washington Post reported, citing a U.S. Justice Department audit.
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The FBI underreported its use of the USA Patriot Act to force businesses to turn over customer information in suspected terrorism cases, according to a Justice Department audit
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The FBI illegally or improperly obtained information on the US public, a new justice department report says.
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The FBI possibly violated the law or its rules more than 1,000 times since 2002 in collecting data about phone calls, e-mails and financial records while investigating terrorism or espionage suspects, FBI officials said on Thursday.
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(InfoWorld) - The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is investigating a missing hard drive containing the personal records of 48,000 military veterans, the agency said. The external hard drive contained about 20,000 personal records that were not encrypted, according to information from U.S. Representative Spencer Bachus, an Alabama Republican. A VA employee reported the hard drive missing from an agency Birmingham, Alabama, facility on Jan. 22, according to a VA press release. The VA and the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation are investigating the missing hard drive, the VA said in its Friday press release. The VA's Office of Information and Technology is conducting a separate investigation, Jim Nicholson, VA's secretary, said in a statement. "We intend to get to the bottom of this, and we will take aggressive steps to protect and assist anyone whose information may have been involved," Nicholson added. In May, the VA reported a laptop and hard drive containing the personal records of 26.5 million military veterans and their families had beenÂ stolen from an employee's home. Police laterÂ recovered the hardware, and the VA said computer forensics tests indicated thieves had not accessed the data, but the theft set off criticism from several members of Congress about theÂ VA's cybersecurity practices. The hard drive in Alabama was used to back up information contained on an employeeâs office computer, and may have contained data from research projects the employee was involved in, as well as personal information, the VA said. The VA Office of Inspector General has seized the employeeâs computer and is analyzing its contents, the VA said. The VA is prepared to notify affected people and provide free credit monitoring, the agency said. The VA will continue to aim to be a leader in protecting personal information, Nicholson said in his statement. In August, the VA also reported that a desktop computer containing the personal information of 38,000 veterans was missing from the office of Unisys Corp., the subcontractor assisting at the agency's medical centers in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. The lost VA hardware prompted a congressional review of other U.S. government agencies, and agencies reported thousands of laptops missing in the last five years.