Morning Shorts
Thursday, Jul 26, 2007 - Posted by Paul Richardson
* New Clout Street: Oberweis Dairy ad results in fine
* New Spontaneous Solutions: Why do editorial boards want us to suffer?
* State hires firm to erase data from computers
Under a 2003 law, state agencies were responsible for running software programs designed to clean hard drives 10 times on each machine they were sending to CMS for disposal or resale.
But in 2005, Auditor General William Holland’s office examined 50 computers ready for resale and found 15 still had sensitive state data on them. Holland would not reveal what was found but said it would be “publiclyembarrassing” and could cause a security breach.
The memo from CMS Acting Director Maureen O’Donnell said during the fiscal year that ended in June 2006 — more than a year after the audit — 4 percent of the 10,000 computers that CMS processed contained data that
violated the law. Another 900 could not be turned on to see if they were clean, so they were not resold.
* Editorial: In praise of IL smoking ban
* Editorial: Huffing and puffing over smoking ban will pass
* Editorial: Don’t water down statewide smoking ban
State Rep. Patrick Verschoore, D-Milan, is proposing that the ban not take effect in casinos for five years or until smoking is banned in casinos in neighboring states.
Verschoore’s Quad City-area district includes Casino Rock Island. Iowa does not have a statewide smoking ban.
Harrah’s Metropolis Casino, located across the Ohio River from Kentucky - which also does not have a smoking ban - is planning to offer a smoking area that would not be affected by the Illinois ban but would be protected from the weather and “temperature controlled.”
* House vote hits Indiana for BP plan
* Rep. Kirk faces war on many fronts
The North Shore, once heavily Republican, has changed politically since 2000, when Kirk succeeded his former boss, longtime Republican Rep. John Porter. A majority of the area’s state legislative districts are held by Democrats, and presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry carried the 10th District in 2004.
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the campaign arm of Democrats in the House, has taken notice and put a bull’s-eye on Kirk.
* Prosecutors: Stroger stabbed us in the back
* DuPage judge slows O’Hare expansion plan; more here
* Daley spent $89K on war chest study
- Cassandra - Thursday, Jul 26, 07 @ 8:08 am:
If Stroger caves to these kinds of threats from prosecutors then he is setting himself (and taxpayers) up for money grabs by employees, unionized or no, across the Cook County system.
And unfortunately he is already making noises about a tax increase. One wonders why the delay in selling the hospital, by the way. Patronage employees and their sponsors making a fuss?
Devine is not a Stroger favorite and it’s possible that the fight is really over Devine getting out and a Stroger ally getting into the Cook State’s Attorney’s office, not an improved state’s attorney’s office.
An improved state’s attorney’s office probably would have fewer, and, well, more competent state’s attorneys. Right now, they spend far too much taxpayer money prosecurting nonviolent (mostly minority) drug offenders, and taking black kids away from their parents over in Juvenile Court. Neither of these requires much legal competence, which is nice for the lifers in the office.
Meanwhile, white collar crimes that require more, well, brains and effort to prosecute, abound in Cook County, both in government and the private sector. Devine is good for ignoring those, but would Brookins, the rumored contender for his job,
be any different. Or would he dumb down the office even more. Let the swells make off with millions and put all the drug users in jail?
- Independent - Thursday, Jul 26, 07 @ 8:15 am:
Illinois apparently cannot completely wipe hard drives so they signed an outsourcing deal for $975,000 over three years. If they rescind that contract and pay me just $200K/yr I will wipe all those hard drives clean and save taxpayer money.
- Captain America - Thursday, Jul 26, 07 @ 8:35 am:
Last thing I read about the prosecutor pay issue wa that it somehow would be resolved when the sale of land at Oak Forest Hospital was completed. Stroger is a now a liar and a person who can not be trusted to keep his word with respect to the State’s Attorney’s efforts to secure a the 12% COLA raises. Just another in a long line of breaches of the trust. He has zero credibilty.
The county health care system is hemorrhaging and now the criminal justice system may do the same. I’ve alway thought Stroger was being set up to fail when he was elevated to a position which is simply beyond his capabilites, much like Eugene Sawyer.
With respect to the health care system, I think that certain politicians wanted an African American leader to take the heat for huge cuts/downsizing in the county public health/medical care system care system so important to the African American and other ethnic comunities. When it becomes clear that Stroger can not be reelected, then he may step down for personal, family, and/or health reasons. An attractive organization-sponsored savior (e.g., Jim Houlihan) then will emerge in 2010 to thwart the takeaover of the Cook County Board Presidency from a more independent Democrat or a Republican.
We all know that John Daley covets this position for himself, but he can pretty much control the county indirectly given his Chairmanship of the Finance Committee. I have nothing aginst Houlihan or Daley personally or politically, just trying to interpret the situation. Does my interpretation sound plausible?
- Captain America - Thursday, Jul 26, 07 @ 8:43 am:
Kudos to Mayor Daley for scrubbing his campaign funds to minimize violations or the appearance of impropriety. It would aperat to me that here should be more cost-effective means of identifying suspect donations and returning them in lieu of paying very expensive lawyers. But he can afford it.
- Captain America - Thursday, Jul 26, 07 @ 8:55 am:
Kirk deserves all the heat for his staunch pro-war support when it really counted. He and many others told us there was valid intelligence to support the existence of WMDs in Iraq. My recollection is that he claimed extra insight into this issue because of his weekend service at the Pentagon.
A potential for a Democratic landslide victory exists in 2008, particularly if the Democrats nominated someone other that Hillary Clinton. Kirk is a prime example of a candidate that sould get swept away by a landslide Democratic victory that repudiate the Iraq war and many other Bush Adminstration actions, omissions, and incompetence.
I have not spoken with anyone in the 10th District about the implciations of a primary contest between Footlik and Seals. It seems to me that Seals did well enough to earn another shot at KIrk.
- Cassandra - Thursday, Jul 26, 07 @ 9:01 am:
WMD’s in Iraq.
Puh-leez.
Are Republicans still that deluded?
- Captain America - Thursday, Jul 26, 07 @ 9:03 am:
BP appearsrs to be taking a well-deserved beating on their refinery expansion. Maybe they will realize that it makes good political, environemntal, and business sense to invest in adequate pollution control technology and facilities. I signed an on-line letter to BP organized by Senator Durbin. I wonder whether thes on-line petion and letter campaigns do any good?
I may write my own letter to BP too.
- Subpoena the hard drives! - Thursday, Jul 26, 07 @ 9:26 am:
Auditor General William Holland should send those computer hard drives to Patrick Fitzgerald.
- Crimefighter - Thursday, Jul 26, 07 @ 9:32 am:
The reason why every computer was not getting wiped…is because the IT departments are SEVERELY UNDERSTAFFED. What CMS should be doing is identifying which agencies sent machines that hadn’t been cleared and have bosses address the problem. I used to wipe machines at my agency, one pass did the job. Ten is overkill, and consumes an excessive amount of time because there’s a few hundred PCs to clear off. If the machine can’t boot, they’re not gonna get the data unless they take the thing to a professional data recovery firm…for a fee of a few hundred dollars…and very likely won’t get data from them still. I’m glad the union is suing to block this waste of taxpayer money…but for IT folks, it’s going to get a LOT WORSE because CMS is planning to contract out a LOT OF WORK because they aren’t hiring people to replace the ones that leave and they don’t have to pay contracted people as much. I’m still stuck in a call center just doing data entry because of their gross stupidity on allocating computer expertise in their desperation to stuff everything IT into just two buildings in Springfield. My IT skills are rotting cause I’m so bored.
- zatoichi - Thursday, Jul 26, 07 @ 9:57 am:
To get the reverse auction going, I’ll do those hard drives for $198,000 per year. Talk about a no brainer task. Crimefighter has got it..one pass. 10 is paranoid.
- Squideshi - Thursday, Jul 26, 07 @ 9:58 am:
“State agencies are failing to erase government information from computers that are headed for sale to the public, so the Blagojevich administration will pay nearly $1 million for a private company to do the job.”
What do they do with broken drives, on which the software can not be run? The data still resides on the platters in those cases.
“The state’s largest employee union has filed a grievance, saying the deal violates an agreement not to farm out work currently done by union employees.”
Yeah, considering that anyone can download such software for free and run it easily.
“‘This Congress will not simply stand by while our Great Lakes are treated like a dumping zone,’ said Illinois Rep. Rahm Emanuel, chairman of the House Democratic Conference and the bill’s chief sponsor.”
Rahm Emanuel trying to green up his image? I suspect that there may be a reason for this.
“The bottom line: Daley spent $89,466 to learn that he needed to return $241,350 more from 38 campaign donors who violated the ban.”
Wow. Kudos to Daily on this one!
- Squideshi - Thursday, Jul 26, 07 @ 10:01 am:
“Illinois apparently cannot completely wipe hard drives so they signed an outsourcing deal for $975,000 over three years. If they rescind that contract and pay me just $200K/yr I will wipe all those hard drives clean and save taxpayer money.”
I will do it for $150K/yr. That’s a taxpayer savings of $825K/yr.
- Another Plum from BLAGO! - Thursday, Jul 26, 07 @ 10:17 am:
Be curious to know who, what company recieved the outsourcing deal for $975,000 over three years.
And what is there relationship with Governor Blagojevich?
- Independent - Thursday, Jul 26, 07 @ 10:20 am:
You would only be saving $175K/yr as the amount is spread over three years.
I am working my legislators to ensure that my $200K/yr will be a no-bid contract so no one can undercut me.
- Crimefighter - Thursday, Jul 26, 07 @ 10:20 am:
Squid…your figures are off. The contract would be $325K a year times three. So savings would be $175K a year times three. As for broken drives, if someone that desperate to steal is willing to shell out a few hundred bucks to a professional data recovery firm to take apart the drive and gleam data from the platters, yeah they could but very unlikely.
- amy - Thursday, Jul 26, 07 @ 11:58 am:
equality in pay for lawyers in Cook County is
a must. Cassandra, you are simply wrong about
your assertions on case loads. start with the
arrests, that’s where it starts. sadly, poverty,
race and crime have a tough intersect. but crime,
any crime, must be prosecuted. and since we need
more prosecutions not less, time for Stroger
to keep his promise. or he will lose.
- Garp - Thursday, Jul 26, 07 @ 1:00 pm:
Cassndra is right about one thing. The States Attorneys office is woefully incapable of persuing white collar crime. Try persue identity thefy or credit card fraud and you will see what I mean. For that matter, the CPD has one or two officers assigned to stop this type of crime. That is for the whole city. And they say crime doesn’t pay.
- Independent - Thursday, Jul 26, 07 @ 1:16 pm:
It’s great that Daley is closely scrutinizing his war chest ……. long after he amassed millions and near-absolute control of Chicago.
- Fed Up State Employee - Thursday, Jul 26, 07 @ 2:41 pm:
who is on vacation.
Crimefighter…your agency might be one of the reasons the contract was put out. Our agency was doing 10 passes, which could be overkill, but it was effective. DOD 5220 standards call for 3 wipes and a verify. I wouldn’t consider one pass to be effective. Would you if the drive contained all your personal and financial information?
I’ll slightly agree with you though that the bosses should find what the problem is and correct it. But employees only do what the bosses instruct them to do, so maybe that’s where the problem is to begin with. Lack of direction?
I wholely agree about the understaffing. Over the last 10 years, we are now supporting 3 times the agency employees we were because of the addition of field staff with just over half the DP staff we had then.
- Fed Up State Employee - Thursday, Jul 26, 07 @ 2:45 pm:
Also, CF, you are correct that the software to wipe these drives is FREE. But that doesn’t line anyone’s pockets now does it? And we already have the employees to do the work.
Also not mentioned is the fact that agencies will have to pay to ship hardware to the Quad Cities and back for the work, or pay the company to pick it up.
Add that to the million dollar price tag of the contract, courtesy of our tax dollars.
- FED UP - Thursday, Jul 26, 07 @ 3:29 pm:
Garp you are either misinformed or a liar. A quick survey finds over 80 Detectives assigned to identity theft in the cpd yes these crimes are more complicated and victims often dont live in the same jurisdiction as where the crime occured making prosecution more difficult. A lot more could and should be done for this type of crime but to say only 1 or 2 officers are assigned to it is assine and ignorant.
- Cassandra - Thursday, Jul 26, 07 @ 3:50 pm:
No, any crime musn’t, and isn’t prosecuted. Prosecutors have huge discretion and they use it.
That’s good. Unfortunately, in Illinois, and especially in Cook County, they seem to be fixated on prosecuting minorities for nonviolent drug offenses–no doubt easier and less intellectually challenging than pursuing a politically connected and lawyered up white collar criminal.
So our jails are full, but not with the white collar types.
Do these folks deserve a raise. Maybe some of them. But certainly not all of them.
- Anonymous - Thursday, Jul 26, 07 @ 6:01 pm:
drug crime non violent how do drug dealers settle buisness disputes not thru arbitration, with violence. First time Offenders dont go to jail yes the amount of drug prosecutions is staggering but go to a court room where preliminary hearings are held judges dismiss cases where the amount is small not because it is leagal but because there is no room in the system. Arw to many minority kids selling drugs yes and most make less money then is they worked at mcdonalds. creating jobs for these kids could end this cycle. Jobs like cutting grass dishwasher, bussing tables are entry level jobs kids could use to start an employment record. why dont kids have these jobs.
- Augmented Melody Line - Thursday, Jul 26, 07 @ 7:04 pm:
Although the IT department may be severely understaffed relative to day to day problems that happen with the network, it is more stunning to discover there was a $970,000+ contract to do the job.
There isn’t that much that goes into reformatting a hard drive from a step by step perspective so the worst time taker is the re-installation of security and software after the drive has been wiped clean.
I have done the task myself a few times and although it renders the machine virtually useless until all of the add-ins, add-ons, updates, upgrades, patches, plug-ins…each computer does not need an individual human dedicated to only one machine.
15 hard drives revealing sensitive data is not good, but hardly uncommon when you compare it to other security breaches that cause hundreds of thousands of names, addresses, phone numbers, social security numbers, birth dates, etc.
I am curious what it would take to cancel the contract…is a copy of the contract posted somewhere on the Internet?
- Hard Drive Wiper - Thursday, Jul 26, 07 @ 9:20 pm:
Augmented - Maybe this will help.
CMS recently bid and awarded a data wiping master contract to Premier Computers, Inc., ((#CMP7120120 ) Data Removal/Disposal, Recycling and Computer Hardware Services Master Agreement, herinafter “PC Wiping Contract”).
Basic Ordering Agreement Standard Terms and Conditions
PAYMENT/APPROPRIATIONS {30 ILCS 500/20-60: AGENCY shall use its best efforts to secure sufficient appropriations to fund this CONTRACT. However, the AGENCY’S obligations hereunder shall cease immediately, without penalty or further payment being required, if the IL General Assembly or federal funding source fails to make an appropriation sufficient to pay such obligation. the AGENCY shall determine whether amounts appropriated are sufficient. AGENCY shall give VENDOR notice of insufficient funding as soon as practicable. VENDOR’S obligation to perform shall cease upon receipt of the notice.
Pyments hereunder are subject to setoff in accordance with the State Comptroller Act.
There’s much more if you do some searching.
- Hard Drive Wiper - Thursday, Jul 26, 07 @ 9:22 pm:
Augmented….check here:
http://www.purchase.state.il.us/ipb/master.nsf/all/784C687BD0A5A658862572EB0069B4C7/$file/CMP7120120.tif?OpenElement
- Garp - Friday, Jul 27, 07 @ 1:07 pm:
Fed up,
I am not a liar-I had my credit card stolen and the guy actually used it to deliver a pizza to his home as well as pay direct tv bills. I would have thought that might tip off the cops as to whom the thief was but I was informed by the officer I spoke to that it was just him and another cop working on credit card theft and I was better off getting my money back from the bank and that they don’t have the manpower to follow through. They may have officers assigned to theft but not this type of theft. I don’t know where you get your stats but experience is the best teacher. But maybe you believe everything you read.