Wednesday, March 24, 2010
The FBI in Déjà Vue
The computer is no better than its program.
— E.E. Morison, Men, Machines and Modern Times
“It’s just a simple waste of taxpayer money.” Few would disagree with Senator Charles Grassley when he uttered those words a few days ago although reading them conjures up dozens, if not hundreds, of governmental projects to which he might be referring. In this case he was referring to computers and the FBI. On March 18, 2010 we learned that things were not going as well in overhauling the FBI’s computers as we had hoped in 2001, 2005 and 2006.
After 9/11 the FBI knew it needed to improve communication among agents and offices. At the time of 9/11 photos of the suspected 9/11 highjackers that agents in Florida wanted to send to Washington were sent by overnight mail since the photos could not be sent as attachments to e-mails. The FBI, an agency that prides itself on identifying and then solving problems, realized this was a problem needing solving and, accordingly, commissioned a computer overhaul that would, among other things, permit agents to obtain “instant access to FBI databases allowing speedier investigations and better integration of information. . . .” The project was called “Virtual Case File” (VCF).
VCF was greeted enthusiastically but then a sad thing happened. In 2005, after $170 million had been spent, it was disclosed that the project had not proceeded as hoped. Describing the program’s lack of success, Sen. Patrick Leahy, the top democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, called it a “train wreck in slow motion, at a cost of $170 million to American taxpayers and unknown cost to public safety.” Daunted but not without resourcefulness, the FBI spent $2 million to hire an expert who could tell it whether any part of the program was salvageable. (It was a bit of a surprise that among the recipients of the misspent $170 million there was no expert who could answer that question. The absence of such an expert may help explain why the program was a failure). The expert concluded that VCF should be abandoned. VCF was replaced by a new project called “Sentinel”. The name, if not past experience, gave hope since it suggested something alert that was designed to look out for our well-being.
Sentinel’s projected cost was $425 million and its completion date was 2009. In 2006 the FBI encountered financial problems with Sentinel. The FBI said it needed $156.7 million for the new fiscal year but the administration only gave it $100 million. The FBI said it would be able to come up with the additional funds from sources within its budget. The Inspector General was skeptical although trying to put a happy face on the FBI’s promises that money could be found elsewhere, he said if it followed the processes it had established to manage the project we could have “reasonable assurance” that the project would be successful. Sen. Leahy was slightly less optimistic. Referring to the entire process of updating the FBI’s computer system he said: “mismanagement of this project seems to know no bounds.” He could not have known how prescient was that utterance.
In November 2009, one month before the end of the year and the promised date of completion, an audit by the FBI’s inspector general who had earlier referred to “reasonable assurances” disclosed that Sentinel would not be completed until June 2010. According to Information Week Government, The FBI let it be known that it had suspended work on parts of Sentinel. The date of completion for the overhaul that had already been moved from the end of 2009 to September 2010 was now projected to be in 2011. Its cost overruns are at $30 million and counting.
According to a report in the New York Times, FBI officials explained the delay saying technical problems caused the agency to quit working on the third and fourth phases of Sentinel. Those are the parts of the project that permit agents to “better navigate investigative file, search databases and communicate with one another.”
When VCF was declared a failure in 2006, a senior FBI official who declined to be identified, briefed reporters. He said he’d not gotten what he envisioned from the project (which seems like a bit of an understatement when you’re talking about a $170 million mistake). He said, however, that the FBI “had a better understanding of its computer needs and limitations as a result of the project.” According to FBI officials who were discussing the most recent suspension of the work on Sentinel in 2010, the suspension “reflected the lessons learned from previous setbacks.” One can only hope that Sentinel quits being a demonstration of lessons learned from past failures and instead begins doing what its name implies.
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Reading and Writing and 'Rithmetic
The stumbling way in which even the ablest of the scientists in every generation have had to fight through thickets of erroneous observations, misleading generalizations, inadequate formulations, and unconscious prejudice is rarely appreciated by those who obtain their scientific knowledge from textbooks.
— James Bryant Conant, Science and Common Sense
He lost the election but probably not the war. Thanks to his enlightened efforts and the efforts of his like-minded colleagues (if the use of the word “mind” in the same sentence as a description of him and his colleagues does not offend) text books around the country will never be the same. I’m referring to Dr. Don McLeroy. In the March 2 primary in Texas he was defeated in his bid for a second term on the Texas Board of Education of which he’d been a member since 1998 and its chair since 2007.
Students throughout the country will enjoy the benefits of his efforts and those of his colleagues since as Texas goes, in the schoolbook world, so goes much of the nation, Texas being one of the largest purchasers of text books in the country.
The every 10-year process of setting standards for Texas textbooks is drawing to a close. One of the areas addressed in 2009 was science and two of the most contentious issues were evolution and global warming. At its meeting on March 25-27, 2009, the board added the requirement to the study of evolution that students must examine “all sides of scientific evidence” which includes the side that says the age of the earth is 6000 years, give or take a couple hundred. This enlightened approach delighted those who have long been troubled by the whole idea of evolution and who are, themselves, living proof that evolution does not occur in all humans. The Discovery Institute that promotes the idea of intelligent design said the board had chosen science over dogma. It called the revised standards a “huge victory for those who favor teaching the scientific evidence for and against evolution. In an interview with Mariah Blake of the Washington Monthly, Dr. McLeroy said: “Whooey. We won the Grand Slam, and the Super Bowl. . . . Our science standards are light years ahead of any other state when it comes to challenging evolution!” The National Center for Science Education, on the other hand, commented that the board: “voted to adopt a flawed set of state science standards, which will dictate what is taught in science classes in elementary and secondary schools, as well as provide the material for state tests and textbooks, for the next decade.”
Darwin was not the only one to take a hit. Global warming was another. The Board added the requirement to the chapter dealing with Environmental Systems that students should “analyze and evaluate different views on the existence of global warming.” Dr. McLeroy said: “Conservatives like me think the evidence [on global warming] is a bunch of hooey.”Almost one year to the day since evolution and global warming were dispatched, social studies found itself under the microscope. Once again, the charge was led by Don, ably assisted by Cynthia Dunbar. In the piece by Ms. Blake she refers to Cynthia’s self-published book in which Cynthia says public education is “tyrannical” and “a tool of perversion” and sending kids to public school is like “throwing them into the enemy’s flames.” Nonetheless, she serves on the board and is involved in rewriting the textbooks.
The changes to the social studies section come as no surprise to those who read Ms. Blake’s interview with Don. In the interview he said to her “we are a Christian nation founded on Christian principles. The way I evaluate history textbooks is first I see how they cover Christianity and Israel. Then I see how they treat Ronald Reagan-he needs to get credit for saving the world from communism and for the good economy over the last twenty years because he lowered taxes.” The new standards require that when dealing with the civil rights movement the Black Panthers be studied as well as Martin Luther King. Language was added saying that Republicans supported Civil Rights legislation. That language was added by David Barton, former vice chairman of the Texas Republican Party and one of the drafters. He is quoted in Ms. Blake’s piece as saying at one time that African Americans owe their civil rights almost entirely to Republicans and were treated atrociously by Democrats.
As was noted at the outset, Dr. McLeroy lost the election but not the war. The new standards will be voted on in May and the new textbooks will appear in 2011. In talking with Ms. Blake about the Texas Board of Education he said: “Sometimes it boggles my mind the kind of power we have.” If being able to intellectually impoverish a generation of students is what he’s referring to, he’s certainly got that right. Christopher Brauchli can be e-mailed at brauchli.56@post.harvard.edu. For political commentary see his web page at http://humanraceandothersports.com
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
The Poor, the Pre-Schoolers and the Pope
With the Cross of Jesus, Marching on Before.
—Onward Christian Soldiers, A Hymn
They figured out how to do it compassionately and that comes as a great relief to the poor being served by Catholic Charities of Washington D.C.
In December 2009, the D.C. Council voted 11-2 in favor of a bill to legalize same-sex marriage. The District of Columbia requires that married same-sex couples receive the same employment benefits as are given heterosexual couples by their employers. Catholic Charities said that would force it to recognize same-sex marriage, a violation of church dogma. It said with the passage of the ordinance it would have to reconsider its role in the District. That threatened to severely impact the underprivileged since, according to Catholic on Line, Catholic Charities “serves 68,000 people . . . through a range of services, including shelter, nutrition, counseling, employment and job training services, legal and health care assistance, immigration assistance and more.” Catholic Charities has now responded and its response was not as draconian as it had suggested it might be. Although it gave up its foster care program because of the possibility children would end up in the homes of gay couples who were legally married, it has not abandoned all the other good things it does nor taken out its disapproval of the new ordinance on the poor and the destitute. Instead it has taken it out on new employees.
On March 1 all Catholic Charities employees received a message telling them that health care benefits that had theretofore been give all employees and their spouses would not be given for new hires after March 1. Although partners of new employees will not receive benefits, there’s a bright side to the picture. While gay and heterosexual couples employed by the Church are struggling to pay for health insurance for their partners, the Church will continue to help the poor.
Meanwhile, half a continent away, the Church was demonstrating that the East coast did not have a monopoly on sacrificing good works on dogma’s altar. Its messenger was Charley Chaput. Charley is the Archbishop of Denver and can be recognized by the pointy hat he wears and the crazy things he says. During the 2004 election year he said that anyone who voted for John Kerry had committed a sin that had to be confessed before the voter/supplicant would be permitted to receive communion. Charley has now come up with a new proscription that falls within the category of visiting the sins of the fathers/mothers on their children. It deals with families where there are two fathers or two mothers.
The Preschool run by the Sacred Heart of Jesus church in Boulder, Colorado, has notified staff that one of the students currently enrolled at the school will not be returning in the fall since the child’s parents are a same-sex lesbian couple. As Charley’s spokesperson explains: “Homosexual couples living together as a couple are expected to follow the Catholic Church’s beliefs.” The statement goes on to say: “No person shall be admitted as a student in any Catholic school unless that person and his/her parent(s) subscribe to the school’s philosophy and agree to abide by the educational policies and regulations of the school and Archdiocese.”
It seems obvious that at this point the school is going to have to send out a questionnaire to all parents since same-sex marriages are probably not the only proscriptions of the faith indulged in by parents of preschoolers. Votes for president in 2004 should be checked into. It makes little sense to say that a parent who voted for John Kerry cannot take communion but can send a child to Sacred Heart of Jesus preschool.
The questionnaire should inquire into the sexual practices of heterosexual parents. Some parents may view sex as having purposes beyond procreation and may even find those purposes amusing in a way that would greatly offend Charley. In furtherance of such practices it is possible they may take advantage of the marketplace’s offerings to insure that no children are conceived as a result of those activities. It is not enough for Charley to decree such conduct to be reprehensible in its own right and to promise its practitioners untoward consequences in the hereafter. There must also be immediate consequences. Burning at the stake is not an option but expulsion from preschool of the children of the sexually frivolous is. And, of course, the questionnaire should be sent not only to parents of preschoolers but to parents of all students. The results will probably enhance the quality of education afforded by Sacred Heart of Jesus school since it will almost certainly result in smaller class sizes, a clear benefit for the students permitted to remain enrolled following tabulation of the results of the questionnaire.