A prominent Year 2000 consultant is urging IT professionals to rat on employers and suppliers who are recklessly failing to deal with the Year 2000 problem.
Dubbed Project Damocles by its creator, Year 2000 author/consultant Peter
de Jager, the recently launched campaign is not designed to publicly expose
its targets or their products, at least not immediately. Instead, Damocles
will wield as its sword the one weapon every corporate executive
understands and fears: legal liability.
De Jager coauthored the book Managing 00, and his Year 2000 Web site, The Year 2000 Infor-mation Center, receives 250,000 hits per month at www. year2000.com. Here is how he envisions Damocles working.
Someone identifies a looming Year 2000 failure, and, despite providing the responsible parties with proof, no code fix or public acknowledgement follows. De Jager said he was prompted to unsheath Damocles after a number of such situations were brought to his attention, including potentially deadly ones at a chemical plant, an airline and a maker of medical devices.
The frustrated individual then turns to Project Damocles (posted two weeks ago at www.year2000.com/y2kdamocles.html) and fills out a form detailing the failure, including product names, model numbers and the results of any tests conducted. The identity of informants will be kept confidential.
Project Damocles will for-ward the information via reg-istered mail to the legal department of the offending party, along with notice that the report will be kept on file until after the year 2000
tolls.
The intent, de Jager said, is to prompt corrective action and/or public disclosure.
After the millennium, should a forewarned party be sued for damages caused by its neglect, its Damocles file would be made available to plaintiffs' attorneys.
De Jager stresses he isn't out to sue anyone himself and has no intention of letting lawyers troll through the Damocles files. However, those reports will be stored there, a sword hanging over corporate heads.
While the threat is unmistakable, de Jager is hopeful the notices will be perceived more like this: "Folks, here is information that we know about; now act like a good corporate citizen."
His own lawyers advised de Jager against this undertaking because they fear he might get sued. Moreover, another attorney who specializes in Year 2000 issues envisions a different downside for the project.
"There is no question that many companies have not disclosed the true extent of their Year 2000 problems and the effects on their financial position and operations over the next five years," said Steven Hock, an attorney with Thelin, Marrin, Johnson & Bridges in San Francisco.
However, Hock also sees negative consequences arising. "[De Jager's] approach will smoke out some legitimate cases of concealment," he said, "but it will also lead to many unfounded complaints, which, when called to the attention of the companies in question, will cause them to spend untold hours and dollars dealing with frivolous accusations, speculation and b.s."
