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Careful what you e-mail if you're going to lie ...
By Gearhead, NetworkWorld.com, 04/06/05
We just heard a news item on NPR's "All Things Considered" regarding a scandal over the science behind the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump in Nevada. Turns out that some of the scientists studying the site's safety "may have doctored their research."
But it gets better! They wrote about it in e-mail messages as long ago as seven years! According an article in the Las Vegas Review-Journal: "The Energy Department said Wednesday that a U.S. Geological Survey worker had 'indicated that he had fabricated documentation of his work' in e-mails written between May 1998 to 2000."
Here's a sample of one of the e-mail messages: “I finally took the time to process your request. --- Please do not tell anyone how this was done because then we will need to get this whole thing through software QA!” (dated 02/17/2000).
The Review-Journal's article goes on: " The damaging e-mails were discovered by the Energy Department contractor Bechtel SAIC, which is independently reviewing the government's work toward a license application for the repository from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission ... An Interior Department official said at least two government workers were named in the e-mails, and up to 10 individuals might have had some involvement."
The Feds have swung into action with the Committee on Government Reform Subcommittee on the Federal Workforce and Agency Organization issuing a press release on April 1st (not a good choice of day). The press release contains a number of examples of the incriminating messages.
Of course, the State of Nevada isn't too upset over this, they just want shot of the whole Yucca Mountain project.
Just think, might this sort of incriminating evidence be found in your organization? Which leads to a whole heap of questions such as:
1. How much e-mail do you have archived in your network?
2. How far back does the archive go?
3. Whose e-mail messages are archived?
4. Where exactly is this archive or is there more than one archive and in that case where are they? (Hint: Look on your servers and on users' PCs.)
If you ignore these questions the liabilities could be significant -- see "
Worrying about the 'Seven Ugly Dwarves" and the two subsequent Backspin columns.
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Comments
It always dumbfounds me when folks insist on documenting and publicizing their moral failures.
\\Greg
Posted by: Greg on April 7, 2005 11:15 AM
Getting caught is not a concern when you blithely assume that a deleted message is really deleted. I doubt that most people who get caught out like this have any idea that their e-mail might be archived.
What's not surprising is that these people didn't see their moral failures as a serious matter. Expediency and self justification ("we're not paid enough to care") is more than enough ammunition to justify their behavior. And, of course, the lack of management oversight was astounding.
I believe the phrase is "Good enough for government work."
[mg]
Posted by: Mark Gibbs on April 11, 2005 02:29 PM
