BizzyBlog had a post yesterday about the state’s stolen data tape not being encrypted, despite the fact that at least one state spokesman was quoted in one outlet saying that the date was encrypted. Bizzy sees three possibilities:

1. Strickland and his spokesmen were misled by lower-level folks about the presence of lack of encryption and they didn’t get caught in their deception until the past day or so.
2. Strickland et al and/or certain lower-level folks in the food chain don’t know the difference between password protection and encryption, thinking they’re one and the same, and the communication got garbled by the time it got to the governor’s office.
3. Strickland et al knew the data was not encrypted and, uh, fibbed about it for an entire weekend, giving thousands of people a completely false sense of security that won’t be undone by today’s “oops.” If the Strickland administration has been engaging in uncalled-for news management in the data-theft story by allowing bad news to dribble out instead of releasing it all at once, that would seem to this admitted non-lawyer to be a very serious matter.

I vote for number two. Never ascribe to malice that which can be explained by ignorance. I never read the erroneous quote, so I never thought that the data was encrypted. The non-use of the word when the story broke strongly suggested that the data wasn’t encrypted. But the non-encryption, the backing up of data at interns’ homes, these were ongoing administrative policies that the governor inherited.

The only thing that the Strickland administration can really be faulted for here is the delay in notifying the State Highway Patrol. More on that at the Cleveland Plain Dealer.

(Via Lincoln Logs.)

Jill at Writes Like She Talks has a follow-up post on HB 151, the Iran and Sudan divestment bill, the focus of which is the apparent local media blackout on the status if the bill. Jill mentions a Jerusalem Post article that gets the story wrong, reporting that the bill passed in Ohio.

Is that the result that Ohio wants? Is that the result that our governor wants? Or is this misinformation carefully fed by the failure of our own state’s newspapers and other news sources to cover the defeat of HB 151??

Benjamin Netanyahu, chairman of the Israeli Likud Party, came to DC yesterday to continue work on his Iran Divestment Campaign, wherein he targets states to force their public pension systems to divest from Iran. More on that in this previous post, which also concerns a media blackout.

As if HB 151 weren’t bad enough, the Ohio Senate has introduced SB 161, which would not only ban public pensions from investing is some companies that do business in Sudan, it would create a semi-permanent political body, the Sudan Council, to direct fund managers on companies that they may or may not invest in. Here’s how the State Teachers Retirement System (STRS) describes it:

Senate President Pro Tempore Jeff Jacobson (R-Dayton) introduced a bill that would require the state’s pension systems to divest of holdings in companies defined under the bill as scrutinized companies doing business in Sudan. Senate Bill 161 establishes criteria by which companies with business relationships in Sudan would or would not be determined to be scrutinized companies. Further, the bill creates and authorizes a Sudan Council, comprised of nine members appointed by the governor, the speaker of the House and the Senate president, to decide which companies should be scrutinized and perhaps divested. The bill would require the Sudan Council to notify a scrutinized company of its status as such and subsequently afford the company an opportunity to make modifications to company practices which would remove them from the list of scrutinized companies. Further, the bill calls for the Council to periodically review the companies doing business in Sudan to re-determine their status.

What’s going on in Sudan is horrible, but creating a political body whose purpose is to vet companies before state pension funds can invest in them is not a good idea, and sets a terrible precedent. The state, and especially interested parties who represent other nations, should stop treating Ohio public employees’ and retirees’ money as an experimental vehicle to effect changes is foreign governments. The money belongs to the employees and not the state.

If you’ve got funds in the system, go to Kathie Bracy’s Blog for much more.

On the other side, here’s a group that supports Sudan divestment, and a flyer they’ve put out (pdf) specifically on SB 161.

From OPENERS comes news that the Columbus city prosecutor who had received the Frankie Coleman IG report has forwarded it to a Franklin County prosecutor:

A city prosecutor has asked Franklin County prosecutors to review investigative files regarding Frankie Coleman.

Only county prosecutors could pursue felony charges that might result from a state inspector general’s investigation that concluded the wife of Columbus Mayor Michael Coleman, a Democratic political ally of the administration of Gov. Ted Strickland, was paid for hours she did not work in her state job. Investigators also said in a report issued last week that Frankie Coleman lied to them when she was first interviewed.

Lara Baker, chief prosecutor for the city of Columbus, said Tuesday that she has not made any decisions about what, if any, charges might be filed.

Baker said she will confer with county prosecutors before any decisions are made.

“I thought there were things they should look at,” Baker said.

Republicans had earlier faulted the IG for forwarding files only to the city prosecutor.

Lots of pixels used up on Joe Hallet’s Sunday editorial in the Dispatch on Frankie Coleman. Here’s LisaRenee of Glass City Jungle’s take:

For me this is one of the key paragraphs:

Despite the excuses and mitigating factors, Mrs. Coleman’s hiring does not pass the smell test: It was cronyism, pure and simple. Politicians never seem to learn the peril in using state resources to take care of their friends.

Why do I feel that is a key paragraph? Because no one was even interviewed for this position, there was not even the fake pretense that we experienced here in Lucas County when the appointment was made for Judge James Ray’s seat that it was going to be a fair and open process not based on politics but qualifications. In this case, I repeat…no one else was even interviewed…As the Cleveland Plain Dealer put it Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher gave the wife of a powerful political ally a $70,000-a-year state job without a clear job description and without interview ing anyone else.

Makes sense to me. In a slightly similar vein, here’s bonobo at Blue Bexley:

Lee Fisher has known Frankie Coleman and considers her to be a friend. He knew she had a problem with alcohol. He knew she had a history of not showing up for work. He hired her anyway. Now why would he do a stupid thing like that? It certainly doesn’t seem to be for money or influence or any sort of quid pro quo, the usual suspects when a government official engages in politically hazardous hires.

I’ve got a guess.

I’m guessing, like the GOP blogger says, that he thought he could help. I’m guessing he thought a 9-5 job tailored to her exact qualifications would be what she needed to re-engage with the world of the sober. I’m guessing he saw in her the potential to really help the DoD if she got herself together. And I’m guessing that she played a big role in convincing him that all of that was true. I’m guessing that Lee ignored one of the most basic pieces of wisdom noted by many but by few so eloquently as William S. Burroughs: Never trust a junkie.

I’ve linked to that before. While I think that is the best possible spin you can put on Lee Fisher’s actions, it still amounts to cronyism, because what is cronyism but using power to help out friends?

More on the Hallett piece at Lincoln Logs:

But, after all that, Hallett comes to the right point. Frankie Coleman is fired and will face further consequences. But, this story isn’t over. Lee Fisher must answer for his actions, ignoring the problem, hiring-by-cronyism, ignoring the problem more, and defending the actions.

Buckeye State Blog liked the piece, [correction: BSB wrote about another Sunday Dispatch post] but Eric at Plunderbund thought it was contradictory:

Hallett spends 3/4 of his column in a very measured piece about Frankie Coleman and was particularly spot on when he noticed someting that us original reporting bloggers on the left have been saying for years now!

She did not deserve to be referred to by Ohio GOP Chairman Robert T. Bennett as someone of “questionable character.” She didn’t deserve the hate-filled, name-calling headline that always-angry Matt Naugle posted on his right-wing blog….

The last 4 paragraphs read like another column entirely spliced onto the one you were just reading. It is bizarre. In it, Frankie - who is established to be well qualified for the position - should not have been hired. Why? Cronyism.

So Hallett’s position is you can’t hire anyone you know who is well qualified for positions if you win an election. It’s funny how the winners claim the victors deserve the spoils while the losers claim cronyism.

But being qualified for a position and being hired due to cronyism are not mutually exclusive categories. As LisaRenee points out, no one else was interviewed for the position. There were no ads placed to solicit applicants. It was just, “let’s hire Frankie.”

Gov. Ted Strickland met up with the terror-connected Council on American Islamic Relations on Sunday. From the CAIR website:

(COLUMBUS, OH, 6/18/2007) Ohio Governor Ted Strickland spoke last night at the tenth annual banquet of the Council on American-Islamic Relations chapter in that state (CAIR-OH).

Governor Strickland addressed the crowd of 350 people, saying: “On behalf of all Ohioans, [my wife and I] appreciate your vision to promote justice and mutual understanding. We gather under CAIR-Ohio’s theme this year, ‘American Muslims: Connecting and Sharing,’ to do just that, to connect and share and get to know each other better.”

Here’s some background on CAIR. From the Cleveland Jewish News:

CAIR has been presented as a civil rights group advocating acceptance of and equality for American Muslims. But there is another side to CAIR. Senator Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) describes it as an organization “which we know has ties to terrorism.” And (anti-terrorist expert) Steve Emerson calls it “a radical front group for Hamas.”

CAIR officials have been indicted for various charges ranging from fundraising for terrorist organizations to aiding and abetting jihadists. An ADL report observed that CAIR was founded by leaders of the Islamic Association for Palestine, a Hamas-affiliated, anti-Semitic propaganda organization and that CAIR also endorsed and participated in several anti-Israel rallies supporting Hezbollah last August.

And you may remember that Democratic California Senator Barbara Boxer withdrew an award she had issued to a CAIR member. From MSNBC:

Dec. 29, 2006 - In a highly unusual move, Sen. Barbara Boxer of California has rescinded an award to an Islamic activist in her home state because of the man’s connections to a major American Muslim organization that recently has been courted by leading political figures and even the FBI.

Boxer’s office confirmed to NEWSWEEK that she has withdrawn a “certificate of accomplishment” to Sacramento activist Basim Elkarra after learning that he serves as an official with the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). After directing her staff to look into CAIR, Boxer “expressed concern” about some past statements and actions by the group, as well as assertions by some law enforcement officials that it “gives aid to international terrorist groups,” according to Natalie Ravitz, the senator’s press spokeswoman.

You have to wonder why Strickland thought the visit was politically necessary, considering the recent news of CAIR’s precipitous decline in membership since September 11, 2001. The Washington Times:

Membership in the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has declined more than 90 percent since the 2001 terrorist attacks, Audrey Hudson will report in Tuesday’s editions of The Washington Times.

According to tax documents obtained by The Times, the number of reported members spiraled down from more than 29,000 in 2000 to less than 1,700 in 2006, a loss of membership that caused the Muslim rights group’s annual income from dues to drop from $732,765 in 2000, when yearly dues cost $25, to $58,750 last year, when the group charged $35.

Obsequious blatherings to CAIR are not restricted to Democrats though, unfortunately. President Bush is among the worst. From National Review Online:

On a weekend when the Bush administration achieved a new CAIR-friendly low, a prominent Democrat, following the lead of other prominent Democrats, distanced herself very publicly from the unsavory Council on American-Islamic Relations.

The Transportation Security Administration is the executive agency created after 9/11 to protect American travelers. Yet, Americans viewing its website this weekend could not have felt very protected. Aghast, instead, would have been the proper response to this posting. As if snuggling up to CAIR, coercing our law-enforcement and intelligence professionals to endure CAIR’s Islamic “sensitivity training,” and inviting CAIR to weigh in on our nation’s foreign policy were not enough, we now have a Bush-administration agency publishing an unedited CAIR press release on publicly subsidized, official government Internet space.

In this instance, right under TSA’s emblem and a memorial banner depicting the late President Gerald R. Ford, Americans were treated to a news announcement beneath the big blue headline, “CAIR Welcomes TSA Hajj Sensitivity Training.” If you have the stomach for it, compare this TSA posting to the official CAIR press release from which it cribbed. They are identical.

There’s a lot more where that came from.

See also BizzyBlog and Central Ohioans Against Terrorism, who says to Strickland:

You don’t speak for all Ohioans in your praise of CAIR-OH, Gov. Strickland. Many Muslims and non-Muslims alike are concerned about CAIR-OH’s extremist agenda, and you do nothing but buttress the public credibility of an organization whose sole purpose is to incite ethnic and religious hatred and create barriers to “promote justice and mutual understanding” between Muslims and non-Muslims. When you praise CAIR-OH, Governor, it is not in our name.

UPDATE: A big post worth reading in full from Right Angle Blog and more from Nasty, Brutish & Short.

I’ve gotten an answer to yesterday’s question on the stolen data tape: when did the policy of sending data home with employees interns begin?

A state office had been sending backup data tapes home with interns for two or three years before a tape with sensitive information was stolen from an intern’s car last week, The Dispatch has learned.

In fact, it appears that the former technical manager for the Ohio Administrative Knowledge System didn’t use regular state employees — only two or three interns besides himself — to take the data home on a rotating basis for safekeeping, said Ron Sylvester, a spokesman for the Ohio Department of Administrative Services.

“On its face, with what we know today, this seems like a questionable decision,” Sylvester said.

State Rep. Jay Hottinger, R-Newark, was more blunt.

“Not since Monica Lewinsky have we seen an intern with such access,” Hottinger said yesterday after voting with the rest of the state Controlling Board to spend more than $700,000 to deal with the fallout so far from the June 10 theft of the backup tape.

The manager, Carl Miller, retired May 31, Sylvester said. Miller, who records show was hired by the state in 1977 and earned $116,063 last year, couldn’t be reached. His pay worked out to $54.10 an hour; the intern made $10.50.

Thank you, Dispatch. This incident has little to do directly with either Ted Strickland or the Democrats. See also this post from yesterday from NixGuy.

We’ve also got this news from NBC4i:

Ohio’s $700,000 response to the theft of a sensitive state computer backup tape from the car of an intern would have been unnecessary had the information been encrypted, a relatively inexpensive process growing more common in the world of information technology, experts said Monday.

I hope that not all of these expensive experts’ advice is not that bleedin’ obvious.

The Dispatch had the story yesterday of how Ohioans have benefited from this country’s absolutely insane farm policy:

Ohio farmers who have made millions in business or real estate also have collected hundreds of thousands of dollars in farm-related aid from federal taxpayers.

Churches and nonprofit groups that own land in the state received payments, as did state, county and city governments.

During the past four years, a diverse group of more than 80,000 Ohioans reaped nearly $1.5 billion in crop and conservation subsidies. Nationally, more than $56 billion was handed out.

You pay for this three times. Once for the direct subsidies, a second time in your own food bill because prices are kept artificially high, and a third time when you subsidize poor people through welfare and food stamps. There’s a fourth way too. US and Europe both heavily subsidize their agricultural industries in large part to prevent farmers from developing counties from competing in the US and Europe. This keeps those countries poor, and so the US and Europe send billions of dollars in aid every year to those countries, both through the government and through charity. (I won’t even get into the poverty-related deaths the policies cause each and every year.)

And let’s not forget about Ohio’s misguided program that pays farmers not to sell farmland to developers.

On Friday I blogged about the indictment of Mark D. Lay in the continuing Ohio BWC scandals. The Ohio GOP blog reminds that that indictment represents a big Democratic involvement in the rip-offs that were going on there:

Who’s Mark Lay? He’s a big Democrat contributor over in Pittsburgh who convinced the BWC to let him manage a hedge fund through his company, MDL.

• MDL and Lay were marketed to Ohio’s public investment funds in the late 1990s by Democrat lobbyist Jerry Hammond, formerly president of the Columbus City Council, according to the Dispatch.
• MDL paid Hammond $3,000 a month to introduce the firm to Ohio politicians.
• At BWC, Hammond introduced MDL to oversight commission members, including George Forbes, the late Neal H. Schultz, and William A. Burga.
• Forbes is president of the Cleveland chapter of the NAACP, former president of the Cleveland City Council, former candidate for mayor of Cleveland, and a Democrat.
• Burga is a member of the Democratic National Committee and the Ohio Democratic Party Executive Committee, and is also president of the Ohio AFL-CIO. (Burga also served as a top advisor in 2006 to candidate Ted Strickland.)
• Forbes’ daughter, Mildred, was employed by Lay at MDL. She is also a Democrat.

(Source: National Review)

When questions were raised within the BWC about the $216 million losses, George Forbes told administrators to “give MDL a break.” The rest is history.

The media is all over the intern who lost the state’s data. They’re now publishing photos of him. Something seems very wrong about this to me. A 22-year-old part-time intern making $10.50 an hour is not what this incident is about. It’s about whoever thought it was wise to hand over such data to that person. Originally, Gov. Strickland didn’t want to hand over the name because he didn’t want to create a scapegoat. There’s probably no way that the name wouldn’t come out, but the governor’s first instinct on this matter was right. Meanwhile, the GOP blog updates us on what was stolen:

…the list includes:

• 64,467 state employees
• 75,532 dependents of state employees
• 153,517 welfare recipients
• 1,200 organizations

And what’s next? “I expect they’ll next tell us all of the individual income tax returns are going home every night with the cleaning crew,” said Ohio Republican Party Deputy Chairman Kevin DeWine….

Note though that the back-up data at employee’s homes policy started in 2002, under a Republican. No word yet on whether the policy included part-time interns from the get-go or if that’s a more recent innovation. That’s what I’d like to know- much more so than what this intern looks like.

The price tag on identity services the state is providing is estimated at $710, 000.

(Previous post here.)

NBC4i is reporting:

A disk with personal information on all 64,000 state employees, including their Social Security numbers, was stolen from a state worker’s car last Sunday, Gov. Ted Strickland said Friday.

Strickland said he doesn’t believe worker privacy is in jeopardy because it would take special equipment to access the information.

In a news conference, Strickland said the employee mistakenly left the disk in a vehicle parked outside an apartment when it was supposed to be taken into the worker’s home as part of a protocol in place since 2002. The employee is being investigated. The disk is a backup, he said.

There’s a protocol to keep backups of employee data in employee’s homes? That’s weird. I bet it’s a somewhat common practice though.

From the Dispatch blog:

The storage device – described as the second backup tape — with the sensitive information apparently is taken offsite each night by a rotating staff of state network administrators.

But the state intern who had it Sunday night did not follow proper procedure and left it in his car, where it was stolen after a break-in, Strickland said.

Intern? Jesus.

Strickland said it would require a significant levels of expertise and multiple computer programs to access the personal information of the more than 60,000 state workers.

Yeah it would take Windows, MS Access, Excel, and a text editor- and the ability to use them. Just joking, but what’s the big deal about “multiple computer programs”? That’s not exactly a high bar in itself. I note that the governor is not quoted using the word “encrypted” in either story, so that’s out. Apparently they’re relying on obscurity.

UPDATE: Gov. Strickland has rescinded the “backup data at home with employees” policy. The state has set up a web page, ohio.gov/idprotect, for those whose data was stolen. There’s the customary one year of “free identity theft prevention and protection services”. More at Business First.

SB 117, the cable TV bill, passed in the House yesterday by a huge margin:

The bill, approved 94-2 yesterday by the House, will be sent back to the Ohio Senate where it originated. If senators object to changes made in the House, the bill will go to a conference committee. Otherwise, it will be sent to Gov. Ted Strickland for his signature.

The legislation, sponsored by state Sen. Jeff Jacobson, R-Vandalia, allows service providers to obtain a single, statewide franchise instead of hundreds with local communities. The Ohio Department of Commerce will oversee the video-service business.

Competition is good, and most local governments were standing in the way:

“They only nominally addressed the issues,” said Susan J. Cave, [Ohio Municipal League] executive director. For example, the measure doesn’t deal with maintaining institutional channels for government, schools and law enforcement, she said.

And what does a cable TV outfit that wants to sell you the Sci-Fi channel have to do with TV for the government? Not much. Some of the locals were simply abusing their authority for these perks.

(Previous post here.)

The Dispatch on the Mark D. Lay indictment:

The man who authorities say managed an offshore investment fund that lost $216 million for the Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation was indicted yesterday on fraud and conspiracy charges.

Mark D. Lay, founder of Pittsburgh-based MDL Capital Management, is the latest person charged in the two-year investigation of bureau scandals by a state and federal task force.

And although coin dealer Thomas W. Noe has had most of the headlines, the MDL investment loss is nearly 16 times what Noe was convicted of stealing.

The state plans on recovering $1.8M in fees, which even if successful, is a drop in the bucket.

Also indicted, in a separate case, is former state Sen. Jeffry Armbruster:

“Armbruster used his influence as a senator to obtain something of value; to wit: the discussion of legislation of interest to the Bureau of Workers’ Compensation, while concurrently discussing changes to (his rates),” the report said.

Armbruster, who at the time was vice chairman of a committee that dealt with most bureau-related legislation, eventually got an 88 percent rate reduction for his gas stations. He left the legislature at the end of 2006 because of term limits.

(Previous post on that here.)

The Dispatch has an article up about the Columbus city attorney:

Franklin County Republicans are calling for someone other than the Democratic Columbus city attorney to decide whether criminal charges should be filed against the Democratic mayor’s wife.

Brad Sinnott, chairman of the county GOP Central Committee, also said yesterday that he thinks the county prosecutor’s office should determine whether felony perjury charges should be filed against Frankie L. Coleman….

City Attorney Richard C. Pfeiffer Jr. balked at the idea that his office shouldn’t handle the case, which was referred to him by Inspector General Thomas P. Charles.

“We don’t determine to prosecute or not prosecute based on someone’s political affiliation,” Pfeiffer said.

“We represent the mayor. We don’t represent Frankie Coleman.”

I swear I am not making this up. (Yes, I stole that line.)

See also Lincoln Logs, who writes about this Ohio GOP post, which is actually a well-reasoned and relatively calm summary of the situation- i.e., not an incendiary bomb.

UPDATE: The GOP piece actually gets a (somewhat) positive review from Blue Bexley:

But, you know, the other side gets one close enough to right that I’m gonna use it as my jumping off point:

“In the end, this case is still not about Frankie Coleman. It’s about using government resources to help out a friend and then ignoring the warning signs that led to that friend allegedly engaging in illegal activity.”

They’re right. Lee Fisher has known Frankie Coleman and considers her to be a friend. He knew she had a problem with alcohol. He knew she had a history of not showing up for work. He hired her anyway. Now why would he do a stupid thing like that? It certainly doesn’t seem to be for money or influence or any sort of quid pro quo, the usual suspects when a government official engages in politically hazardous hires.

Then he paints Lee Fisher as a selfless angel, desperately trying to rescue Frankie Coleman from herself no matter the political damage it might cause. That is the most positive interpretation that can possibly exist, I think.

Eric at Plunderbund faults Moveon.org for some energy insanity:

I don’t mind MoveOn.org. In fact, you can generally count me in the MoveOn set. This latest pitch from the inbox is a bit much though and offers me a good opportunity to point out something inherently wrong with the “high gas price” political maneuvering.

MoveOn says:

Americans have spoken—in fact, we’ve yelled—that we need relief from high gas prices and a smart energy policy. But in the dead of the night, Congress weakened the bill that would make gas price gouging a federal crime. Now it’s virtually unenforceable.

They want us to all chip in $3.29 (average price of a gallon of gas) to run a hard hitting ad on the subject.

The main thing wrong with this is that higher gas prices are GOOD. If you have the goal of getting consumers to change their usage habits and drive less as well as drive more fuel efficient cars. It’s a no-brainer for consumers really. Absent whether or not you believe our cars are contributing to the detriment of the planet via global warming or other harms, driving more fuel efficient autos saves you money.

This is just pandering by MoveOn. Democrats are either calling for multi-dollar taxes on a gallon of gas or complaining when the price goes up a buck. I had something on this earlier.

AEP’s just announced this carbon offset dealie:

American Electric Power today announced an agreement with an affiliate of Environmental Credit Corp. (ECC) to purchase approximately 4.6 million carbon credits between 2010 and 2017 generated from capturing methane on livestock farms. (One carbon credit is equal to one ton of carbon dioxide reduction.) The agreement is part of the first large-scale livestock methane offset program established in the United States that will capture and destroy methane from approximately 400,000 head of livestock on as many as 200 U.S. farms. Cost of the credits is not being disclosed due to confidentiality agreements.

Great. Now I can keep my AC on 24/7!